On Nantucket, 'free' million-dollar houses come with a catch: you have to move them

"Each fall, as the last of the summer visitors and residents head for the ferries, another local ritual quietly kicks in: house-moving season (and we mean that in the most literal of terms). Between mid-September and mid-June, full-size homes are jacked off their foundations, loaded onto trailers and trundled across the island to new lots -sometimes miles away to a year-round neighborhood, sometimes just a few hundred feet back from an eroding bluff."

"It might sound like a stunt for TikTok, especially after a recent listing for a multimillion-dollar house that was "free" if you could afford to move it. But on Nantucket, this isn't a novelty. It's a preservation strategy, a climate adaptation tool, and, in certain cases, one of the few semi-attainable ways into a housing market that keeps setting new records."

""House moving really is part of the heritage of the island," said Rita Carr of the Nantucket Preservation Trust. "It's been happening on Nantucket for centuries, and it's a way to give old buildings new life and help sustain our year-round community." That tradition is now backed by policy. Under Nantucket's demolition delay bylaw, if a building doesn't have to be torn down immediately and has reuse potential, owners must advertise it"

Between mid-September and mid-June, Nantucket practices whole-house moving by jacking homes off foundations, loading them onto trailers, and transporting them across the island. Moves range from short relocations away from eroding bluffs to longer shipments to year-round neighborhoods. The practice serves as historic preservation, climate adaptation, and an affordable entry into a competitive housing market. The town enforces a demolition delay bylaw that requires owners to advertise reusable buildings, giving potential movers time to arrange land, permits, and crews. Whole-house moves are typically permitted from September 15 to June 15 under local regulations.

Read at Boston.com