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Height of drama:  Bear Lakes' Nicklaus Design Group course may only be nine holes, but every shot includes a great view.

 

    Many golf communities are hanging in there during these trying times, even if some of their property owners are not.  Bear Lake Reserve in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina had the good sense to build its tasteful roster of amenities early on, including an impressive rustic clubhouse that looks out on the pristine lake below.  The adjacent pool was a beehive of activity when I visited a year ago, and the golf course, which was carved into the top of the mountain according to plans by the Nicklaus Design Group, was one of the most picturesque I toured last year.
    I stayed in one of Bear Lake's warm and comfortable cottages, most of

The cottage is on the market for $309,000.  A couple of years ago its market value was around $600,000.

which are owned by folks who use them a couple of weeks a year and put them on the rental program for the rest of the year.  For some couples, the rental income is the only thing that makes it feasible for them to own.  But in this economy, vacation travel has eroded significantly, and where it hasn't, people are shopping for bargains.
    According to colleague and real estate professional Marian Schaffer, an expert in southern community real estate and the person who introduced me initially to Bear Lake, a lending institution has taken over one of the Dogwood Cottage units, at 2,000 square feet similar to the one I stayed in, and has put it on the market for $309,000.  Lenders don't like to own real estate for more than a nanosecond, and it is reasonable to assume that $309,000 is not their final price.  Dogwood Cottage units were selling for as much as $600,000 just two years ago.  Property tax on the unit is just $800 annually -- no, I didn't drop a zero.  On the other hand, homeowner association fees run about $800 per month, which makes overall carrying costs about normal for similar mountain communities.  When rented, the unit should pull in about $1,000 per week or more.
    Bear Lake Reserve is located in Tuckasegee, NC, about six miles from Western North Carolina University and the pleasant town of Sylva.  For more information about the foreclosure property or Bear Lake Reserve in general, contact me [click here] or Marian via her web site, MarianSchafferRealty.com.
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The comfortable cottages at Bear Lake Reserve are tucked into the woods of the mountain community.  Many are available to rent by the week.

One way to cut time from your trip south

    If you plan to take advantage of one of those low price golf community discovery visits I've written about, but you don't look forward to driving round trip, check out AutoDriveaway.com.  The firm arranges for personal cars to be relocated from one city in America to another and finds people to drive them, without any rental charges (in some cases, the driver pays for a few tanks of gas).  The drivers, who apply to AutoDriveaway and must meet some basic criteria, can go online to see what locations are available (they change day to day).  Currently, for example, a 2008 Ford Explorer in Atlanta is available to be driven to Malden, MA, just north of Boston.  In this case, the owner pays for all gas. 

The Mexican retirement cartel


    American tourists in Mexico are being targeted -- no, not by drug cartels or corrupt Mexican police or smugglers looking for mules.  They are instead in the sights of real estate developers, according to a recent story in the Dallas Morning News.
    Mexico is a beautiful country with an impressive topography, especially along the slim Baja California, surrounded by water, the Pacific on one side and the Sea of Cortez on the other.  Many Americans, some of my friends included, have beautiful homes in golf communities like Cabo San Lucas and other American friendly towns up and down the coast.  Jack Nicklaus and his fellow leading designers have used the local terrain as landscapes for their seaside courses.  Late last year, Tiger Woods announced he would design his third course on a peninsula near Ensenada, a Mexican resort town 65 miles south of San Diego.
    Call me an American chauvinist, but with all the great golf communities here in the U.S., at deeply discounted prices from just a few years ago, I wonder about the attraction of Mexico, with its drug cartel murders and odd ownership rights (you own your home for only 50 years if it lies within 30 miles of a coastline).  If you really want to purchase property on a Tiger Woods golf course, what's wrong with his layout at The Cliffs Communities, not far from Asheville, which is slated to be ready in 2010 or early 2011.
    The Dallas Morning news article is available on many newspapers' web sites.  I've chosen the Cleveland Plain Dealer (click here); it includes a map of Mexico that indicates the numbers of drug cartel murders by region.