The Highs and Lows of prices for golf homes

        If you thought you could get anything you wanted at Alice’s Restaurant, the current market of golf homes for sale is an even grander buffet.  At one end of the groaning board are golf home sites that start as low as $1 (more about that in a minute) and at the other end are the golf McMansions, still priced in the millions but millions lower than they were just five years ago.  In between is an endless array of choices to satisfy every appetite, and pocketbook.

        You are probably wondering about that $1 lot.  It is located at 1 Troon Lane in the well-regarded Colleton River Plantation community in Bluffton, SC, just off the bridge from Hilton Head Island.  I have seen lots for sale in other golf communities priced at under $1,000, but $1 does not leave a lot of room for price negotiation.

        Colleton River, which is one of the communities currently offering golf homes for sale at our new web site, GolfHomesListed, is beautifully landscaped and features 36 holes of Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye golf, with homes that range up into the millions.  The house across the street from 1 Troon Lane is valued at $685,000, according to Zillow.com.  The lot

adjacent to it is valued at $125,000.  The owners of 1 Troon are selling because they “do not use the amenities enough” at Colleton River, according to one local Realtor’s web site.  Translated, that means the owners are paying property owners association dues and club membership dues well over $10,000 per year, and getting no benefits from their outlay.  They clearly have decided not to build on the lot, if indeed they ever planned to. (In the early 2000s, when golf community prices were a rocket ship upward, many folks strapped themselves to lots they thought would appreciate, and didn’t care about the annual fees because they were going to flip the property in a few years. We know how that turned out.)

        At the other end of the spectrum are the lavish and large estate homes that, in many cases, were second or third homes for those who made it big in the pre-recession boom years.  I recall a Realtor pointing out to me a new six-bedroom mansion at one of The Cliffs Communities that was being built for around $3 million.  “The owners plan to use it a few weeks a year,” the Realtor told me.

        With the 2008 plummet in the stock market and the lingering consequences to many formerly wealthy people, a good number of those multi-million dollar homes are on the market.  Some are still priced above $1 million but well below their original cost.  At GolfHomesListed, our Realtor clients have posted a few of these estate golf homes for sale, along with substantially lower priced properties.  For example, at Ford Plantation in Richmond Hill, GA, just south of Savannah, a 4,600-square-foot Charleston Style home near the Pete Dye golf course and overlooking two rivers is priced at $3.25 million; a nice "Cottage Retreat" home is listed for $750,000.  On the other side of Savannah, at The Landings golf community, a 6,600-square foot home that overlooks one of the community’s six golf courses and a lagoon is on the market for $2.95 million; The Landings lists a patio home of 2,400 square feet for $479,000.  And up the coast at Landfall, in Wilmington, NC, $2.75 million will buy a 5,300 square foot home with a view of the 2^nd hole on the Jack Nicklaus golf course, and privileges at the Pete Dye golf course as well; for just $409,000, Landfall Realty offers a 2,025 square foot home with a golf view.

        These homes are all featured at GolfHomesListed, but there are many more properties at the new web site priced in the low-to-mid-six-figure range.  We will be discussing those more typically priced properties here in coming days.  I encourage all our readers to take the new site for a test drive and let me know your comments.  Many thanks.

--  Larry Gavrich, Editor