A $1.9 million Nantucket beach property sold for $200K after parts of it got swallowed by the sea

• A $1.9 million beach house sold for $200,000 after parts of the land were swallowed by the sea.
• Jane Carlin sold the Nantucket property to a neighbor who knows it's on borrowed time.
• Offering homes at risk for free has become common practice in Nantucket due to the removal cost.

A Nantucket beach house once estimated to be worth $1.9 million was sold for just $200,000 after parts of the property were swallowed by the sea, the Nantucket Current reported .

The local outlet reported that Jane Carlin and her husband, Ben Gifford, bought the beach house in 1988 on the western end of Nantucket, a crescent-shaped island 30 miles off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

The couple's property was separated from the Atlantic Ocean at the time by three nearby properties, an acre of land, and a road, the Current said.

But after 36 years of land erosion, the ocean has swallowed up the neighboring homes and the road.

Three successive storms last winter ate away more of the couple's property, leaving their back porch just a short distance from the shoreline.

Carlin told the outlet that they tried to donate the 1,700-square-foot home to a local affordable-housing nonprofit, and that she spent all winter "really frantically trying to see if any of the organizations would consider taking the house and moving it, and we would help with the cost of moving."

But, she said, she had "no luck whatsoever."

The couple eventually sold their home to their neighbor, Don Vaccaro, for just $200,000.

Vaccaro, who rents out his property for up to $13,000 a week, told the Current that he was aware the house might not last more than six months. "Inevitably the ocean will win," he said.

Vaccaro said he plans to implement erosion-mitigation strategies to try to prolong its life a bit longer, including adding seagrass planting and biodegradable silt fencing.

Carlin and Vaccaro didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider .

Nantucket is a popular vacation spot for the wealthy.

According to Realtor.com, the median sales price is $3.1 million, and the median listing price is $4.8 million.

The billionaire investor Barry Sternlicht bought his Nantucket beach house for $610,000 in 2010 but was forced to demolish it in April after a series of storms severely eroded the property.

Anne Kuszpa, the executive director of Housing Nantucket, a nonprofit that creates affordable housing for the island's year-round community, told BI in April that it's become common practice for owners to offer their property for free to avoid the cost of removal.

Due to Nantucket's "demolition delay" rule, any home with "reuse potential" must be advertised in the town paper for 30 days.

In 2019, a couple in Nantucket paid $1.6 million to move their multimillion-dollar home away from a bluff's eroding edge.