Golf Community Reviews

         NextAvenue.org, a web site sponsored by the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), provides lots of helpful information for retirees and those contemplating their post-career lives.  Helpful or not, the site publishers couldn’t resist falling into the common Trap of the Lists.  (You know, Best Of This or That Lists.) 

         NextAvenue has just published a list of the Fastest Growing Places to Retire, first developed at NerdWallet.com, a site dedicated to financial advice.  Crunching selected data from the U.S. Census Bureau, NerdWallet compared the population growth of 65+ residents in cities across America to determine which had the fastest growing older population.

Many golf architecture afficionados believe Lester George's design at Kinloch, 
outside Richmond, is the best in the state of Virginia.

         The list includes a number of surprises, in addition to the surprise at why NextAvenue thought old person population growth would be an attraction to old persons.  In almost a decade of assisting people to find a golf home in the South, most of them retirees, I have never been asked by anyone to identify a city with a vast number of folks 65 and older.  A few customers have requested age-restricted communities (55 and older) in order to live among people their own age, but they don’t care if the surrounding county is old.  And the vast majority of retirees want to be among a diverse demographic composed of families, near retirees and others.  No God’s Waiting Room for them.

         Those considering a golf home often eliminate Naples, FL, from contention even before they check out the market because of the notion that homes there are stratospherically priced.  They aren’t, although as in most markets, there are a number of million dollar properties for those who can afford them.  The reality is that two-thirds of Naples homes for sale are priced lower than $300,000, and yet they haven’t been selling as well in the last year as the higher priced models.  This could spell opportunity, especially for those folks looking for a reasonably priced golf vacation home in one of the South’s most popular warm winter environments.

         The Naples Area Board of Realtors recently reported that sales increased five percent in the surrounding Collier County market over the prior 12-month period but decreased five percent in the $300K and under segment.  For homes priced at $300K and over, sales increased a robust 20 percent.  Interestingly, inventory in the $300K and under group dropped 20 percent, possibly the result of increasing prices that are pushing home prices in the lower segment above the $300K mark.  Then too, according to local officials, Naples’ prior short sale and foreclosure properties, the result of a previously overheated market being savaged by the recession -– prices dropped 50% in some Naples golf communities -- are pretty much evaporating.  Naples is returning to normalcy, but prices still are well behind pre-2008 levels.

The 20 percent drop in properties for sale in the $300,000 and under segment cannot all be explained by reclassification of those homes (i.e. moving into the $300K+ territory).  Real estate pricing operates on the simple principle of supply and demand, and if supply is down, and Naples continues to attract homebuyers above the $300,000 mark, there is a good chance prices will begin to rise in the lower-priced segment.  In other words, this could be a good time to put away notions that Naples is too expensive and consider a vacation or permanent golf home there.  For a wide range of current properties for sale in the Naples here, check out GolfHomesListed.com.

Heritage Bay, just outside Naples, is a "bundled" community, meaning golf membership is included with the purchase of a property.  Homes are priced from the mid $100s, making Heritage Bay a good choice for those in search of a golf vacation home.

         Everybody loves a bargain, and when it is a bargain on a six-figure item like a home, the sense of achievement in landing that bargain is sooooo much more satisfying.

         But how does one sniff out value when searching for a golf community home, especially when there are so many golf communities to choose among and you may have so little time for research and visits. The March edition of our free newsletter, Home On The Course, offers a few hints. One of those is somewhat obvious, and that is to compare the cost per square foot of the homes you are considering once you have narrowed your choice of golf communities down to a precious few. We go a step farther in the March issue and offer some examples of extreme bargains at prices under $120 per square foot –- land included.

         Talk about value plays, a subscription to Home On The Course is $0 per square inch. To sign up today and be included on the mailing list for the March issue, just click here and fill out the simple form. And if you want a customized list of golf communities that match your requirements, including your price range, please fill out our online Golf Homes Questionnaire by clicking here. There is no cost or obligation and we never share your personal information without your permission.

The 3,700 square foot home at Lake Greenwood's Grand Harbor (top)
looks out to the 11th fairway of the Davis Love III golf course.  The view
of other areas of the golf course (bottom) are downright "Revolutionary." 
The price on the home has just been dropped by more than $32,000 to
$357,700, making its cost per square foot, land included, under $100.
For homes currently for sale at Grand Harbor, click here.

         Unless you crave the honky tonk and neon lights of an active beach resort, the place to be on South Carolina’s Grand Strand is in the area south of Myrtle Beach, between Surfside Beach and Georgetown, which comprises the towns of Murrells Inlet, Litchfield and Pawleys Island. Most of the best of the 100 golf courses on the Strand are down there, minutes from each other, including the famed Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, as well as True Blue and Pawleys Plantation. So too are some of the most highly rated of the gated golf communities near the coast, including The Reserve at Litchfield, DeBordieu Colony, Pawleys Plantation and Wachesaw Plantation.

The clubhouse at Heritage Plantation

         One gated community, though, doesn’t get much love -– until you actually play its golf course and take a closer look at its real estate. Heritage Plantation, about two miles south of Caledonia and west of Pawleys Plantation, was developed in 1986. It is time it got noticed.

         I play the Heritage golf course every year or two, and last Sunday, as in the past, I was impressed with the efficient way they process members and public players from bag drop to parking lot -– via golf cart shuttle since it is 300 yards down the road -– to first tee. Because of the brutal competition for green fees in Myrtle Beach, Legends Group, owners of Heritage, Oyster Bay and the three Legends golf courses, has seen fit to throw in breakfast, lunch and two beers with the price of a greens fee; the lunch included the run of the menu, not just a hot dog. For the $50 I spent, it was a great deal.

         In the wake of the recession, some private golf clubs are hanging on by a thread, quietly desperate for new members but unwilling –- or unable –- to initiate programs to attract them. Generally, private clubs don’t go out of business; they go public. The National Golf Foundation reports that since the recession began in 2008, 78 private clubs closed their doors but 400 opened those doors slightly or fully to outside play. For many members who joined a club for its exclusivity, though, going public is a fate worse than death of the club, literally.                

         Since the recession began, many private clubs have dropped or eliminated altogether their initiation fees, an act of desperation that is typically confined either to clubs already in a death spiral or those in highly competitive areas in which the other clubs are dropping or eliminating joining fees. Those clubs that have a bit more flexibility employ more creative approaches, the most popular among them the “trial” membership.

         The Virginia golf community known as Viniterra, located in New Kent, midway between Richmond and Williamsburg, has run a successful trial membership campaign since 2008. It offers a one-year membership for just $1,800, with no additional payment of dues or any other fees except for golf cart rental when you play.

         Viniterra was slated to be a private golf club but the recession and its effect on lot sales there forced the club into semi-privacy. The Rees Jones designed course, which passes by some of the on-site vineyards that give the community its name and supply some of the grapes for the on-site working winery, is an interesting, rolling layout and was in fine shape when I played it a couple of years ago. You can read my original review of the golf community and golf course by clicking here. Homes in Viniterra begin in the $500s; check out a few of their listings at GolfHomesListed.com.

The approach to the par 5 9th at Viniterra

         When home prices drop in a town surrounded by other areas where prices have risen, sometimes dramatically, the natural inclination is to think something has gone awry in that town (taxes have risen sharply, a chemical spill, an ordinance to permit unlimited strip joints). But, try as we might, sometimes there is no discernible reason for the price drop; or, if there is a reason, it does not rise to the point that an otherwise interested purchaser should be deterred. On the contrary, those price drops may indicate a short-term buying opportunity for savvy buyers.

         Consider the area immediately north of Myrtle Beach, SC, not surprisingly named North Myrtle Beach. Buddy golfers and families looking for a combined golf and beach vacation will be familiar with the golf community/resorts in the area, chief among them Barefoot Resort (four excellent golf courses) and, just below the town’s border, Grande Dunes, with two excellent courses, one private and one public). According to an article by Steve Jones, the real estate columnist for the Myrtle Beach Sun News, the median price of homes sold in North Myrtle Beach from January 2013 to January 2014 dropped 16%. A few miles south, the Myrtle Beach market enjoyed a 58% price increase for single-family homes; farther south, in the Georgetown area, which comprises the upscale community of DeBordieu Colony and its Pete Dye golf course, prices rose a robust 82%.

The Davis Love designed course at Barefoot Resort in North Myrtle Beach, SC, is one of four on site. Note the faux ruins behind the 4th green, a touch of Love here and at Grand Harbor near Greenwood, SC.

North Myrtle Beach’s price drop wasn’t at all a function of an inactive market; in fact, home sales rose in town by nearly 42% year over year. Although you can find a wide selection of properties in North Myrtle Beach priced under $100,000, the town’s average listing price over the last two years is the second highest in South Carolina, according to Steve Jones, at $372,000. A local broker told Jones that his firm had seen a large number of referrals from the web sites Zillow and Trulia, and those were generally at prices well under the median. That certainly could have depressed the one-year average of prices in North Myrtle Beach.

         When it comes to golf, no one area east of the Mississippi offers more than Myrtle Beach, SC does. With 100-plus courses packed into a narrow spit of land about 90 miles long, a good golfing option is never much more than a drive and a seven iron from any one spot.

         But what the area has in the way of links, it lacks in cultural diversions. The Burroughs-Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach is good for an hour or so stroll whenever the small facility changes exhibits, but that is typically a few months apart. And although Coastal Carolina, the area’s largest (its only, really) university in nearby Conway is up and coming, it is its athletics programs that are getting the most investment and attention locally, not its deference to art works.

         But there is one bastion of culture in the Myrtle Beach area that just might make up for all the local cultural shortcomings, and that is Brookgreen Gardens, a large swath of marshland that can overwhelm the unsuspecting first-time visitor with its collection of huge garden sculptures, its serene walking trails and its history.

Pegasus makes an appearance, in marble, at Brookgreen Gardens.  (More photos; click Read More)

         The property comprises 9,100 acres that include four former rice plantations and includes a beautiful beach inside the gates of Huntington State Park in Murrells Inlet. The land was bequeathed to the state by Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington, he the son of a wealthy philanthropist and she one of America’s foremost sculptresses. (Huntington’s Joan of Arc sculpture adorns the corner of 93^rd St and Riverside Drive in New York City.)  The Huntington’s former beachfront home, Atalaya, is a favorite site for weddings and other group events. Brookgreen was originally intended to be the couple’s coastal home, but after their purchase in 1929, Anna saw the property’s potential as one of the nation’s most important sculpture gardens. The online service TripAdvisor named Brookgreen one of the country’s top 10 public gardens last year.       

         Residents of the Wintergreen Resort in western Virginia can hardly be blamed for being confused about the motives of the ownership of their combination skiing and golf community. Jim Justice, the fabulously wealthy West Virginian who arguably saved the famed Greenbrier Resort and, in 2012, exerted similar magic by buying Wintergreen out of near bankruptcy, has announced that he will accept viable offers for Wintergreen.

         "We would listen if somebody had a great plan for the resort,” Justice told the Associated Press, “if somebody came in from Vale and they had a great plan to really improve something. But we don't really do anything with partners."  According to our sources in the community, the announcement came out of blue, especially after Justice invested $12 million in snowmaking equipment and the resort’s restaurants and transitioned to private membership Wintergreen’s Devil’s Knob Golf Club, which sits at the very top of the community’s mountain, steps from where skiers start their runs in winter. Wintergreen features another 27 holes by Rees Jones at the bottom of the mountain.

Up There: Devil's Knob golf club at Wintergreen Resort has gone private beginning this season.

         Justice’s reasons for considering a sale seem particularly odd.

         "It's a heck of a property," Justice told the AP. "But in my world, if it's just being something that's making great money, that's not good enough for me. It needs to mean more to me."

         One wonders what it meant to him when he plunked down $16.5 million for the property just two years ago and then the additional $12 million. Of course, if some development company comes by soon and makes Justice a tidy profit, we may rethink how odd his reasons appear to be. He does not appear to be in any specific hurry to sell at any price.

         "If the right person fits, sure we'll sell it," he indicated to the AP. "If that doesn't happen, we'll still own it."

         In the meantime, the residents of Wintergreen may seem as if they have stepped back in time a couple of years.

         Condos, as well as single-family homes at Wintergreen are sharply priced, including a 3 BR, 3 BA unit listed currently for $128,000 that sits by the 18th tee of the Devil's Knob course.  Go to GolfHomesListed to review a selection of properties for sale at Wintergreen.