New single family home permits issued last year on the Vineyard soared 38 per cent over 2006, a rate of increase reminiscent of the building booms

Fewer Island houses sold in 2007 for slightly more money than in 2006.

Despite a fourth-quarter rally, Island real estate transactions in 2007 declined 8.6 per cent, although median home sale prices increased 3.5 per cent from 2006.

Overall, fourth-quarter sales activity was the year’s strongest. But a three per cent increase in sales also included a seven per cent decline in median sales price.

The domino effect of a few 2006 property sales that have doubled some assessments and taxes in two West Tisbury neighborhoods are simply part of a trend toward sharply increasing values on waterfront and high-end properties, the town principal assessor said this week.

A number of Tisbury Great Pond and Seven Gates Farm homeowners are in the eye of the tax bill storm, while other West Tisbury tax bills have increased moderately, are unchanged or even lower than in 2007.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has finally put beyond doubt the power of local officials to prevent developers from tearing down small houses on undersized lots and replacing them with McMansions.

Almost two and a half years after the state’s highest court deadlocked 3-3 in the case of Katama homeowners who wanted to double the size of their house on a substandard half-acre lot, the court came down decisively against such practices in an almost identical case involving a house in Norwell.

A 50-acre property in the Priester’s Pond area of West Tisbury has changed hands for $15 million.

The buyer is Claudia Miller, whose mainland place of residence and prior connection to the Vineyard, if any, are unknown. The land includes two houses, one that was built in the Berkshires in 1795 and brought to the Vineyard in 1987.

The property, which has frontage on both Priester’s and Crosby ponds, includes one of the oldest farms on the Vineyard. The other house on the tract, the Luce Athearn House, is even older, dating to 1714.

Home foreclosure petitions were up sharply on the Island in 2007 over 2006.

A total of 69 homes were listed for foreclosure by ForeclosuresMass.com, a commonwealth reporting agency, for the 12 months ending Oct. 31, 2007, compared with 41 homes in the same period the year before. Island foreclosures averaged about 30 homes per year between 2003 to 2005, according to the same reporting company.