The long languishing Blythewood, SC golf community called Cobblestone Park finally has an experienced and stable owner fully in charge. National mega-developer D.R. Horton announced recently that it had purchased one-third of the lots in the 15-year-old Cobblestone and that it would be introducing new price plans and (finally) complete the clubhouse that the Ginn organization -– as in Bobby Ginn -– had started more than six years ago. Work on the partially completed clubhouse, which has been an eyesore for half a decade, has already begun.
The white knight Cobblestone's been waiting for
This is the kind of good news existing owners at Cobblestone have been waiting for. The early buyers who bought into the Ginn marketing hype saw their market values plummet. Lot values in the community dropped as much as 90%, and home values as much as 75%. Those who bought a home at Cobblestone as a pure investment -– and those were the types the Ginn group lived off –- were forced to walk away from their properties, and the foreclosures only served to lower the values of full-time homes even more. Today, there are just 100 occupied homes in a golf community with a total of just over 1,000 home sites.
Help is on the way: D.R. Horton, Cobblestone's new owners, have already begun to work on the long languishing partially completed clubhouse.
Horton has moved quickly to turn things around. Current homeowners who may complain that Horton’s new reduced-price plan will lower their already paltry market values may not be taking a long enough view. Horton’s four new models are all priced below $300,000, making them attractive to both new home buyers and retirees looking for a lot of house -– square footage for the models average 2,800 square feet –- next to a well-maintained, challenging golf course. We don’t often find homes in a gated golf community priced at around $100 per square foot.
Blythewood is an easy commute to Columbia, the state capital and home of the University of South Carolina and its thousands of students. (The USC men's and women's golf teams use the practice facilities at Cobblestone.) More importantly, the few thousand faculty and administrators at the University need to live someplace, and why not a nicely landscaped community with 27 holes of golf at its core? (Most lots at Cobblestone have views of the P.B. Dye designed layout, which was tweaked just before the recession by touring pro Lee Janzen.) Horton’s involvement and the attractively priced real estate should combine to increase demand to live in Cobblestone, and to push up prices as well.
The University of South Carolina golf teams use the fine Cobblestone practice facilities.
Bargain golf membership
I visited Cobblestone Park a few months after Ginn departed, and although there was a large swath of undeveloped land, the unimproved lots were substantially relegated to one part of the community. The neighborhood around most of the 18 holes I played was nicely filled in and showed the potential for a well-landscaped community. The course, which was in excellent condition when I played it, is now open to outside play but also offers memberships at the bargain price of just $173 per month (no initiation fee). The Cobblestone course is operated by the golf conglomerate Affiniti; members have access to a dozen other Affiniti golf clubs in the Carolinas and Georgia, a nice bonus for those who enjoy playing a variety of golf courses and don’t mind driving a few hours to do it.
If you are looking for a brand new $300,000 golf home (or a bargain resale home) near a major university and close to a major Interstate highway -– I-77 runs along the edge of the community –- Cobblestone is worth a look. Contact me for more information and an introduction to the real estate office at Cobblestone.
The formerly private Cobblestone layout is not without its challenges. Although open to the public today, there are whispers that, once the community fills with homes and new members, it may go private again.
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