Extreme bargain-priced golf properties may signal market bottom south of Myrtle Beach

     I stumbled upon an ad two weeks ago for a golf cottage for sale in the beautiful Wachesaw Plantation located in Murrells Inlet, SC, at the south end of Myrtle Beach’s Grand Strand.  Wachesaw, not to be confused with its neighbor Wachesaw East, is a gated golf community just 10 minutes from a wide, clean beach (Huntington State Park), dozens of excellent restaurants and shopping, and less than five minutes from a modern hospital. The two-bedroom, two-bath cottage was listed for just $149,000.

        I am familiar with Wachesaw and its private and excellent Tom Fazio

golf course, and that price tag was unusually low even in the beaten-up real estate market of the Myrtle Beach area.  You would think that a golf vacation destination like Myrtle Beach, with its 110 or so golf courses, would have a dozen or two private clubs but, actually, Wachesaw Plantation is one of just four members-only clubs on the entire Grand Strand.  (The others are DeBordieu and The Reserve, both a few miles south of Wachesaw, and The Surf Club in Myrtle Beach.)  Vacationers and retirees looking to replicate their private club experiences up north without breaking the bank should seriously consider the above-mentioned private communities at the south end of the Grand Strand.

        Last week, I teed it up with a few of Wachesaw’s club members and asked if any were familiar with the golf cottage for sale.  “Needs a little cosmetic work,” one told me, “but it is in great shape.  Owner just wants to get rid of it.”

The 7th hole at Tom Fazio's Wachesaw Plantation, a par 3, is among the toughest one-shot holes on the entire Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach.

 

        With the nation’s official unemployment rate over 9%, it seems almost insensitive to talk about opportunities to purchase a vacation home.  But lost in the mass media’s fascination with negatives is the fact that almost 91% of the employable are earning a wage, and many of them have enough assets and confidence to consider a vacation home, even one connected to a private golf club.  The recession has affected the price of real estate, to be sure, but it also has reduced –- in some cases, significantly -– the costs of golf membership.  Consider Wachesaw’s “national” membership at just $850 (application and initiation fees) and dues of just $220 per month (full family) that grants all the privileges of a local membership.  (Note:  The food minimum is $400 per year, small enough to be eaten up in just a few meals by any family with normal appetites).  The $220 per month equals about three or four green fee payments at local public golf courses.  All you need to do to qualify for Wachesaw’s national membership is demonstrate that you pay your taxes to jurisdictions outside Horry and Georgetown counties.

        There are many such bargains in real estate and golf club membership up and down the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach and, indeed, throughout the south, and not just for golf vacation homes.  Calling all golf retirement wannabes:  A one-story brick home with three bedrooms and two baths that looks out on a pond and the 2^nd tee at Wachesaw is listed for just $449,900. A few miles away, at the semi-private Pawleys Plantation, you will find patio homes that begin in the low $300s (and golf villas in the mid $100s).  Even at DeBordieu Colony, whose community stretches from Highway 17 to the Atlantic Ocean and whose prices have traditionally been the highest on the South Strand, you can find nice single-family homes within walking distance of the beach starting in the $500s.

        For more information about Wachesaw Plantation and other Myrtle Beach golf communities, or to be connected with one of our pre-qualified local realtors, please contact me.

Homes in Wachesaw Plantation are more sharply priced than in the other two gated communities with private golf courses on the southern end of the Grand Strand.