By: Sarah Shemkus

sshemkus@capecodonline.com

April 18, 2010

Cape Cod Times

Despite a few hopeful hints, the Cape Cod economy showed few signs of thawing out this winter.

Tourism, always slow in the winter, was even more sluggish than during the previous two winters.

Visits to the Route 6 visitor center were down sharply, according to statistics provided by the Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce. Between December 2007 and January 2008, 1,105 people stopped in; this winter that number was cut by nearly half, as just 570 people came by the visitors center.

Room occupancy rates were down each month, as compared to the same month the previous winter, according to a chamber survey. And throughout the winter months the Cape had the lowest occupancy rates of any region in the state, according to reports prepared for the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism.

"It showed a pretty negative trend," chamber CEO Wendy Northcross said. "Given the recession and the bridge work, we knew that had an impact and I think it had a much greater impact than people realized."

And as the country's economic troubles continued on into the winter, unemployment peaked at even higher levels than in recent years.

The jobless rate on the Cape and Islands hit 13.7 percent in January 2010, according to numbers provided by the state Executive Office of labor and Workforce Development. Last year, unemployment peaked in February at 11.5 percent; the previous year, it topped out at 7.1 percent in January.

Unemployment rates on the Cape and Islands, however, have been swinging up and down in accord with statewide trends, which means that the region is not suffering disproportionately, said David Augustinho, executive director of the Cape and Islands Workforce Investment Board.

"Relatively speaking, we're doing OK," he said.

In the face of these higher numbers, however, the workforce investment board has implemented several changes geared towards preparing the unemployed for new jobs when the economy begins expanding again, Augustinho said.

The board has received federal stimulus money to help increase the number of people it can train, he said. And the board has also raised the limit for how much can be spent on training each person from $5,000 to $7,500.

Though employment was scarcer over the winter, some prices were up, including heating oil, which cost as much as 56 cents more per gallon than it did the previous winter.

Foreclosures — which had been down for much of 2009 — also began mounting again over the winter.

Over the three winter months this year, 227 foreclosures were completed in Barnstable County, an increase of 41 percent over the same period in 2008 and 2009.

The one sector of the economy that grew over the winter was residential real estate.

From December 2009 to February 2010, 600 single family homes were sold on the Cape and Islands, 28 percent more than over the same period the previous winter, according to statistics from the Cape Cod and Islands Multiple Listing Service.

Median sales value edged up over the period as well. In January 2010, the midpoint price hit $384,740, a 21 percent increase over the January 2009 median of $318,644.

A lot of the recent activity, however, may have been driven by the impending end of the federal homebuyer tax credit, said Lynette Helms, president of the Cape Cod and Islands Association of Realtors and CEO of Real Estate Associates on the Upper Cape.

"My strong suspicion is that the termination of the tax credit come the end of April is strongly tied to the activity we're seeing," she said.|

The end of the tax credit on April 30 could cause sales activity to slow, she said, but "hopefully, if the economy continues to show improvement it will help mitigate any of the effects from the termination of the tax credit."