Block Island gets connected to mainland Realtors in R.I.

Providence Journal, May 9, 2010 by Christine Dunn, Journal Staff Writer

Lila Delman Real Estate and Gustave White Sotheby's International Realty have moved directly into the Block Island real estate market this spring, hiring agents who live on the island to work in newly-opened offices in Old Harbor.

Both offices are in the Victorian Figurehead Building on Water Street, and the new agents are Kaylan McAleer and Donald Huggins, with Lila Delman...

....The two agencies will compete with the existing seven island-based real estate agencies..

...Lila Delman announced its Block Island office opening on April 30.

The new entrants plan to place their Block Island listings on the statewide Multiple Listing Service--a practice long avoided by the island-based agencies.

The Block Island real estate market is small, but it can be lucrative.

The pristine getaway, with its abundance of conservation land and its lack of chain stores and strip malls, is a desirable second-home destination.

Only 12 houses were sold there in 2009, but prices ranged from $715,000 to $2,450,000 according to Lisa Ommerle of the New Shoreham Assessor's office.

Still, the island market has seen better days.

In 2004, the height of the real estate boom, there were 87 house sales on Block Island. By 2007, the number had fallen to 32, and in 2008, there were 16 market-rate house sales.

Until now, the Block Island real estate business has been a sphere that, like the island itself, is somewhat disconnected from the mainstream.

The seven island-base agencies operate exclusively in New Shoreham, and none place their listings on the statewide Multiple Listing Service.

"It would be financial suicide" to do so, said Mary Stover, of Beach Real Estate, one of the island-based agencies, because there would be no "reciprocity" for island agencies in the arrangement. She said by dealing with agencies that operate exclusively on Block Island, buyers are connecting with the people who know the island best.

Most island-based agencies are run by women with deep roots in Block Island. These brokers meet periodically and they have their own informal, island wide multiple listing service.

But Thuener said it is in the best interest of people selling their Block Island homes to have their listings on the statewide MLS, because then agents throughout Rhode Island and Connecticut would have access to them.

Most of the buyers aren't from Block Island or even Rhode Island," Thuener said.

Placing more island listings on the statewide MLS "is going to kind of revolutionize the business out there," said John Hodnett, principal broker of Lila Delman Real Estate. "We think we are going to bring people to the island who never knew it existed. We think there are a lot of people who want it, but don't know it yet."

All seven island agencies were contacted for this story, but brokers from only two of the agencies agreed to talk on the record about the arrival of Lila Delman and Gustave White Sotheby's, two of the heavy hitters in the state's luxury second-home market.

Some of the island-based brokers have been wondering if satellite real estate offices must be headed by a broker, but the answer is no, according to Ellen R. Balasco, deputy chief of legal services for the Rhode Island Department of Business Regulation.

Edith Littlefield Blane of Offshore Property Limited was philosophical about the arrival of the new competitors.

"This is the United States," she said. "There isn't much you can do to stop them." Still, she said, she wonders "How they would feel if we opened up an office across the street from them."

Providence Journal, May 09, 2010 by Christine Dunn, Journal Staff Writer