This is the second and final part of an update on the Myrtle Beach golf community market.

 

        Local Market Monitor (LMM), a service we have referenced here before, estimates that home prices will decrease 3% in Myrtle Beach over the coming months compared with the firm’s forecast of a 4.6% drop nationally.  LMM, which offers a discount to Golf Community Reviews readers for its market-by-market reports [click here for the details], forecasts a 5% increase in prices in Myrtle Beach between now and 2014.

        For now, Myrtle Beach real estate is “stuck in a rut,” according to a recent headline in the local Sun News.  In the month of September, the newspaper reported, the median price for a single-family home stood just under $164,000, down 4 percent from September 2010.  The combined category of condos/town houses showed a median price of just $109,000, down 7 percent from a year earlier. Interestingly, the number of single-family home sales was up 4 percent from 2010 signaling that, perhaps, prices are at a point buyers cannot ignore.  However, the number of condo sales was down 5 percent from 2010; condos are almost a commodity in Myrtle Beach.

The approach to the 8th hole on the fine Tom Fazio layout at Wachesaw Plantation.  Attractively priced homes begin in the low $200s.

 

        Some buyers will always be tempted to “time the market”; given the current environment in Myrtle Beach, waiting in the hope of picking up an extra percentage point or two in eventual appreciation is a fool’s errand (sorry speculators).  Inventory, low prices and the willingness of many owners to negotiate on price are encouraging buyers, especially when a cash transaction is involved and those pesky lending institutions can be left out of the equation.  Most of all, and I admit I am a broken record on this point, those moving from the north can experience a windfall in terms of cost of living differences.  It is simply cheaper to live in Myrtle Beach than in virtually any northern area outside of the Dakotas.  For example, according to BestPlaces.net, the cost of living in Myrtle Beach is 40% lower than in Stamford, CT, 47% less than Needham, MA, 31% less than West Orange, NJ, and 12% less than Schaumburg, IL.  Most of the differences are in the dramatically lower prices for real estate in Myrtle Beach, but most other routine activities of life in the south are priced lower than in the north (taxes, gasoline, pharmaceuticals and all cuts of pork, for example).

        Here are the lowest-priced current single-family and condominiums for sale, as well as unimproved properties, in a few of our favorite golf communities in the Myrtle Beach area (we have visited and reviewed all of them):

 

DeBordieu Colony, Georgetown, SC

3 BR, 3 BA Golf Villa, furnished, $539,000

No condos in the community

Wooded lot, $175,000

Wachesaw Plantation, Murrells Inlet, SC

3 BR, 2.5 BA, golf view, $349,000

2 BR, 2 BA cottage, $229,000

Corner lot, $119,900

The Reserve, Litchfield Beach, SC

3 BR, 2.5 BA to be built, $499,260

3 BR, 3 BA cottage, $495,000

Wooded lot, $98,500 

Pawleys Plantation, Pawleys Island, SC

3 BR, 2.5 BA, $247,500

2 BR, 2.5 BA, $195,000

Foreclosure lot, $54,000

 

        Winter may not be the best season for real estate agents in Myrtle Beach, but after the damaging early season snowstorm in the northeast last month, with tens of thousands of folks without power for over a week, real estate agents in all warm weather locations might want to get ready for a heavier than normal house-hunting season. If you would like more information about Myrtle Beach real estate and golf communities, or would like an introduction to one of the many professional realtors we know in the area, please contact me.

     The Myrtle Beach market is something of a microcosm for golf community real estate in the U.S.  No single area, except for perhaps Pinehurst, is more dependent on golf living and golf vacations for its economic health.  What we can guess about the state of golf community living and the golf industry itself can emerge from trend lines in Myrtle Beach.

        In looking at both recent real estate sales activity in the Myrtle Beach area and forecasts for both employment and housing along the Grand Strand, the outlook is tepid at best – much better news for buyers than sellers.  As of October, single-family homes in the area are spending 224 days on the market before a sale.  The numbers for condos/townhouses and multi-family dwellings are 262 and 328 days, respectively. Such long waits to cash out put pressure on sellers to accept lower offers than they would have considered in the early months of their listing.  It also emboldens buyers to offer prices that they would consider insulting were they on the other side of the sales equation.  Such is the free market…

 

Cold months can be hot time to buy

        More than 8,000 homes (condos and single-family) were listed for sale in the Myrtle Beach area in October, according to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service); just 485 sold.  Now that Myrtle Beach’s off-season for golf and tourism has begun, local realtors expect potential buyer traffic to slow; only those under significant pressure to sell are likely to list their homes during

the winter.  But despite the somewhat smaller inventory of homes typically available for purchase in Myrtle Beach’s “off season,” the winter may be the best time for sellers and buyers to get together.  First, as mentioned, anyone who lists their home for sale during the “slow” winter months is likely to be eager; that eagerness can translate to an openness to extremely low offers.  Second, any golf home buyer who is looking to purchase a property during the winter, punctuated as the season is with family holidays and other activities, is going to be serious, not a browser, as many are during the warmer summer season.  When seriousness of purpose meets flexibility on pricing, the foundation is set for a deal.

        Myrtle Beach, despite the beating its real estate has taken since mid 2007, when the average home was valued at 27% more than it is today, remains one of the most diverse golf retirement markets in the nation.  For the retiree or second home owner who wants a private club experience, Myrtle Beach offers only a few, but choice, options, among them DeBordieu, a Pete Dye layout in the most southern, and most expensive, community on the Grand Strand; Wachesaw Plantation, a Tom Fazio classic layout about five minutes from a hospital, a mall and the Atlantic Ocean; The Reserve Club at Litchfield, a Greg Norman design that is part of the McConnell Group of courses and, therefore, offers members reciprocal privileges at its other clubs in North Carolina; and The Members Club at Grande Dunes, in the heart of Myrtle Beach, just to the west of the Intracoastal Waterway.  The Surf Club, a more classic George Cobb design in North Myrtle Beach is private but visiting golfers who want to play it can typically find a way.

The 8th at Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, most players' favorite course of the more than 100 along the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach.  Photo by Elliot deBear.

        Those who are willing to work a little for their tee times will find more than 100 public golf courses in Myrtle Beach of virtually every stripe and, most of the year, at prices that might make a golfer out of a Scrooge.  The two most highly rated among them anchor the north and south ends of Myrtle Beach.  Many raters, for example, consider Mike Strantz’s Caledonia Golf & Fish Club in Pawleys Island the best golf course, private or public, on the Grand Strand; and after some condition issues a few years ago, Tidewater Golf Club in Little River, just below the North Carolina state line, has returned to its former glories.  In between are such excellent layouts as Pawleys Plantation (Jack Nicklaus), TPC of Myrtle Beach (Fazio), True Blue (Strantz), The Legends Resort (two courses by Tom Doak, one by P.B. Dye) and the Barefoot Resort (four by Fazio, Davis Love, Pete Dye and Greg Norman).

 

Passport to excellent and cheap golf

        Adding to the allure of passing up private club membership is the Myrtle Beach Golf Passport which, for $40 annually, provides any full- or part-time resident of Horry, Brunswick or Georgetown Counties deeply discounted green fees at most of the golf courses in the area (including those mentioned above).  One recent special provides an insight into the bargain nature of the Passport: Four rounds of golf at a limited but excellent choice of golf courses (and just one mediocre one); a $20 gift card to a local golf superstore; a $60 Nike discount card; and a $50 dining gift card to a local upscale restaurant chain.  The total price was just $89.

        Yes, it can be a hassle to arrange a tee time during peak vacation times of the year -– March, April, September and October –- but for many, the variety of courses available to play and their bargain priced green fees will be deciding factors.

        Next: The Myrtle Beach real estate market, now and ahead