Gabriella Parker, second from left, an Orleans firefighter and paramedic, talked about the challenge of buying a house in today's Cape Cod real estate market, compared to what it was like for her firefighter father, Donald Parker, right. Seated with Parker are her boyfriend, Erik Simonsen, mother, Laurie Parker, and dogs Tuukka and Bella. Shortly before the holidays, Gabriella Parker is trying to coax her black Lab to move toward the fireplace for a family picture.
Especially on a single person’s income. Parker has been looking at homes with her boyfriend, Erik Simonsen, a Mashpee police officer. She comes from a family of people in the fire service, including a few ancestors in the family tree, her sister’s husband and her own father, Donald Parker.He bought a house on Cape Cod when he was single, in his mid 20s.
His wife, Laurie Parker, says her husband’s first house cost just $85,000. And while prices naturally rise over time, the market in the ‘80s and ‘90s was much less competitive than it is today. And home prices on the Lower and Outer Cape are extraordinarily high. According to the Cape and Islands Association of Realtors, single-family homes in Orleans last year sold for a median price of $1.2 million. That’s 68% more than the median sale price Cape-wide, which was $730,000.“How that affects us is, it narrows our hiring pool,” he says. “It also limits, when we do have an emergency, how many firefighters come back.
But he says Nantucket is committed to helping Islanders find living space they can afford. Town Meeting has appropriated $84 million, most of it since 2016, for construction subsidies and other investments in affordable housing.