Boston real estate group lists 10 of its short-term Nantucket rental properties following controversial vote

As the debate on whether or not to allow short-term rentals continues on the island, one realtor calls it quits.

Nantucket from above, with a view of Madaket Harbor. David L. Ryan / The Boston Globe, File

May 20, 2024

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The Copley Group, a Boston-based real estate firm and one of Nantucket’s largest operators of short-term rentals, has put most of its island portfolio on the market, which could potentially prevent hundreds of families from renting those properties out in the future.

The move comes less than two weeks after island residents voted to reject a zoning bylaw amendment that would have allowed short-term rentals by right in residential zoning districts and then approved a ban on corporate ownership of short-term rentals. It is unclear how the ban, if approved by the state attorney general, would affect the rentals owned by The Copley Group.

As first reported by the Nantucket Current, the Maury People Sotheby’s International Realty listed 10 of The Copley Group’s 12 properties as vacation rentals on Sunday.

The properties range in price from $3.99 million to $5.99 million, which, when combined, means The Copley Group is asking for more than $38.9 million for the 10 homes.

Previously:

Nantucket residents vote down a controversial short-term rental proposal

According to town assessor records, between 2012 and 2019, The Copley Group acquired 10 homes through a series of transactions totaling approximately $17 million.

With few hotels and no resorts, Nantucket has seen homeowners rent their properties to vacationers for a century.

In recent years, the debate of short-term rentals has heated up on Nantucket. Since 2021, residents have shot down four proposals limiting who in the island community can rent out their house and for how long.

The Copley Group has been at the center of that debate. Founder Norman Levenson, a Nantucket resident for decades, was first targeted by ACK Now, the political action group led by millionaire Peter McCausland, when the group financially backed neighbors who sued his company over one of his short-term rentals in 2020.

According to property records, the Copley Group sold the property for $3.2 million, dismissing the lawsuit.

The Current reported that Levenson responded by funding efforts to defeat warrant articles proposed by ACK Now that tried to curtail short-term rentals on the island by starting the Alliance to Protect Nantucket’s Economy in 2023.

In turn, ACK Now argued that corporate-owned short-term rentals like The Copley Group drive up home and rental prices, driving out year-round neighborhoods.

“Without the rental homes on the island, the economy wouldn’t be the same,” Levenson told N Magazine in 2021. “The restaurants won’t do the same, the shopkeepers, it trickles down to the t-shirt shops, the charter boats, the tour buses. The people who live on the island year-round, they work in all these places.”

Levenson and listing broker Gary Winn did not respond to a request for comment on the property sales.