New Listing - Cooks Brook Beach House

EASTHAM - New Listing - Looking for an totally updated beach house? This home is MUCH bigger than it looks! The current owners totally rebuilt and expanded this house with the best of design ideas and building materials. This home could be a fabulous rental property and is wonderfully landscaped. Vaulted ceilings, natural gas heat, granite counters, etc. We have 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and just a short walk to Cook's Brook Beach. This home can be purchased furnished. Come see how exquisite a beach house can be!  Listed at $525,000.

Go to http://180cooksbrook.robertsheldon.com/ for more photos, more info, and a Virtual Tour.

A New Cape Cod App!

There's a new 'app' for your Android smartphone (also available, soon, on your iPhone) from the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. The Cape Cod App is billed as the 'Official Visitors Guide' to Cape Cod. The best part is that the app is free!

This App covers the best of the Cape, with all the information you need on what to do including all the latest events. You can also learn about where to stay, where to eat as well as great tips on shopping. The app nicely segments the Cape by town, so getting around is easy.

The App also includes 'hot' deals and vacation packages! Take a look at the Cape Cod Chamber's website...Here.

My August Eastham Real Estate Newsletter Is Available Now!

Cheese!

My mid-year 2011 report is available in my August Eastham real estate newsletter, now available! This issue has the results for Eastham through the end of June, your FICO score, a new Cape Cod smartphone 'app', as well as a new listing. This newsletter has been published every month for over 8 years. My aim, with my newsletter, is to provide accurate sales and market information about the Eastham housing marketplace, to add commentary and opinion (as appropriate), and to keep it interesting.

If you'd like to download a copy, go to http://newsletters.robertsheldon.com/.

Water Quality At Eastham Beaches

The quality of the water that we swim and play in is always a concern. The Barnstable County tests the quality of our ponds and Cape Cod Bay beaches weekly and posts the results graphically on their website. When there is a 'fail' due to bacteria they re-test the very next day, to minimize the beach closure. So far, there has only been two saltwater beach closures and 2 fresh water pond beach closures.

Check out the Barnstable County Department of Health website (& check the water!).

Try Something Different This Summer!

I know I'm old, but going to the Melody Tent, in Hyannis, to see the "Happy Together Tour" confirmed it.  My wife and I went to see the Association, the Buckinghams, the Turtles, the Grass Roots, and Mark Lindsay (the former lead singer for Paul Revere and the Raiders). The show, roughly 3 hours, was a continuous string of golden oldies. The hard truth is that I remembered most of the songs from my college years in the 60's. The Association looked a lot better in 1967 when my wife and I saw them at a college concert. We looked a lot better, too.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. The Melody Tent has shows all summer, from mid-June to the end of August. Many of the shows still have tickets available. The tent is a true theater-in-the round, with the stage slowly rotating so every seat gets to see the entire show. Really cool. Check out the Melody Tent website to see this summer's schedule.

New Cooks Brook Bathhouse

A few days ago a new bathhouse had it's 'grand opening' at Cooks Brook Beach, at the end of Steele Rd. The new unit replaces the concrete block bathhouse that sustained significant damage in a suspicious fire last May (2010). The new structure, and the new septic system, took a year to get in place, but was worth the wait.

The new bathhouse is a concrete pre-fab unit with rest rooms and changing areas and outdoor showers. The final touch-up landscaping is still being finished, but otherwise the bathhouse is ready-to-go! Check it out. (PS - if you drive, you'll need a beach sticker). So exciting!

Sharks In Cape Cod Bay - Oh My!

Sharks are a part of summer on Cape Cod. They seem to follow the seals as they move about. This year we've seen seals in the bay. So, we have sharks here also. Check out this video, shown on NECN earlier today, taken by a local fisherman late last week. Oh My!

Eastham Part-time Resident Taxpayer Assoc Meeting - July 9th

If your primary home is off-Cape and you own a second home in Eastham, then you need to keep up with the issues and attend the annual Members' Meeting of the Eastham Part-time Resident Taxpayers Association (EPRTA). This year it will be held at 9 AM on Saturday, July 9th, at the Elks Club on McKoy Rd. The meeting is open to non-members.

EPRTA membership is cheap ($20) and they have a very informative quarterly newsletter. The officers of this group work hard to keep the Eastham town officials aware of the issues that concern part-time residents. Go to their website to see what the EPRTA is about and to download their most recent newsletter (where I provide their real estate update) .

I'll see you at the meeting!

July 4th Weekend - Beaches, Babes, & More!

This weekend could not have been better, weather-wise. Bright sunshine, temps in the low 80's; wonderful! My daughter (& son-in-law) came down with their kids, including my newest grand-daughters, Morgan & Madison (2 years old). Couldn't be cuter!  Here are a few photos of our weekend.

Maddy at First Encounter Beach

M & M at First Encounter Beach

Morgan with some sherbet

Nauset Light Beach

Dragon at Nauset Light Beach

Say 'cheese' and you get ham.

Sail boat on Great Pond

June's Preliminary Real Estate Sales Report

June's sales have slowed somewhat from what we saw in April and May.  This year continues to lag 2010 in sales by 11.5%. The details....

• There were 8 homes sold in Eastham in June, down from 14 in May.
• Total sales were roughly $4.1M - the average home sale price was $517K
• The median sale price in May was $443K.
• There are currently 110 active single family listings in Eastham, with an average list price of $534K and a medium price of $446K. The average days-on-market is currently 216 days.

For more details, graphs, and commentary, subscribe to my monthly Eastham newsletter...Here.