In New England and beyond, many people talk about “The Cape” as if Massachusetts only had one. Across Massachusetts Bay, about 45 miles northwest of Provincetown, is the state’s second largest cape, Cape Ann. Like Cape Cod, it has long had a mix of the expensive coastal homes for wealthy vacationers and much more modest residences for working- and middle-class residents.

To understand Cape Ann, it’s important first to understand its geographic boundaries – and that’s a source of some confusion. The municipalities of Gloucester, Essex, Manchester-by-the-Sea (locals just call it “Manchester”) and Rockport make up Cape Ann. Some people say adjoining North Shore communities are also part of the cape; others disagree.

To further complicate the picture, there are about 30 municipalities in the United States called Manchester, so to distinguish their town from the rest, town meeting members in Manchester, Massachusetts in 1989 approved changing the name of their town to Manchester-by-the-Sea. Coldwell Banker agent Alice Miller said the new name still hasn’t caught on with all residents.

“Real, true townies call it Manchester,” Miller said. “I grew up here and prefer to call it Manchester, contrary to the name of the movie that just came out. We still get people driving through town who are looking for Manchester, New Hampshire.”

Cape Ann is attractive because it’s near the water, but also because it has great school systems and an easier commute into Boston than other communities on the South Shore.

“We get a combination of first-time homebuyers and young couples who maybe sold their condo in Charlestown come here to raise their family,” Miller said. “A lot of people move up within the town. Then there’s the empty nesters. There’s a place called Summer Hill which is prime for people who sell their large home and buy an efficient home and spend most of the year in Florida.”

And unlike some other communities, there’s a wide range of housing options in Cape Ann, said Alle Cutler of J. Barrett & Co. She described the Cape Ann market as one of Greater Boston’s “hidden gems.”

“We get a huge range of buyers because of our range of prices,” she said. “We see a lot of young couples, maybe it’s their second house or maybe they’ve been renting in someplace like Charlestown. We get some executive types who want to upsize. Most people work in Boston or in biotech nearby and a lot of them like the commuter rail.”

The MBTA Commuter Rail’s Rockport line runs from Rockport south through Cape Ann and into Boston’s North Station in about an hour and ten minutes, according the MBTA’s schedule.

The area also has a range of price points, Cutler said: “Cape Ann’s a pretty dynamic market in that you have a lot of housing options, from a $200,000 condo to a $4-million-plus waterfront property.”

An Insulated Market

“It’s a nice area to work in because it’s immune to many outside trends,” Miller said. “We took a hit after 2008 like every other area, but we bounced right back; nothing like what happened in the rest of the country.”

Despite the obvious comparison to Cape Cod, Cutler said the Cape Ann market isn’t quite as seasonal as it is across the bay.

“Seasonality in our business is going away a little,” she said. “Spring is still the busiest market anywhere around. It comes earlier and earlier every year and the early bird gets the worm. We also tend to have a little surge after Labor Day. I think it’s our second busiest month.”

Miller said there are plenty of summer homes on Cape Ann, but year-round residents outnumber the summer people, and so the real estate cycle is driven more by the school calendar than the seasons.

“In Manchester there are definitely more people living here year-round,” Miller said. “Gloucester has more summer people because it’s bigger. And Rockport has more summer people than Essex.”
Each community has a mix of wealthy and working-class residents, but the mixes vary by town, according to Miller.

“More and more people are moving in and the prices have gone up dramatically,” she said. “Outside of the numbers, people don’t want fixer-uppers, they want something close to a brand new home, a low maintenance type of house. Condition can beat out location more often these days. People don’t have time to fix up a property. They’d rather being watching their kids play soccer or doing something different.”

And even Cape Ann’s expensive properties are a better value than some higher-end communities closer to the city, Cutler said.

“I find other markets have a lot more high-priced properties selling on a weekly basis,” she said. “We’re just a few stops further on the train or another 15 minutes on the highway. A million-dollar house in Weston would be $650,000 on Cape Ann.”

Priced Out Of The Market

With prices rising in these already pricey seaside communities, more homebuyers are being forced to look in surrounding communities to find what they want at a price they can afford.
“People who don’t want to spend the money in Manchester, they move to Essex,” Miller said. “I’m a prime example of that. Other people might look in parts of Beverly or Hamilton or Wenham where you can get more for your dollar, but you give up being on the coast.”

“If you couldn’t afford Manchester, you might find something in Gloucester,” Cutler said. “After that, Beverly offers a big range. We have five commuter rail stations and the Beverly airport, it’s like the Hanscom of the North. Hamilton and Wenham are not on the water, but people like them because there’s a lot of open space there.”

“It’s a really neat area with everything you could want,” Miller said. “We have the ocean, village communities, salt marsh communities, rivers, access to Boston and the mountains, good schools – private and public – good restaurants, and a great art community.”

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to correct the distance between Provincetown and Cape Ann by sea.