Mass Exodus Accelerates at Failing Beach Town

Seabrook home prices continue to take a beating as demand has sunk to a new record low.

Part of the selling pitch to potential Seabrook homeowners is that they can rent out their overpriced home to vacationers who will overpay to stay at Seabrook. But summer bookings in 2020 are at historic lows in "Washington's Beach Town," resulting in less revenue for the people who own and rent their homes out.

"We're being crushed," said one owner who owns a popular oceanfront home. "Not only is demand really low, but the costs of owning a second home at Seabrook is astronomical. From the 37% of nightly revenue we have to share with Seabrook to the increasing maintenance costs, we won't recoup this summer's lost revenue for three or more years."

For people who enter their home into Seabrook's rental pool, they have to share revenue with the beach town operator. Seabrook takes 37% of the nightly revenue and the homeowner has to pay the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and maintenance fees with the remaining revenue.

According to Hotel News Now, occupancy at resorts across the country is at 47.5%, which is down 40% from this time last year. In other words, Seabrook homeowners who enter their house into the vacation rental pool are getting decimated.

Listing Glut

Seabrook's website reports a total of 33 homes listed for sale, which is about 15% off the stock of 200 homes. Of the 33 homes for sale, 20 of them are new construction and 13 of them are resale homes. The executive team at Seabrook limits the number of resale homes it will participate in remarketing for sale to protect the value of the new home sales. Saltwater Properties has an additional 12 listed for sale that are not marketed on Seabrook's website. Add in the additional properties in Seabrook that are listed on the NWMLS, and the real number of homes for sale is roughly 50, which is a quarter of the homes in Seabrook that are listed for sale.

But it's not just the homeowners who are getting crushed. The small businesses within Seabrook are feeling the pain just as much if not worse.

The small merchants in Seabrook depend on the summer crowds to shop and spend money with them. The winters in Seabrook are not pleasant and do not bring in many crowds, so the businesses need successful summers to carry them through the year. With occupancy so low at Seabrook the merchants don't have the foot traffic to keep afloat.

Seabrook was struggling before COVID hit, especially in the new home sales department. But now that the vacation rental side of the business is being severely impacted by COVID, there is a mass exodus of homeowners trying to get out while they can retain some value.