Things are moving fast in the golf communities of the Southeast. Prices are rising in many of them and inventory has dropped as confidence in the economy encourages many working couples to invest in vacation homes. At the same time, the baby boomer bubble continues to reach retirement age and its members are fleeing the cold winters of the north for the more balmy environs of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida.
You Get The Picture: From behind the 17th green at Pawleys Plantation, you take in the tee boxes on the dike, the marsh that separates the community from the beach, and the beach houses beyond that face the Atlantic Ocean.
In the coming weeks, I will assess the housing situation in some of the most popular and highest quality golf communities in the region. For more information on any of them, please contact me. We start with Pawleys Plantation, located in America’s first beach resort, Pawleys Island, SC. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I have owned a condo in Pawleys Plantation since 2000 and a lot on the 16th fairway that I purchased just before the 2008 crash; if anyone wants a beautiful home site looking down the fairway and out to the marsh, contact me.) The mid-sized community of about 900 acres, a mix of condos, townhouses and single-family dwellings, looks more harmonious than it sounds given the mature plantings and the draping provided by live oak trees and tall pines.
The golf course, by Jack Nicklaus, is two courses in one -– the front nine in more of a parkland setting, with lots of tress lining the fairways and some huge and dangerous Nicklaus bunkers. The back nine explodes onto the marshland that separates the community from the ocean by about ¾ of a mile. A dike that once controlled water into and out of the rice plantation on the site now is home to two tee boxes for the most challenging par 3 holes in all of the Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach. The iconic 13th hole is surrounded by marsh except for a thin strip of grass at 3 o’clock, often well worn because that is where the drop area is located. The green is smaller than the famous Sawgrass 17th green and nearly impossible to hit when the wind is blowing hard. The 17th at Pawleys features marsh only across the entire front of the green, but the green is not deep and out of bounds lurks beyond. When the wind is coming from behind you on the tee, off the ocean, out of bounds is of real concern.
Here is the latest on real estate for sale in Pawleys Plantation:
- 50 properties currently listed for sale
- 15 lots on the market
- 24 single-family homes on the market
- 11 condos on the market
Lots range in price from $49,900 (patio lot on cul de sac) to $359,000 for views of Prince Creek and the marsh toward the beach at Pawleys Island. Condo prices start at $119,000 and single-family homes, patio size on roughly a ¼ acre lot, begin at $235,000. The most expensive home in Pawleys Plantation currently for sale is listed at $649,000, with 6 bedrooms and 6 baths (and two half baths).
A thin ribbon of tightly mown grass connects the par 4 16th green with the par 3 13th peninsula green at Pawleys Plantation.