Savannah Lakes Sales Report
Implies Sellers Market…but
prices remain relatively low
“Inventory is low and buyers are willing to pay a premium for the right home.” That conclusion comes straight from a recent sales report issued by Savannah River Realty, the largest seller of homes in McCormick, SC’s Savannah Lakes Village, a multi-golf-course community I have touted as one of the best buys in golf community real estate. Located on Lake Thurmond, Savannah Lakes is rural, eight miles from the nearest supermarket but loaded with amenities and options for a social life.
Low inventory seems to be the rule, rather than the exception, across Southeast region golf communities as developers have been slow to gin up new golf community construction a decade after the recession. Even when they try, they sometimes come up short. At Pawleys Plantation, where your correspondent owns a vacation condo, a local builder purchased the last 30 remaining lots beside the 18th hole of the Jack Nicklaus golf course. After selling a couple of homes in three years, the builder has now put the remaining lots on the market and left it to others to put up the homes.
Apparently, according to the sales report, which captures all sales for the large but remotely located Savannah Lakes, plenty of folks are willing to give up any urban connections for a reasonably priced lifestyle. Nice homes in Savannah Lakes, some with views of golf course or water, start just below $200,000.
Through September of this year, 69 homes have sold in the community for a total sales volume just shy of $18 million, or $261,000 per home. Most homes (31) were located on interior, mostly wooded lots, whereas 23 had water views and 15 were beside one of the community’s two golf courses. Median price for the waterfront homes was $351,000 and for the golf-oriented homes $255,000. The interior located homes sold for a median price well under $200,000. The average age of all the homes that sold was 19 years.
Those reasonable prices belie what appears to be a strong seller’s market at Savannah Lakes. The average discount for homes that sold — i.e. the drop from listed price to selling price — was just 4%. Most of us who have sold homes in the past would probably be happy with any “discount” under 8%.
If you would like more information about Savannah Lakes, or would like to arrange a visit, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Thinking of golf…
and Mickey Mantle
As a kid in the mid-50s on Long Island, I was a rabid Brooklyn Dodger fan. The 1950s in the New York City area was the Golden Age of center fielders, and my friends’ and my debates about the best one — Snider, Mays or Mantle — were relentless and heated. The Dodgers’ move to Los Angeles in 1958 and maturity have provided me a more objective view of that 60-year-ago debate: Willie Mays was the best, followed by Mantle and then Snider.
My Yankee friends back then argued that Mantle was the best “in spite of his bad legs.” He would have been even better if not for those damn legs, they reasoned. I remember dismissing that argument, even as an unjaded 10-year-old, because you don’t need great legs to hit a rising fastball or hang in there on a nasty curve. (Note: The first two times Sandy Koufax, who arguably had the best curveball ever, pitched to Mantle in the 1963 World Series, he struck him out.)
I thought about Mickey Mantle on the golf course a few weeks ago. I was forced to walk for the first time this year because of soggy conditions and, even after lightening my bag by tossing in the car’s trunk all but a half dozen golf balls, it was a struggle down and then up the first fairway. But I parred the hole after taking some deep breaths before my approach shot and putts. On the second tee box, the skin on my right thumb cracked open; I have had that recurring problem all year and, stupidly, I had forgotten to bring a band aid. Walking up the par 5 2nd fairway, my knees hurt. But I had hit a good drive, a good fairway metal to the middle of the fairway, and then slightly pulled a nine iron to the left edge of the green. I two-putted from 35 feet.
As I walked to the par 3 third tee box, Mickey Mantle popped into my head. Pain and gain, I thought, just like Mantle, success in spite of nagging issues. I thought about the cut on my right thumb and realized that fear of the pain was causing me to lighten up on my grip; I had hit my first two approach shots as solidly as I can and gave all credit to the grip change. Had Mantle changed his approach — for the better — because of his injuries? Was he a natural adrenaline pumper whose success was actually the result of his pain, not in spite of it?
I won’t belabor the point, or the description of my round, except to say I parred the first seven holes before I tried to scoop a fairway wood off a downhill fairway lie and topped it behind a tree. As my dreams of shooting my age, 71, faded, so too did the adrenaline, and I was suddenly a very tired old golfer. I walked off after the 9th, which I bogeyed for a four-over 39, thinking about shooting my age, and about Mickey Mantle, may he rest in peace.
If you are considering a search for a permanent or vacation home in a golf-oriented area, please contact me for a free, no-obligation consultation at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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Greatest Hits: Top 20 Places-to-Retire
List Measures Web Site Visits
I am not a big fan of “best of” lists. Some are purely subjective, an assessment by editors of lifestyle magazines who blatantly tout their advertisers when considering their rankings. (e.g. Where to Retire magazine) At the other end of the spectrum, data-driven sites tend to roll together numbers (real estate prices, taxes, distance to a decent airport) that totally ignore the nuances many retirees consider when choosing a remainder-of-life location. If, for example, my wife and I didn’t plan on much travel during our retirement years, we might choose a place like Savannah Lakes Village in ultra-rural South Carolina, a long way from an airport but a full-amenity community with stunningly low real estate prices and property taxes. But conflicting lifestyle data — low prices yet a long distance to an airport — get mashed together into one ranking. That will not prove helpful to many.
Although it isn’t perfect, the site TopRetirements.com seems a more reflective place to assess rankings by city and town. Their latest list of the Top 20 Places to Retire in the Southeast was published recently, and whereas one can quibble with the methodology — the list basically counts the number of times readers click on an article about a particular city — it does eliminate any subjective input from editors.
I have been following TopRetirements.com for the better part of a decade, and the comments real people leave at the site range from the sublime to the self-indulgent. I have been watching the site long enough to wonder if the folks asking for advice on simple things month after month and year after year could not easily research the topic for themselves (e.g. where are taxes lowest). As in some therapy groups, they may be looking more for attention than for a new place to live.
Discussions at Top Retirements are curated by Editor John Brady and his staff who have a light touch until the subject of politics comes up, at which point they may intervene and remind people politics is beside the point of the site. I recall posting a counter argument some years ago — I believe it was the fateful year of 2016 — indicating that the group opinions of your future neighbors in a community were every bit as important in considering a new home as were the number of pools and tennis courts. I was not persuasive enough.
All that said, TopRetirements.com is a good source of information about where other retirement and near-retirement folks are considering a move. With the above caveats, here are the top five towns in the Southeast from Top Retirement’s latest rankings. The list of the other 15 follows.
Please contact me if you would like more information on any golf communities in these popular towns.
- Asheville, NC — For years, Asheville has nailed down a top-three position in a wide range of rankings of Southeast towns. I have written about how many Florida license plates you will see in the western mountains of the state during summer as Sunshine State temperatures reach a stifling and monotonous mid 90s daily. July in Asheville is its warmest month, with an average high of 85 and average low of 65; humidity is what you would expect at high altitudes, which is to say “dry.” The city appeals to all the senses: Eye-candy beautiful mountains, clean air, an outstanding group of restaurants serving a lot of farm to table food...you get the picture. Golf communities in the area run the gamut of choices, including the deluxe (and expensive) Cliffs at Walnut Cove, 15 minutes south of the city; the dramatic Mountain Air whose commanding feature is an airstrip at the top of its 4,600-foot-high mountain that bisects its golf course; and Champion Hills, Tom Fazio’s “home” course in nearby Hendersonville that is cut through the mountains and just 10 minutes from the famed Flat Rock Playhouse.
- Pensacola, FL — I am going to have to learn a little more about Pensacola, given its popularity as a retirement destination. Suffice to say it is within minutes of beautiful Gulf beaches and plenty of well-reviewed golf communities. I will be looking soon to establish a relationship with a local Realtor who specializes in Pensacola area golf communities.
- Beaufort, SC — This is as charming and walkable a town as you will find in the South, and the town fathers have done all they can to keep it that way. You may feel as if you have been plopped down in the middle of Prince of Tides or Forrest Gump as you traverse the historic district streets overhung with Spanish-moss-draped trees and surrounded by marsh. At the end of your walkabout, a few choice taverns and restaurants await. Home can be any one of a select group of interesting communities within a half hour drive, including: Dataw Island, which features two diverse and interesting golf courses by Arthur Hills and Tom Fazio, and reasonably priced real estate (homes from low $300s); and Callawassie Island, just on the other side of the Broad River, with 27 holes of golf and a splendid marsh location. I recently facilitated a sale there to a couple from Connecticut.
- Chattanooga, TN — The Choo-Choo town has been rising steadily in terms of popularity over recent years. It is located on a river and carries the moniker “Scenic City,” which might explain some of its popularity. Tennessee is considered a tax-friendly state because earned income is not taxed, although one wonders why retirees would care about taxation on work income. Nevertheless, Chattanooga, less than two hours from Atlanta, is well positioned to attract retirees. Communities such as Black Creek, with a golf course designed by the respected Brian Silva, his first in the Southeast, and condo/townhome prices from the mid-$200s and single family homes from the $300s; and Windstone, a 30-year old private club with reasonable monthly dues ($328 per family), compete favorably with other communities in nearby North Carolina and Georgia.
- Sarasota, FL — With apologies to Florida residents, culture is not the first or even 10th thing that most people associate with the Sunshine State. But Sarasota breaks the mold with its famous Ringling Museum and Sarasota Classic Car Museum. For an entertaining day of culture and sports, St. Petersburg is less than an hour away where you can stroll the (Salvador) Dali Museum in the morning and later attend a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game (don’t laugh, they made the playoffs this year, although you may laugh at their outdated indoor stadium, but at least you’ll be out of the summer heat). Sarasota also has a surprisingly youthful bar and restaurant scene downtown, and its area golf communities are plentiful, and include Lakewood Ranch, Longboat Key and many more.
The remainder of the Top 20 list includes (#6) Greenville, SC, exploding in popularity over the last decade; the aforementioned St. Petersburg; Summerville, SC, just northwest of the heralded foodie town of Charleston; Charleston itself; (#10) Fort Myers, FL, a little down-market from Naples but more reasonably priced; Bluffton, SC, home to a good selection of multi-course, marsh-surrounded communities just off Hilton Head Island; the university-centric Charlottesville, VA; the ever-popular golf resort area of Myrtle Beach, which has seen a couple dozen golf course closings in recent years yet can still boast more than 90 in the area; Paris, TN, west of Nashville and lacking in golf communities; Maryville, TN, a small college town a half hour from Knoxville and the same distance from Fox Den Country Club, a classic golf course in a mature community that has hosted an annual Korn-Ferry Tour event, formerly the Web.com Tour, since 1990 (Jeff Maggert won it when it was part of the Ben Hogan Tour); Athens, GA, home of the Bulldogs of The University of Georgia where the rock group R.E.M. was formed; Fairhope, AL, a former “Utopian” community that is perennially on the list of great places to retire; Murphy, NC, located in the “handle-shaped” area of the state close to both Tennessee and Georgia; Venice, FL, home to a wide array of golf communities, including Pelican Pointe, Venetian and Plantation Golf and Country Clubs; and Jupiter, FL, where if your home does not include a pool and lanai, you will probably be visiting local friends more often than they will come to you. (In other words, virtually everyone has a lanai.)
Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC
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