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2012 Newsletters

November/December 2012

 
    November/December 2012

Multi-Course Feasts:
  New owners at Cliffs, Reynolds reset
the table for golf memberships 

   The smart money new owners at The Cliffs Communities and Reynolds Plantation are betting that an improved economy will reset retirees’ lifestyle expectations and bring back the popularity of multi-golf-course memberships.  But to hedge their bets, they have cut prices and added flexibility in their membership plans.
   The Cliffs and Reynolds are remarkably similar in the paths they have trod and the customers to whom they appeal.  Virtually every amenity imaginable is available in these deluxe developments.  Before the recession, both sets of communities, each with six golf courses, charged initiation fees as high as $100,000 and more.  Both currently have one golf course in some stage of development:  The Gary Player design at The Cliffs at Mountain Park will open the middle of next year; a seventh course was on the drawing board at Reynolds when the financial troubles began, and its future has not been addressed yet by the new owners. 

    The top membership fee at Reynolds is now pegged at $60,000, effective August 1, 2012, after MetLife and Daniel Corporation purchased the community.  The Cliffs multi-course membership was decreased to $50,000 after its new owners, a consortium of landholder SunTX Urbana, developer Arendale Holdings and Cliffs’ residents Steve and Penny Carlile, purchased the communities out of bankruptcy.  Having played some of the golf courses at Reynolds and The Cliffs, I can testify that the initiation fees are fair, especially for those golfers who put a premium on variety as well as quality of the golfing grounds (and who can afford the tariff).
    Upscale golf communities took a fierce beating during the recession, and the over-spending by the Reynolds and Cliffs founders accelerated both communities toward bankruptcy.  It also precipitated dramatic price reductions in their properties, the result of a perfect storm of 1) speculation in the early 2000s; 2) the recession's effect on buyer confidence and spending; and 3) the market’s growing awareness of financial problems at the most upscale communities.  In some cases, property sales dropped 50% and more in both communities as some speculators sought to get out from under the obligation of annual dues payments to the clubs, as well as homeowner association fees for land they never intended to own in the long term. 

   Prices are leveling off now, but some residual bargains will remain until the new managements rebuild confidence among potential buyers.  In the case of Reynolds, MetLife certainly has the deep pockets for the long haul, but they also have a reputation as a deliberate decision maker; that kind of corporate culture is perhaps well suited to the insurance business but golf community real estate marketing demands a more spry sensibility.  It remains to be seen if MetLife leaves decision-making to Daniel Corp. and the experts at Reynolds.

    The situation at The Cliffs, whose founder Jim Anthony once spent $14 million annually on marketing, is different, less about corporate behavior and more about vested interests that must be meshed into a common interest. The three parties that form the decision-making team at The Cliffs represent three distinct business concerns –- SunTx Urbana owns a boatload of land inside The Cliffs, Arendale specializes in land development and management, and the Carliles, who have made a large, personal investment in the future of The Cliffs, want to see the place they call home flourish.  For that to happen, they and their partners will need to see their interests as aligned, and pull equally hard in the same direction over the long haul.

                     ------------
   The price of “Cadillac” membership at these two behemoth communities is roughly the same -- $60,000 at Reynolds, $50,000 at The Cliffs -- and grants access to all courses.  The following is an outline of the various membership options at Reynolds Plantation. (The Cliffs did not respond by press time to a request for a rundown on their membership plans, which we hope to publish next month.)  Dues are monthly.

Reynolds Plantation
Courses: Oconee, National (27 holes), Great Waters, Plantation, The Landing, Creek Club

Platinum Membership -- $60,000
Play at all 6 ½ golf courses, including the strictly private Creek Club; dues $719.00 ($24 per round for cart)
Gold Membership -- $35,000
Access to 5 courses (excluding Creek Club); dues $635 ($24 per round for cart)
Silver Membership -- $20,000
Access to Plantation & Landing courses; dues $512 per month
($24 per round for cart); or $208 per month ($74 per round green fee and cart on any course but Creek Club)

Reader Feedback

  We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
   I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

GolfHomesLIsted.com

Simple Math Indicates Golf Communities Rebounding

    Many of us are happy to have the silly season of national politics behind us, but I for one was glad to see the comeback of the notion of “basic arithmetic” during the recent campaign.  Simple math can explain a lot of things, such as what is happening with property prices in southern golf communities.  A process of addition, subtraction and a bit of division -– to arrive at percentages -– shows that prices are up from 2011 in enough golf communities to suggest that the bottom of the market has been reached, and that a rebound is at hand.
     Nationally, the respected Case-Shiller index of home prices reported an increase year to year of 2% in August, the month for which they have the most recent numbers.  Case-Shiller looks at 20 metro areas to come up with its composite average.  Importantly, prices in the Phoenix metro market, which is a magnet for retirees, were up a whopping 18% over August 2011, that market’s fourth consecutive monthly double-digit increase and by far the highest increase of all the 20 markets.  And although New York and Chicago had slightly negative price results, Minneapolis and Detroit prices in August were up well over 7% year to year.   This uptrend of prices in the north is important to the golf community market because it is likely to compel baby boomers to start offering their primary homes for sale and begin relocating in larger numbers to warmer climates.  There is some evidence that is already happening.

     Our friends at Local Market Monitor, real estate price forecasting experts, are a little more conservative in their assessments of price rises.  Their calculations are pegged largely -- but not entirely -- to employment trends.  They see markets like Naples, FL, and Charlottesville, VA, as "low risk" in terms of price appreciation, but express caution for markets like Savannah, Wilmington, NC, Asheville, NC, and Myrtle Beach, SC, where jobs are lagging.  Since Local Market Monitor assesses price trends for an entire metro market, it could be that the local golf communities present a more optimistic picture than the overall market (see our comments on The Landings in Savannah below, which seem to run contrary to the overall picture in Savannah).  Needless to say, those readers considering Naples and Charlottesville for possible relocation should feel especially optimistic.

The Evidence:  More customers, more sales, higher prices
     According to my discussions with real estate professionals in the southern U.S. who have been waiting for a re-migration south, their wait may be over.  For example, at Glenmore, a 500-acre community with a Scottish accent and a fine John LaFoy golf course just east of Charlottesville, VA, broker Tom Pace reports that house closings this year have already blown past 2011 numbers, 41 to 28.  Average prices in Glenmore dropped year to year by just 1.7% but third quarter results in 2011 and 2012 show an average price increase of 15.5%.  Tom has a diverse selection of properties for sale at our GolfHomesListed site.
     At The Landings on Skidaway Island, near Savannah, overall home sales from all area real estate agencies are up 18% year to year. Officials in the on-site real estate office at The Landings tell us they are selling at twice that rate.  The Landings is a nearly 40-year-old community with mostly re-sales remaining in its inventory; because many folks still prefer new construction, the fact that The Landings is selling increasing numbers of re-sales seems like evidence that the buying population is beginning to swell.  Landings Realty, which is owned and operated by The Landings property owners association, reports that its 108 buyers through mid-November represent its highest annual total since 2006 –- and the sales year is not quite over.
     Our Glenmore and Landings professionals sell properties in their own communities, but Realtors who are working with multiple golf communities also report strong year-to-year results.  
     Tom Jackson of Gateway Realty in Bluffton, SC, for example, represents buyers for some of the top golf communities in the Low Country, including Colleton River, Belfair and Berkeley Hall.  Tom reports that prices are up a little over 3% from 2011 in those Bluffton-area communities but that homes already sold or pending are up 12.5%, from 157 to 177, on a year-to-year basis.  Increased sales imply increased demand which, eventually, result in higher prices.


Inventory Shortages on the Horizon
    Nationally, inventories of homes on the market have dropped to less than six months, which real estate industry experts consider “in balance.”  Inventories in leisure residential communities are somewhat higher owing, in large measure, to all those mega-communities whose land sales dried up during the recession.
    “Land prices still don’t justify starting new developments,” says Ken Kirkman, “so we are likely only a couple of years away from an inventory shortage.”  Ken is worth listening to, given his combined experiences as an industry veteran, the head of the realty office at Landfall in Wilmington, NC, and the developer behind Carolina Colours in New Bern, NC, where he says traffic to check out the community’s reasonably priced homes is double what it was last year.  Since real estate pricing operates purely on the basis of supply and demand, expect prices to begin to accelerate faster in a few years if Ken's prediction about inventories is correct, barring any unforeseen world or national events.
     Ken recently provided residents at Landfall with an “annual report” of sales, indicating that median prices this year are up 10% over last year and sales up 20%.  He reports what we are hearing from other communities with home prices that stretch into the millions; “almost all the increase,” says Kirkman, “ is in the price-category under $750,000.”  Home sales in the $750K to $1 million range and those above $1 million are essentially flat year-to year.  Ken expects prices for lots and homes to rise as “the low stuff” comes off the market.  We expect a number of bargains to be available in the $1M+ price range for some months to come.

 

Justice for Wintergreen
     Marketing can affect pricing and sales volume in communities that have a good story to tell.  One such community is the Wintergreen Resort which spans more than 11,000 acres along and atop a section of the Blue Ridge Mountains, 45 minutes west of Charlottesville.  The community features both skiing and golf, including a 27-hole Rees Jones layout at the base of the mountain that is open year round, and 18 holes on top of the mountain (closed for the winter).  Last year, Bank of America shocked residents by yanking the community’s line of credit after a disappointing winter of snowfall and a falloff in skiing revenues.  Community leaders cut back on operations and released some staff to save money, but things still looked dire until Jim Justice, the billionaire rescuer of the famed Greenbrier Resort, stepped in.  The mere mention publicly that Justice had purchased Wintergreen and is currently spending $12 million to upgrade infrastructure and golf facilities had to be a factor in doubling third quarter sales this year compared with 2011, from 21 to 41, according to on-site sales professional Steve Marianella.  In addition, the average price of homes sold this year increased 7.6%, to $268,000.  It also doesn’t hurt that word is out that the most serious golfers at Wintergreen will have the option of private membership at the top-of-the-mountain Devil’s Knob course beginning in 2013.
     Jimmy Fuqua, a real estate professional at The Reserve on Lake Keowee in South Carolina, told me recently that housing in the community “bottomed out” last October, that the number of tours he is conducting at The Reserve are well up over 2011, and that the end of the year push to sell real estate is being encouraged with incentives for golf club membership for anyone who purchases a developer home site (prices begin at $80,000).  If you are interested in the details of the incentives, please send me a note.

 

Doubled Sales…and Pushing for More
     Reynolds Plantation, the giant golf community on Lake Oconee in Georgia now owned by MetLife, is not being coy about its own sales incentive program.  The real estate office there has had an excellent year, even in the wake of a transition to the new ownership.  Through August 20, Reynolds had doubled the total number of home sites and homes it sold compared with last year –- 41 to 83.  Sales volume increased a total of $13.5 million.  But the Reynolds sales arm is pushing hard for more volume between now and the end of the year, announcing an incentive program for those who buy a developer-owned home site.  Depending on the cost of the home site, Reynolds will throw in payment of one of the club's three levels of initiation fee, up to a $60,000 value (Reynolds has 6½ championship golf courses).  
    We don’t know how long such incentives will last, but as budgets are reconfigured at Reynolds and elsewhere in January, expect a flurry of marketing activity to advertise these buyer bonuses and to entice baby boomers into taking the money (on their primary homes) and running south to a new life.  By the way, we are pleased to note that Reynolds has signed up to list properties at our GolfHomesListed web site in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, if you would like an introduction to Jere Mills, who has been selling properties there for 20 years, please contact me.

 

Rising economy lifts all ships…and private club membership

    A recent article in Sarasota, FL’s Herald Tribune combined the unusual with the trite.  In reporting the faintly shocking news that respected developers Taylor Morrison had decided to build not one but two new golf courses in the Sarasota and Naples areas, the writer of the article felt compelled to remind us that the recession took its toll on golf courses and club membership rolls, instead of focusing harder on the real story -– that the confidence of Taylor Morrison and other developers may be an early signal that private club membership could be making something of a comeback.
     For fact rather than knee-jerk reaction, we turn to the National Golf Foundation, whose research is geared to help its clients in the golf industry prepare for the near- and longer-term future.  In that regard, we’ll trust the NGF over a local reporter whose research appears to have been conducted by reading other reporters' knee-jerk analyses of the golf industry.
     Fact, according to a recent NGF survey:  A majority of the more than two million private club members in the U.S. continue to see their membership as preferable to playing the local munis.  Whatever the drivers – feelings of exclusivity, a short commute from their homes, a better quality of golf course, extra amenities, a family experience, better networking potential or the je ne sais quoi of “prestige” -- those who resigned their memberships in the last decade indicated to NGF that they are considering a return now that their confidence is building in a recovering economy.  In fact, 59% of those who left their clubs four to six years ago could very well return, according to the NGF survey, while 48% of those who departed between six and 10 years ago are considering returning to their former private clubs.
     Let the golf club membership renaissance begin.


Bowden’s Market Barometer Interviews Me; free copy for you

    Bowden’s Market Barometer, a respected newsletter that follows golf industry news, including information about golf communities, features an interview with your editor, Larry Gavrich, in its November/December issue. The interview topic is Florida and its golf communities, with observations based substantially on my two-week trip along the Gulf Coast a couple of months ago.

     The Bowden newsletter, which runs to 32 pages, is jam packed with important information about the economy, the housing market, lifestyle trends among baby boomers, updates on golf businesses and golf communities, and important current events in the world of golf real estate.  If you would like a free copy of the issue (a $35 value), please ‘Click Here.’  I will be pleased to personally send you a copy.  (Please allow a week for delivery since I have cooking and hosting duties over the Thanksgiving weekend.)  Happy Holiday to you and yours.

 
 

Read my Blog This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 

Your Subscription:
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© 2012 Golf Community Reviews
 
    November/December 2012

Multi-Course Feasts:
  New owners at Cliffs, Reynolds reset
the table for golf memberships 

   The smart money new owners at The Cliffs Communities and Reynolds Plantation are betting that an improved economy will reset retirees’ lifestyle expectations and bring back the popularity of multi-golf-course memberships.  But to hedge their bets, they have cut prices and added flexibility in their membership plans.
   The Cliffs and Reynolds are remarkably similar in the paths they have trod and the customers to whom they appeal.  Virtually every amenity imaginable is available in these deluxe developments.  Before the recession, both sets of communities, each with six golf courses, charged initiation fees as high as $100,000 and more.  Both currently have one golf course in some stage of development:  The Gary Player design at The Cliffs at Mountain Park will open the middle of next year; a seventh course was on the drawing board at Reynolds when the financial troubles began, and its future has not been addressed yet by the new owners. 

    The top membership fee at Reynolds is now pegged at $60,000, effective August 1, 2012, after MetLife and Daniel Corporation purchased the community.  The Cliffs multi-course membership was decreased to $50,000 after its new owners, a consortium of landholder SunTX Urbana, developer Arendale Holdings and Cliffs’ residents Steve and Penny Carlile, purchased the communities out of bankruptcy.  Having played some of the golf courses at Reynolds and The Cliffs, I can testify that the initiation fees are fair, especially for those golfers who put a premium on variety as well as quality of the golfing grounds (and who can afford the tariff).
    Upscale golf communities took a fierce beating during the recession, and the over-spending by the Reynolds and Cliffs founders accelerated both communities toward bankruptcy.  It also precipitated dramatic price reductions in their properties, the result of a perfect storm of 1) speculation in the early 2000s; 2) the recession's effect on buyer confidence and spending; and 3) the market’s growing awareness of financial problems at the most upscale communities.  In some cases, property sales dropped 50% and more in both communities as some speculators sought to get out from under the obligation of annual dues payments to the clubs, as well as homeowner association fees for land they never intended to own in the long term. 

   Prices are leveling off now, but some residual bargains will remain until the new managements rebuild confidence among potential buyers.  In the case of Reynolds, MetLife certainly has the deep pockets for the long haul, but they also have a reputation as a deliberate decision maker; that kind of corporate culture is perhaps well suited to the insurance business but golf community real estate marketing demands a more spry sensibility.  It remains to be seen if MetLife leaves decision-making to Daniel Corp. and the experts at Reynolds.

    The situation at The Cliffs, whose founder Jim Anthony once spent $14 million annually on marketing, is different, less about corporate behavior and more about vested interests that must be meshed into a common interest. The three parties that form the decision-making team at The Cliffs represent three distinct business concerns –- SunTx Urbana owns a boatload of land inside The Cliffs, Arendale specializes in land development and management, and the Carliles, who have made a large, personal investment in the future of The Cliffs, want to see the place they call home flourish.  For that to happen, they and their partners will need to see their interests as aligned, and pull equally hard in the same direction over the long haul.

                     ------------
   The price of “Cadillac” membership at these two behemoth communities is roughly the same -- $60,000 at Reynolds, $50,000 at The Cliffs -- and grants access to all courses.  The following is an outline of the various membership options at Reynolds Plantation. (The Cliffs did not respond by press time to a request for a rundown on their membership plans, which we hope to publish next month.)  Dues are monthly.

Reynolds Plantation
Courses: Oconee, National (27 holes), Great Waters, Plantation, The Landing, Creek Club

Platinum Membership -- $60,000
Play at all 6 ½ golf courses, including the strictly private Creek Club; dues $719.00 ($24 per round for cart)
Gold Membership -- $35,000
Access to 5 courses (excluding Creek Club); dues $635 ($24 per round for cart)
Silver Membership -- $20,000
Access to Plantation & Landing courses; dues $512 per month
($24 per round for cart); or $208 per month ($74 per round green fee and cart on any course but Creek Club)

Reader Feedback

  We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
   I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

GolfHomesLIsted.com

Simple Math Indicates Golf Communities Rebounding

    Many of us are happy to have the silly season of national politics behind us, but I for one was glad to see the comeback of the notion of “basic arithmetic” during the recent campaign.  Simple math can explain a lot of things, such as what is happening with property prices in southern golf communities.  A process of addition, subtraction and a bit of division -– to arrive at percentages -– shows that prices are up from 2011 in enough golf communities to suggest that the bottom of the market has been reached, and that a rebound is at hand.
     Nationally, the respected Case-Shiller index of home prices reported an increase year to year of 2% in August, the month for which they have the most recent numbers.  Case-Shiller looks at 20 metro areas to come up with its composite average.  Importantly, prices in the Phoenix metro market, which is a magnet for retirees, were up a whopping 18% over August 2011, that market’s fourth consecutive monthly double-digit increase and by far the highest increase of all the 20 markets.  And although New York and Chicago had slightly negative price results, Minneapolis and Detroit prices in August were up well over 7% year to year.   This uptrend of prices in the north is important to the golf community market because it is likely to compel baby boomers to start offering their primary homes for sale and begin relocating in larger numbers to warmer climates.  There is some evidence that is already happening.

     Our friends at Local Market Monitor, real estate price forecasting experts, are a little more conservative in their assessments of price rises.  Their calculations are pegged largely -- but not entirely -- to employment trends.  They see markets like Naples, FL, and Charlottesville, VA, as "low risk" in terms of price appreciation, but express caution for markets like Savannah, Wilmington, NC, Asheville, NC, and Myrtle Beach, SC, where jobs are lagging.  Since Local Market Monitor assesses price trends for an entire metro market, it could be that the local golf communities present a more optimistic picture than the overall market (see our comments on The Landings in Savannah below, which seem to run contrary to the overall picture in Savannah).  Needless to say, those readers considering Naples and Charlottesville for possible relocation should feel especially optimistic.

The Evidence:  More customers, more sales, higher prices
     According to my discussions with real estate professionals in the southern U.S. who have been waiting for a re-migration south, their wait may be over.  For example, at Glenmore, a 500-acre community with a Scottish accent and a fine John LaFoy golf course just east of Charlottesville, VA, broker Tom Pace reports that house closings this year have already blown past 2011 numbers, 41 to 28.  Average prices in Glenmore dropped year to year by just 1.7% but third quarter results in 2011 and 2012 show an average price increase of 15.5%.  Tom has a diverse selection of properties for sale at our GolfHomesListed site.
     At The Landings on Skidaway Island, near Savannah, overall home sales from all area real estate agencies are up 18% year to year. Officials in the on-site real estate office at The Landings tell us they are selling at twice that rate.  The Landings is a nearly 40-year-old community with mostly re-sales remaining in its inventory; because many folks still prefer new construction, the fact that The Landings is selling increasing numbers of re-sales seems like evidence that the buying population is beginning to swell.  Landings Realty, which is owned and operated by The Landings property owners association, reports that its 108 buyers through mid-November represent its highest annual total since 2006 –- and the sales year is not quite over.
     Our Glenmore and Landings professionals sell properties in their own communities, but Realtors who are working with multiple golf communities also report strong year-to-year results.  
     Tom Jackson of Gateway Realty in Bluffton, SC, for example, represents buyers for some of the top golf communities in the Low Country, including Colleton River, Belfair and Berkeley Hall.  Tom reports that prices are up a little over 3% from 2011 in those Bluffton-area communities but that homes already sold or pending are up 12.5%, from 157 to 177, on a year-to-year basis.  Increased sales imply increased demand which, eventually, result in higher prices.


Inventory Shortages on the Horizon
    Nationally, inventories of homes on the market have dropped to less than six months, which real estate industry experts consider “in balance.”  Inventories in leisure residential communities are somewhat higher owing, in large measure, to all those mega-communities whose land sales dried up during the recession.
    “Land prices still don’t justify starting new developments,” says Ken Kirkman, “so we are likely only a couple of years away from an inventory shortage.”  Ken is worth listening to, given his combined experiences as an industry veteran, the head of the realty office at Landfall in Wilmington, NC, and the developer behind Carolina Colours in New Bern, NC, where he says traffic to check out the community’s reasonably priced homes is double what it was last year.  Since real estate pricing operates purely on the basis of supply and demand, expect prices to begin to accelerate faster in a few years if Ken's prediction about inventories is correct, barring any unforeseen world or national events.
     Ken recently provided residents at Landfall with an “annual report” of sales, indicating that median prices this year are up 10% over last year and sales up 20%.  He reports what we are hearing from other communities with home prices that stretch into the millions; “almost all the increase,” says Kirkman, “ is in the price-category under $750,000.”  Home sales in the $750K to $1 million range and those above $1 million are essentially flat year-to year.  Ken expects prices for lots and homes to rise as “the low stuff” comes off the market.  We expect a number of bargains to be available in the $1M+ price range for some months to come.

 

Justice for Wintergreen
     Marketing can affect pricing and sales volume in communities that have a good story to tell.  One such community is the Wintergreen Resort which spans more than 11,000 acres along and atop a section of the Blue Ridge Mountains, 45 minutes west of Charlottesville.  The community features both skiing and golf, including a 27-hole Rees Jones layout at the base of the mountain that is open year round, and 18 holes on top of the mountain (closed for the winter).  Last year, Bank of America shocked residents by yanking the community’s line of credit after a disappointing winter of snowfall and a falloff in skiing revenues.  Community leaders cut back on operations and released some staff to save money, but things still looked dire until Jim Justice, the billionaire rescuer of the famed Greenbrier Resort, stepped in.  The mere mention publicly that Justice had purchased Wintergreen and is currently spending $12 million to upgrade infrastructure and golf facilities had to be a factor in doubling third quarter sales this year compared with 2011, from 21 to 41, according to on-site sales professional Steve Marianella.  In addition, the average price of homes sold this year increased 7.6%, to $268,000.  It also doesn’t hurt that word is out that the most serious golfers at Wintergreen will have the option of private membership at the top-of-the-mountain Devil’s Knob course beginning in 2013.
     Jimmy Fuqua, a real estate professional at The Reserve on Lake Keowee in South Carolina, told me recently that housing in the community “bottomed out” last October, that the number of tours he is conducting at The Reserve are well up over 2011, and that the end of the year push to sell real estate is being encouraged with incentives for golf club membership for anyone who purchases a developer home site (prices begin at $80,000).  If you are interested in the details of the incentives, please send me a note.

 

Doubled Sales…and Pushing for More
     Reynolds Plantation, the giant golf community on Lake Oconee in Georgia now owned by MetLife, is not being coy about its own sales incentive program.  The real estate office there has had an excellent year, even in the wake of a transition to the new ownership.  Through August 20, Reynolds had doubled the total number of home sites and homes it sold compared with last year –- 41 to 83.  Sales volume increased a total of $13.5 million.  But the Reynolds sales arm is pushing hard for more volume between now and the end of the year, announcing an incentive program for those who buy a developer-owned home site.  Depending on the cost of the home site, Reynolds will throw in payment of one of the club's three levels of initiation fee, up to a $60,000 value (Reynolds has 6½ championship golf courses).  
    We don’t know how long such incentives will last, but as budgets are reconfigured at Reynolds and elsewhere in January, expect a flurry of marketing activity to advertise these buyer bonuses and to entice baby boomers into taking the money (on their primary homes) and running south to a new life.  By the way, we are pleased to note that Reynolds has signed up to list properties at our GolfHomesListed web site in the coming weeks.  In the meantime, if you would like an introduction to Jere Mills, who has been selling properties there for 20 years, please contact me.

 

Rising economy lifts all ships…and private club membership

    A recent article in Sarasota, FL’s Herald Tribune combined the unusual with the trite.  In reporting the faintly shocking news that respected developers Taylor Morrison had decided to build not one but two new golf courses in the Sarasota and Naples areas, the writer of the article felt compelled to remind us that the recession took its toll on golf courses and club membership rolls, instead of focusing harder on the real story -– that the confidence of Taylor Morrison and other developers may be an early signal that private club membership could be making something of a comeback.
     For fact rather than knee-jerk reaction, we turn to the National Golf Foundation, whose research is geared to help its clients in the golf industry prepare for the near- and longer-term future.  In that regard, we’ll trust the NGF over a local reporter whose research appears to have been conducted by reading other reporters' knee-jerk analyses of the golf industry.
     Fact, according to a recent NGF survey:  A majority of the more than two million private club members in the U.S. continue to see their membership as preferable to playing the local munis.  Whatever the drivers – feelings of exclusivity, a short commute from their homes, a better quality of golf course, extra amenities, a family experience, better networking potential or the je ne sais quoi of “prestige” -- those who resigned their memberships in the last decade indicated to NGF that they are considering a return now that their confidence is building in a recovering economy.  In fact, 59% of those who left their clubs four to six years ago could very well return, according to the NGF survey, while 48% of those who departed between six and 10 years ago are considering returning to their former private clubs.
     Let the golf club membership renaissance begin.


Bowden’s Market Barometer Interviews Me; free copy for you

    Bowden’s Market Barometer, a respected newsletter that follows golf industry news, including information about golf communities, features an interview with your editor, Larry Gavrich, in its November/December issue. The interview topic is Florida and its golf communities, with observations based substantially on my two-week trip along the Gulf Coast a couple of months ago.

     The Bowden newsletter, which runs to 32 pages, is jam packed with important information about the economy, the housing market, lifestyle trends among baby boomers, updates on golf businesses and golf communities, and important current events in the world of golf real estate.  If you would like a free copy of the issue (a $35 value), please ‘Click Here.’  I will be pleased to personally send you a copy.  (Please allow a week for delivery since I have cooking and hosting duties over the Thanksgiving weekend.)  Happy Holiday to you and yours.

 
 

Read my Blog This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
 

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© 2012 Golf Community Reviews
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November/December 2012

September 2012

 
    September 2012

 National Economic Outlook

 by Ingo Winzer

   Let's do the jobs math. In August, as in the preceding months, the number of jobs was 1.4 percent higher than last year. We're probably stuck at this growth rate which translates to 1.8 million new jobs per year.  Unemployment is at 8 percent but it rarely gets below 5 percent, so the "excess" unemployment is about 4 million. At 1.8 million per year it would take just a couple of years to put those 4 million back to work, but new people enter the workforce every day so it will probably take twice as long.
   What will accelerate the recovery is construction, which has been below replacement levels as we coped with an excess 4 million homes built during the boom. We've almost absorbed that excess and there will soon be unmet demand in many local markets; home prices have bottomed out in half of the 315 markets we cover. Other construction will also increase as state and local governments spend on delayed infrastructure projects.
   Low interest rates -- which contributed mightily to the housing bust and financial crisis -- can't create demand for housing (or for any kind of consumer spending, it's a bad policy in that regard) but they will facilitate the recovery in construction, both through low mortgage rates and low government bond financing.
   The upshot will be a boost to the general economy just when it needs it. We don't want back all the three million construction-related jobs lost in the recession -- that would put us back in another unsustainable boom -- but a million new construction jobs over the next few years is a strong possibility.
   Summing up the numbers: Jobs in August were up 1.4 percent from last year and unemployment eased down to 8.1 percent. Jobs were up 1.7 percent in manufacturing, up 2.1 percent in healthcare, up 2.5 percent at hotels and restaurants, and up 3.2 percent in business services. Retail jobs were up a sluggish half-percent and government jobs were down almost 1 percent. Retail sales through July were up 6 percent over last year, including a 9 percent increase for cars and for furniture, an 8 percent increase at bars and restaurants, and a 12 percent increase in on-line sales.

*

   Mr. Winzer is President of Local Market Monitor, and has analyzed real estate markets for more than 20 years. His views on real estate markets are often quoted in the national press and in 2005, he warned that many housing markets were dangerously over-priced. Previously, Winzer was a founder and Executive Vice President of First Research, an industry research company that was acquired by Dun and Bradstreet in March 2007. He is a graduate of MIT and holds an MBA in Finance from Boston University.  He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
   Local Market Monitor issues these outlooks monthly for its subscribers.  Readers of this newsletter are eligible for a discount on LMM subscriptions that range from a single report on one market to reports on all 300+ markets that LMM covers.  For a sample report, please register at GolfHomesListed.com and indicate the market in which you are interested (20 available).  For discount information, contact LMM editor Carolyn Beggs at LocalMarketMonitor.com and mention “Home On The Course.”

 

 

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

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Seeing Red:  Yes, most of the South is seriously conservative, but some golf communities sing the blue

    At a July 4th block party in front of our condominium in Pawleys Plantation in 2008, I got into a heated political discussion with a neighbor about the U.S. Presidential campaign.  We were like the popular notion of two Greeks at an Athens café, stammering about the stupidity of the other’s position.  Thankfully, like two such combative Greeks, we did not stop talking to each other the rest of the summer and after the election.
    That dustup, though, got me thinking that, for some of us who want our retirements to be free of hard-edged discourse and rancor, we might want to factor political considerations into our search for a golf community home in the southern U.S.  On the face of it, southern states are mostly “red,” although North Carolina and Virginia went purple in 2008.  It stands to reason, therefore, that most of the golf communities in the South would be located in counties that are red (conservative).  A progressive Democrat couple from, say, New York City who choose a golf community in a deeply red county could be in for painful election cycles during their retirement.  A conservative couple from, say, outside Dallas, TX, will doubtless feel more comfortable.

 

Oases of blue in sea of red
    To test my notion that the South sees red, I took a look at results by county for the 2008 election, and I was surprised to find that, even in a deeply red state like South Carolina, a few counties with golf communities we have visited voted for the Obama/Biden ticket, although most, as expected, opted for McCain/Palin.  In Richland County, for example, voters went almost 2 to 1 for the Democrat ticket. (Richland is home to state capital Columbia and the University of South Carolina’s main campus, as well as a few golf communities we have visited.)  Another surprise:  Most of the counties we looked at were decidedly purple; that is, neither party won with more than 55% of the vote.
    As a service to those who will consider the political leanings of their neighbors as one criterion in the search for a golf community home, we offer our barely scientific assessment of where golf communities we like rank along the spectrum from progressive to conservative, based on 2008 county-by-county election results.  Note that attitudes shift, sometimes en masse, and that some voting district boundaries have been realigned since the 2008 election.

 

"Some of my best friends are..."

   We understand that the political persuasion inside the gates of a community may not exactly reflect the attitudes of those living outside the gates, but in discussions with residents at a few communities on our list, we found mostly correlation.  For example, Henderson County in North Carolina went for McCain/Palin by more than 2 to 1 in 2008.  
   “I polled a few of my pals,” says Mike Tower, a resident of Champion Hills in county seat Hendersonville, and a columnist for the local newspaper, “and they think our community is 70/30 for the Republicans. I must say, though, that I have never heard a single negative exchange because of political beliefs.
   “It's more like ‘some of my best friends are....’"
   Interestingly, when Mike checked with the Hendersonville director of voter registrations, the breakdown of registrations was 40% Republican, 24% Democrat and 35% unaffiliated.
    Obviously, if you are looking for a golf home, your criteria will include factors other than politics.  I can help you identify those communities that most closely match all your requirements.  Please contact me to discuss which those might be.

 

All Politics Local
   In the following list, towns and selected golf communities in the local area are displayed by how their counties voted in the 2008 Presidential election:

More than 60% Republican (dark red)
55% to 60% Republican (light red)
Less than 55% for either party (purple)
55% to 60% Democrat (light blue)
More than 60% Democrat (dark blue)

Florida Bradenton Lakewood Ranch
River Strand
  Naples
Audubon
Heritage Bay
Imperial Estates
Mediterra
Olde Cypress
Vineyards
  Sarasota
Laurel Oak
Palm-Aire
Prestancia
  Stuart Willoughby
Georgia Eatonton Cuscowilla
  Greensboro Reynolds Plantation
  Richmond Hill Ford Plantation
  Savannah The Landings
  St. Mary Osprey Cove
North Carolina Asheville Reems Creek
  Burnsville Mountain Air
  Brunswick County
Brunswick Forest
Ocean Ridge Plantation
River’s Edge
St. James Plantation
  Chapel Hill Governors Club
  Durham Treyburn
 
Lake Norman
Peninsula Club
The Pointe
  New Bern Carolina Colours
  Wilmington
Landfall
Porters Neck
South Carolina Aiken
Cedar Creek Plantation
Mt. Vintage Plantation
Woodside Plantation
  Bluffton
Belfair
Berkeley Hall
Colleton River
Haig Point
Oldfield
  Charleston
Charleston National
Daniel Island
Dunes West
Rivertowne
Snee Farm
  Greenville
Cliffs at Glassy
Cliffs Valley
Greenville Country Club
Thornblade Club
  McCormick Savannah Lakes
  Myrtle Beach Barefoot Reserve, Grande Dunes, many others
  Pawleys Island
DeBordieu Colony, Pawleys Plantation, The Reserve at Litchfield,
Wachesaw Plantation
Virginia Aldie Creighton Farms
  Charlottesville Glenmore
Keswick
Old Trail
  New Kent Viniterra
  Richmond
Dominion
Federal Club
  Nellyford Wintergreen

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 
 

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    September 2012

 National Economic Outlook

 by Ingo Winzer

   Let's do the jobs math. In August, as in the preceding months, the number of jobs was 1.4 percent higher than last year. We're probably stuck at this growth rate which translates to 1.8 million new jobs per year.  Unemployment is at 8 percent but it rarely gets below 5 percent, so the "excess" unemployment is about 4 million. At 1.8 million per year it would take just a couple of years to put those 4 million back to work, but new people enter the workforce every day so it will probably take twice as long.
   What will accelerate the recovery is construction, which has been below replacement levels as we coped with an excess 4 million homes built during the boom. We've almost absorbed that excess and there will soon be unmet demand in many local markets; home prices have bottomed out in half of the 315 markets we cover. Other construction will also increase as state and local governments spend on delayed infrastructure projects.
   Low interest rates -- which contributed mightily to the housing bust and financial crisis -- can't create demand for housing (or for any kind of consumer spending, it's a bad policy in that regard) but they will facilitate the recovery in construction, both through low mortgage rates and low government bond financing.
   The upshot will be a boost to the general economy just when it needs it. We don't want back all the three million construction-related jobs lost in the recession -- that would put us back in another unsustainable boom -- but a million new construction jobs over the next few years is a strong possibility.
   Summing up the numbers: Jobs in August were up 1.4 percent from last year and unemployment eased down to 8.1 percent. Jobs were up 1.7 percent in manufacturing, up 2.1 percent in healthcare, up 2.5 percent at hotels and restaurants, and up 3.2 percent in business services. Retail jobs were up a sluggish half-percent and government jobs were down almost 1 percent. Retail sales through July were up 6 percent over last year, including a 9 percent increase for cars and for furniture, an 8 percent increase at bars and restaurants, and a 12 percent increase in on-line sales.

*

   Mr. Winzer is President of Local Market Monitor, and has analyzed real estate markets for more than 20 years. His views on real estate markets are often quoted in the national press and in 2005, he warned that many housing markets were dangerously over-priced. Previously, Winzer was a founder and Executive Vice President of First Research, an industry research company that was acquired by Dun and Bradstreet in March 2007. He is a graduate of MIT and holds an MBA in Finance from Boston University.  He resides in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
   Local Market Monitor issues these outlooks monthly for its subscribers.  Readers of this newsletter are eligible for a discount on LMM subscriptions that range from a single report on one market to reports on all 300+ markets that LMM covers.  For a sample report, please register at GolfHomesListed.com and indicate the market in which you are interested (20 available).  For discount information, contact LMM editor Carolyn Beggs at LocalMarketMonitor.com and mention “Home On The Course.”

 

 

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

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Seeing Red:  Yes, most of the South is seriously conservative, but some golf communities sing the blue

    At a July 4th block party in front of our condominium in Pawleys Plantation in 2008, I got into a heated political discussion with a neighbor about the U.S. Presidential campaign.  We were like the popular notion of two Greeks at an Athens café, stammering about the stupidity of the other’s position.  Thankfully, like two such combative Greeks, we did not stop talking to each other the rest of the summer and after the election.
    That dustup, though, got me thinking that, for some of us who want our retirements to be free of hard-edged discourse and rancor, we might want to factor political considerations into our search for a golf community home in the southern U.S.  On the face of it, southern states are mostly “red,” although North Carolina and Virginia went purple in 2008.  It stands to reason, therefore, that most of the golf communities in the South would be located in counties that are red (conservative).  A progressive Democrat couple from, say, New York City who choose a golf community in a deeply red county could be in for painful election cycles during their retirement.  A conservative couple from, say, outside Dallas, TX, will doubtless feel more comfortable.

 

Oases of blue in sea of red
    To test my notion that the South sees red, I took a look at results by county for the 2008 election, and I was surprised to find that, even in a deeply red state like South Carolina, a few counties with golf communities we have visited voted for the Obama/Biden ticket, although most, as expected, opted for McCain/Palin.  In Richland County, for example, voters went almost 2 to 1 for the Democrat ticket. (Richland is home to state capital Columbia and the University of South Carolina’s main campus, as well as a few golf communities we have visited.)  Another surprise:  Most of the counties we looked at were decidedly purple; that is, neither party won with more than 55% of the vote.
    As a service to those who will consider the political leanings of their neighbors as one criterion in the search for a golf community home, we offer our barely scientific assessment of where golf communities we like rank along the spectrum from progressive to conservative, based on 2008 county-by-county election results.  Note that attitudes shift, sometimes en masse, and that some voting district boundaries have been realigned since the 2008 election.

 

"Some of my best friends are..."

   We understand that the political persuasion inside the gates of a community may not exactly reflect the attitudes of those living outside the gates, but in discussions with residents at a few communities on our list, we found mostly correlation.  For example, Henderson County in North Carolina went for McCain/Palin by more than 2 to 1 in 2008.  
   “I polled a few of my pals,” says Mike Tower, a resident of Champion Hills in county seat Hendersonville, and a columnist for the local newspaper, “and they think our community is 70/30 for the Republicans. I must say, though, that I have never heard a single negative exchange because of political beliefs.
   “It's more like ‘some of my best friends are....’"
   Interestingly, when Mike checked with the Hendersonville director of voter registrations, the breakdown of registrations was 40% Republican, 24% Democrat and 35% unaffiliated.
    Obviously, if you are looking for a golf home, your criteria will include factors other than politics.  I can help you identify those communities that most closely match all your requirements.  Please contact me to discuss which those might be.

 

All Politics Local
   In the following list, towns and selected golf communities in the local area are displayed by how their counties voted in the 2008 Presidential election:

More than 60% Republican (dark red)
55% to 60% Republican (light red)
Less than 55% for either party (purple)
55% to 60% Democrat (light blue)
More than 60% Democrat (dark blue)

Florida Bradenton Lakewood Ranch
River Strand
  Naples
Audubon
Heritage Bay
Imperial Estates
Mediterra
Olde Cypress
Vineyards
  Sarasota
Laurel Oak
Palm-Aire
Prestancia
  Stuart Willoughby
Georgia Eatonton Cuscowilla
  Greensboro Reynolds Plantation
  Richmond Hill Ford Plantation
  Savannah The Landings
  St. Mary Osprey Cove
North Carolina Asheville Reems Creek
  Burnsville Mountain Air
  Brunswick County
Brunswick Forest
Ocean Ridge Plantation
River’s Edge
St. James Plantation
  Chapel Hill Governors Club
  Durham Treyburn
 
Lake Norman
Peninsula Club
The Pointe
  New Bern Carolina Colours
  Wilmington
Landfall
Porters Neck
South Carolina Aiken
Cedar Creek Plantation
Mt. Vintage Plantation
Woodside Plantation
  Bluffton
Belfair
Berkeley Hall
Colleton River
Haig Point
Oldfield
  Charleston
Charleston National
Daniel Island
Dunes West
Rivertowne
Snee Farm
  Greenville
Cliffs at Glassy
Cliffs Valley
Greenville Country Club
Thornblade Club
  McCormick Savannah Lakes
  Myrtle Beach Barefoot Reserve, Grande Dunes, many others
  Pawleys Island
DeBordieu Colony, Pawleys Plantation, The Reserve at Litchfield,
Wachesaw Plantation
Virginia Aldie Creighton Farms
  Charlottesville Glenmore
Keswick
Old Trail
  New Kent Viniterra
  Richmond
Dominion
Federal Club
  Nellyford Wintergreen

 

 

 


 

 

 

 

 

 
 

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October 2012

 
    October 2012

  When the going gets tough, the tough get marketing 

   Bouquets to the Daniel Island Company, the sales and marketing arm of the South Carolina community just 15 minutes from Charleston and five minutes from the international airport.  As competing golf communities have cut their marketing budgets drastically, Daniel Island’s promotions continue to pop up regularly in golf magazines and, on one recent Friday, across the entire top of a page dedicated to “Golf Properties” in the Wall Street Journal (no insignificant investment that).  The Journal had been pitching this special advertising “section” for weeks, but either golf community advertisers have canceled their subscriptions to the newspaper and didn’t realize they had such an  “opportunity,” or they have other places to spend tens of thousands of dollars.  Only La Purisima, a 25-year old club in Lompoc, CA, and the WSJ’s own ad for its next “special” section, “Waterfront Properties,” shared the special “Golf Properties” section with Daniel Island.
    Whether this is a smart ad buy or not for Daniel Island, we think it says something about a community that is willing to strut its stuff in a big, bold way while many of its competitors focus on relentless promotional emails to the same data base of names and beg for visitors to their web sites to “like” them on Facebook.  For a sample of some of the many fine golf properties for sale on Daniel Island, check out GolfHomesListed.com or contact me atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Deep in heart of taxes
   Time and again, I urge customers to look beyond the no-income tax status of states like Florida and Texas and, instead, to look at a state's entire tax burden.  These zero-income-tax states might work well for million dollar retiree incomes, but most of us are reliant on pensions, social security and some modest investment income of a somewhat lower annual total.  Property and sales tax rates could mean just as much to us as do income taxes.
    This idea is supported by the folks at Kiplinger, who provide helpful information for retirees in easy to digest formats on the Internet.  In the case of taxes, Kiplinger provides a map with a state-by-state rundown.  Nine states have no income tax; in the southern U.S., these states include Texas, Tennessee and Florida.  Yet when Kiplinger looks at the total tax burdens in all states, the friendliest states for retirees do not include Florida, Texas or Tennessee.  In fact the only states in the nation that make both lists are Nevada and Alaska.
    In short, if you are contemplating a move south and are worried about the overall tax burden that awaits you, consider seriously these states from Kiplinger’s Top 10 list:
Alabama
Georgia
Louisiana
Mississippi
South Carolina
  For Kiplinger’s complete rundown on taxes by state, click here.

  In Georgia, you can see a current list of golf homes for sale in Ford Plantation and The Landings.

  Our list of golf homes for sale in South Carolina golf communtiies includes a selection in:

Bluffton/Okatie

Charleston

Daufuskie Island

Greenville

Pawleys Island

Coming soon:  Myrtle Beach

 

Reader Feedback

We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

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What Buyers Want:  Supermarket or extra golf course?

    As a city boy –- born in The Bronx, NY, raised within 30 minutes of Newark, NJ, and never lived more than a couple of hours from a major city –- I'm inclined to ask customers looking for a golf community home how far they want to be from urban-associated conveniences like major airports, shopping malls, universities, museums, and even professional sports teams.  About half don’t mind being an hour away, as if the major point of retirement –- as well as vacation time -– is to avoid traffic.  As a former New York City commuter, I am strongly sympathetic to that notion, yet there are tradeoffs when you choose a remotely located golf community.  My own vacation home in South Carolina, for example, an hour from the great city of Charleston (and an additional hour for the return trip), is about a half hour too far away for my own comfort.  But it is fine for now since my wife and I use the home less than three months a year; if we decide to live there full-time, our enthusiasm might erode.

Remote communities count on the inside game
     Remotely located golf communities that have tried to attract retirees have struggled disproportionately during the housing recession.  Large, out-there golf communities, like some of The Cliffs Communities and Reynolds Plantation, began straining financially even before the Lehman Brothers crash of September 2008.  Part of the problem certainly was management’s false sense that the housing market would continue up, up and away forever, and that they could charge $1 million for a nice patch of mountain property to compensate for the extreme investment they made in a full roster of amenities, such as wellness centers, plush clubhouses and impeccable designer golf.  The amenities load not only was an attempt to justify the high price tags for land, homes and fees, but also to compensate for the reality that, at most of these locations, there just wasn’t much to do outside the gates.
     “It is a stunningly gorgeous place, with tremendous golf courses and other amenities,” one of my customers wrote me after a visit two years ago to Reynolds Plantation, more than 90 minutes from central Atlanta. “But there is nothing to do outside the community.”  
    This couple will soon build a home on a golf course lot they purchased at Governors Club in Chapel Hill, NC, with 27-holes of Jack Nicklaus golf but, more important, a vibrant university town about 10 minutes away (and a Whole Foods supermarket even closer).  It may not be a coincidence that the most successful Cliffs developments in terms of sales have been the Cliffs at Glassy and Cliffs Valley, 48 and 30 minutes from Greenville, respectively, and Walnut Cove, just 10 miles from Asheville.  (Glassy and Valley opened earlier than the other Cliffs communities but, still, did not have to overcome the proximity issues.)  The more remote Cliffs communities in the Lake Keowee area seem to appeal largely to second-home owners, many from the Atlanta area, nearly three hours away.


Make the world go away
    A managing partner at the fine community of Uwharrie Point, on Badin Lake in North Carolina, took me to task a couple of years ago for an article I wrote that referenced Uwharrie’s distance from life’s important conveniences.
     “…our location is a significant asset,” he wrote of the community that is 25 minutes from the town of Albermarle, population 15,000, and 75 minutes from Charlotte.  “…we have always seen our primary market as those looking to get away from something…rather than looking to find something.”  
    I thought at the time this was a massive misunderstanding of the baby boomer generation’s search for an active and entertaining retirement.  I still believe that; the dozens of customers who have filled out my questionnaire about their requirements for a golf home are definitely looking to find a particular lifestyle that suits them.  (They never volunteer that they are looking to avoid traffic or any other urban inconveniences.)  However, I do think Uwharrie’s developer may have spoken for his fellow developers in pitching remoteness as an asset and the amenities inside the gate as enough to make the rest of the world go away.  And, frankly, for some golf community residents, especially vacation-home owners, a relaxing environment far from the hustle and bustle of “normal” life is indeed an asset.  But active retirees who choose to live full-time in a remote community run the risk of growing weary of driving 90 minutes round-trip to a good restaurant or two hours to a museum.

 

How do you keep ‘em down on the farm…?
     In order to overcome the natural disinclination for life at long distances from some of the bare necessities of life, like supermarkets, hospitals and, some would say, a movie theater, remote golf communities typically spend extra on marketing campaigns to convince potential buyers that they really won’t need to leave the plantation, that there is plenty to do on site.  This rationale demands relentless marketing; yet, the first thing most businesses do during a downturn is to cut expenses, and none are more discretionary than marketing expenses. (I spent 30 years in corporate communication, and whenever sales and profits went soft, the CFO looked first to eviscerate the advertising and marketing budgets.)  That reaction may make sense for well-established businesses with products that have great brand recognition and few noteworthy competitors…
    …but The Cliffs Communities, Reynolds Plantation, Haig Point on Daufuskie Island, SC, which is reached by the community's own scheduled ferry service only, and remotely located developments like them have plenty of competition in the southeast and face higher hurdles in convincing sophisticated potential buyers to put down roots 20 minutes from a supermarket and two-hours round-trip from a decent selection of urban restaurants.  Back in the heady days of the early 2000s, The Cliffs spent $14 million annually on marketing to convince its target audience that, in a few of its communities, access to six golf courses, deluxe wellness centers and a roster of other lush amenities compensated for the 45 minutes or longer drive to Greenville.  The promise of a Tiger Woods golf course, and an appearance or two by Tiger himself, was part of The Cliffs’ mid-2000s strategy to make people forget that the site of the Woods golf course, High Carolina in the North Carolina mountain town of Swannanoa, was miles from anywhere.  (See current homes for sale in The Cliffs' Greenville, SC, area communities.)

 

Chicken and Egg:  Extra golf course or supermarket?
     The Tiger Woods golf course, which would be the eighth in the Cliffs portfolio, may or may not be completed eventually; The Cliffs’ new owners aren’t saying anything publicly but the volume of sales of properties at High Carolina will likely determine the golf course's fate.  (Note:  The new owners of The Cliffs are following through on original developer Jim Anthony's commitment to the Gary Player golf course at Mountain Park; it should be ready for play in 2013.)  In retrospect, Mr. Anthony might have used the reported $15 to $20 million he paid the unproven architect Mr. Woods to help finance the construction of a supermarket, small mall and other conveniences just outside the gates of the community. (Developers, of course, may consider such a suggestion a golf blogger’s madness; without any embedded local population, they’d argue, who would patronize the mall?  All true, but which is chicken and which is egg, the people or the conveniences that could very well attract the people?)
    Most golf communities that skated through the housing disaster unscathed seem to share one trait in common –- they are within easy driving distance of cities.  For example, Brunswick Forest in Leland, NC, is just 10 minutes from the vibrant and healthy city of Wilmington.  During the recession, Brunswick Forest has welcomed 900 new owners to the community since 2007, the best sales record in the east over that time except for the mammoth Villages in central Florida.  It is interesting that Brunswick Forest, coincident with its initial sales efforts, saw fit to announce a mall would be built at its entrance, even though a fair amount of shopping is less than three minutes up Highway 17.  The mall, including a bank and medical offices, opened a few years ago.  (See current golf homes for sale at Brunswick Forest.)

     The Landings on Skidaway Island, a huge 30-year old development, has long since paid for its amenities, but its six golf clubs faced some challenges during the recession as its residents, some on fixed, if ample, incomes, sought to cut discretionary expenses.  But The Landings was able to continue to sell homes, most of them resales, because prices dropped significantly and potential buyers sought the convenience of a city -- in this case Savannah -- just 20 minutes from The Landings' front gates.  (Current golf homes for sale at The Landings.)
     It will be interesting to see in the coming months and years if big, highly amenitized remote communities turn their attention almost fully to potential vacation homeowners whose need for outside-the-gates conveniences is less important than they are for year-round residents.  Those developers who continue to focus on attracting full-time residents to communities an hour or more from a city had better be prepared to pump up their marketing budgets in order to persuade potential full-time homeowners that what is inside the gates more than makes up for what’s not outside.

 

 
 

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    October 2012

  When the going gets tough, the tough get marketing 

   Bouquets to the Daniel Island Company, the sales and marketing arm of the South Carolina community just 15 minutes from Charleston and five minutes from the international airport.  As competing golf communities have cut their marketing budgets drastically, Daniel Island’s promotions continue to pop up regularly in golf magazines and, on one recent Friday, across the entire top of a page dedicated to “Golf Properties” in the Wall Street Journal (no insignificant investment that).  The Journal had been pitching this special advertising “section” for weeks, but either golf community advertisers have canceled their subscriptions to the newspaper and didn’t realize they had such an  “opportunity,” or they have other places to spend tens of thousands of dollars.  Only La Purisima, a 25-year old club in Lompoc, CA, and the WSJ’s own ad for its next “special” section, “Waterfront Properties,” shared the special “Golf Properties” section with Daniel Island.
    Whether this is a smart ad buy or not for Daniel Island, we think it says something about a community that is willing to strut its stuff in a big, bold way while many of its competitors focus on relentless promotional emails to the same data base of names and beg for visitors to their web sites to “like” them on Facebook.  For a sample of some of the many fine golf properties for sale on Daniel Island, check out GolfHomesListed.com or contact me atThis email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Deep in heart of taxes
   Time and again, I urge customers to look beyond the no-income tax status of states like Florida and Texas and, instead, to look at a state's entire tax burden.  These zero-income-tax states might work well for million dollar retiree incomes, but most of us are reliant on pensions, social security and some modest investment income of a somewhat lower annual total.  Property and sales tax rates could mean just as much to us as do income taxes.
    This idea is supported by the folks at Kiplinger, who provide helpful information for retirees in easy to digest formats on the Internet.  In the case of taxes, Kiplinger provides a map with a state-by-state rundown.  Nine states have no income tax; in the southern U.S., these states include Texas, Tennessee and Florida.  Yet when Kiplinger looks at the total tax burdens in all states, the friendliest states for retirees do not include Florida, Texas or Tennessee.  In fact the only states in the nation that make both lists are Nevada and Alaska.
    In short, if you are contemplating a move south and are worried about the overall tax burden that awaits you, consider seriously these states from Kiplinger’s Top 10 list:
Alabama
Georgia
Louisiana
Mississippi
South Carolina
  For Kiplinger’s complete rundown on taxes by state, click here.

  In Georgia, you can see a current list of golf homes for sale in Ford Plantation and The Landings.

  Our list of golf homes for sale in South Carolina golf communtiies includes a selection in:

Bluffton/Okatie

Charleston

Daufuskie Island

Greenville

Pawleys Island

Coming soon:  Myrtle Beach

 

Reader Feedback

We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

GolfHomesLIsted.com

What Buyers Want:  Supermarket or extra golf course?

    As a city boy –- born in The Bronx, NY, raised within 30 minutes of Newark, NJ, and never lived more than a couple of hours from a major city –- I'm inclined to ask customers looking for a golf community home how far they want to be from urban-associated conveniences like major airports, shopping malls, universities, museums, and even professional sports teams.  About half don’t mind being an hour away, as if the major point of retirement –- as well as vacation time -– is to avoid traffic.  As a former New York City commuter, I am strongly sympathetic to that notion, yet there are tradeoffs when you choose a remotely located golf community.  My own vacation home in South Carolina, for example, an hour from the great city of Charleston (and an additional hour for the return trip), is about a half hour too far away for my own comfort.  But it is fine for now since my wife and I use the home less than three months a year; if we decide to live there full-time, our enthusiasm might erode.

Remote communities count on the inside game
     Remotely located golf communities that have tried to attract retirees have struggled disproportionately during the housing recession.  Large, out-there golf communities, like some of The Cliffs Communities and Reynolds Plantation, began straining financially even before the Lehman Brothers crash of September 2008.  Part of the problem certainly was management’s false sense that the housing market would continue up, up and away forever, and that they could charge $1 million for a nice patch of mountain property to compensate for the extreme investment they made in a full roster of amenities, such as wellness centers, plush clubhouses and impeccable designer golf.  The amenities load not only was an attempt to justify the high price tags for land, homes and fees, but also to compensate for the reality that, at most of these locations, there just wasn’t much to do outside the gates.
     “It is a stunningly gorgeous place, with tremendous golf courses and other amenities,” one of my customers wrote me after a visit two years ago to Reynolds Plantation, more than 90 minutes from central Atlanta. “But there is nothing to do outside the community.”  
    This couple will soon build a home on a golf course lot they purchased at Governors Club in Chapel Hill, NC, with 27-holes of Jack Nicklaus golf but, more important, a vibrant university town about 10 minutes away (and a Whole Foods supermarket even closer).  It may not be a coincidence that the most successful Cliffs developments in terms of sales have been the Cliffs at Glassy and Cliffs Valley, 48 and 30 minutes from Greenville, respectively, and Walnut Cove, just 10 miles from Asheville.  (Glassy and Valley opened earlier than the other Cliffs communities but, still, did not have to overcome the proximity issues.)  The more remote Cliffs communities in the Lake Keowee area seem to appeal largely to second-home owners, many from the Atlanta area, nearly three hours away.


Make the world go away
    A managing partner at the fine community of Uwharrie Point, on Badin Lake in North Carolina, took me to task a couple of years ago for an article I wrote that referenced Uwharrie’s distance from life’s important conveniences.
     “…our location is a significant asset,” he wrote of the community that is 25 minutes from the town of Albermarle, population 15,000, and 75 minutes from Charlotte.  “…we have always seen our primary market as those looking to get away from something…rather than looking to find something.”  
    I thought at the time this was a massive misunderstanding of the baby boomer generation’s search for an active and entertaining retirement.  I still believe that; the dozens of customers who have filled out my questionnaire about their requirements for a golf home are definitely looking to find a particular lifestyle that suits them.  (They never volunteer that they are looking to avoid traffic or any other urban inconveniences.)  However, I do think Uwharrie’s developer may have spoken for his fellow developers in pitching remoteness as an asset and the amenities inside the gate as enough to make the rest of the world go away.  And, frankly, for some golf community residents, especially vacation-home owners, a relaxing environment far from the hustle and bustle of “normal” life is indeed an asset.  But active retirees who choose to live full-time in a remote community run the risk of growing weary of driving 90 minutes round-trip to a good restaurant or two hours to a museum.

 

How do you keep ‘em down on the farm…?
     In order to overcome the natural disinclination for life at long distances from some of the bare necessities of life, like supermarkets, hospitals and, some would say, a movie theater, remote golf communities typically spend extra on marketing campaigns to convince potential buyers that they really won’t need to leave the plantation, that there is plenty to do on site.  This rationale demands relentless marketing; yet, the first thing most businesses do during a downturn is to cut expenses, and none are more discretionary than marketing expenses. (I spent 30 years in corporate communication, and whenever sales and profits went soft, the CFO looked first to eviscerate the advertising and marketing budgets.)  That reaction may make sense for well-established businesses with products that have great brand recognition and few noteworthy competitors…
    …but The Cliffs Communities, Reynolds Plantation, Haig Point on Daufuskie Island, SC, which is reached by the community's own scheduled ferry service only, and remotely located developments like them have plenty of competition in the southeast and face higher hurdles in convincing sophisticated potential buyers to put down roots 20 minutes from a supermarket and two-hours round-trip from a decent selection of urban restaurants.  Back in the heady days of the early 2000s, The Cliffs spent $14 million annually on marketing to convince its target audience that, in a few of its communities, access to six golf courses, deluxe wellness centers and a roster of other lush amenities compensated for the 45 minutes or longer drive to Greenville.  The promise of a Tiger Woods golf course, and an appearance or two by Tiger himself, was part of The Cliffs’ mid-2000s strategy to make people forget that the site of the Woods golf course, High Carolina in the North Carolina mountain town of Swannanoa, was miles from anywhere.  (See current homes for sale in The Cliffs' Greenville, SC, area communities.)

 

Chicken and Egg:  Extra golf course or supermarket?
     The Tiger Woods golf course, which would be the eighth in the Cliffs portfolio, may or may not be completed eventually; The Cliffs’ new owners aren’t saying anything publicly but the volume of sales of properties at High Carolina will likely determine the golf course's fate.  (Note:  The new owners of The Cliffs are following through on original developer Jim Anthony's commitment to the Gary Player golf course at Mountain Park; it should be ready for play in 2013.)  In retrospect, Mr. Anthony might have used the reported $15 to $20 million he paid the unproven architect Mr. Woods to help finance the construction of a supermarket, small mall and other conveniences just outside the gates of the community. (Developers, of course, may consider such a suggestion a golf blogger’s madness; without any embedded local population, they’d argue, who would patronize the mall?  All true, but which is chicken and which is egg, the people or the conveniences that could very well attract the people?)
    Most golf communities that skated through the housing disaster unscathed seem to share one trait in common –- they are within easy driving distance of cities.  For example, Brunswick Forest in Leland, NC, is just 10 minutes from the vibrant and healthy city of Wilmington.  During the recession, Brunswick Forest has welcomed 900 new owners to the community since 2007, the best sales record in the east over that time except for the mammoth Villages in central Florida.  It is interesting that Brunswick Forest, coincident with its initial sales efforts, saw fit to announce a mall would be built at its entrance, even though a fair amount of shopping is less than three minutes up Highway 17.  The mall, including a bank and medical offices, opened a few years ago.  (See current golf homes for sale at Brunswick Forest.)

     The Landings on Skidaway Island, a huge 30-year old development, has long since paid for its amenities, but its six golf clubs faced some challenges during the recession as its residents, some on fixed, if ample, incomes, sought to cut discretionary expenses.  But The Landings was able to continue to sell homes, most of them resales, because prices dropped significantly and potential buyers sought the convenience of a city -- in this case Savannah -- just 20 minutes from The Landings' front gates.  (Current golf homes for sale at The Landings.)
     It will be interesting to see in the coming months and years if big, highly amenitized remote communities turn their attention almost fully to potential vacation homeowners whose need for outside-the-gates conveniences is less important than they are for year-round residents.  Those developers who continue to focus on attracting full-time residents to communities an hour or more from a city had better be prepared to pump up their marketing budgets in order to persuade potential full-time homeowners that what is inside the gates more than makes up for what’s not outside.

 

 
 

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October 2012

September 2012

August 2012

 
    August 2012

 Golf Home
Finder Kit™: 

The tools you need to find
your dream home on the course

   The Internet is loaded with so much information about real estate that it is hard to separate fact from marketing hype.  Now, in one nice little package, we are pleased to announce our own Golf Home Finder Kit™ with the tools to make your search for a golf home easier and much more efficient.
   The Kit includes a free real estate market report for one of 20 popular golf destinations (your choice).  The report is provided by Local Market Monitor, which for more than 20 years has forecast real estate price swings in behalf of banks, investors and individuals looking to purchase property.  LMM currently sells its individual market reports for $199 each, but when you register for the Golf Home Finder Kit, you can choose one of the 20 reports with our compliments (and LMM will offer you a discount on a subscription to their service).
   In addition, when you register, you also receive the latest issue of Bowden’s Market Barometer, one of the most respected publications in the golf-related real estate industry.  Bowden’s has long been the go-to newsletter for golf industry professionals and real estate developers looking to get ahead of emerging trends and issues in golf real estate; but many savvy buyers of golf real estate have turned to Bowden's as well for an advantage in their search for golf properties.  The retail value of an edition of Bowden’s is $35, but when you register for the Golf Home Finder Kit, you receive a free copy and the offer of a nice discount on an annual subscription.
   The Golf Home Finder Kit also provides you with full access to GolfHomesListed, our companion web site, that includes pages and pages of listings of golf homes currently for sale in some of the South’s top golf communities (see below), organized by individual golf community to make searching easier.  And we provide you with automatic updates whenever a new property is posted to a community on your list of favorites.  We have just added a total of 10 communities in the Naples and Sarasota/Bradenton areas, and more communities and their properties are signing on every month.  
   We are confident we have the most organized site on the web for couples looking for their dream home on the course.  Check it out for yourself by signing up today at GolfHomesListed.com.  And if you have any questions about the web site or about what golf communities might best match your requirements, please contact me, Larry Gavrich.

Golf Homes for Sale in Top Communities

     At GolfHomesListed, properties (lots and homes) are currently listed for sale in the following communities:

Florida -- Naples
     Audubon
     Heritage Bay
     Imperial Estates
     Mediterra
     Olde Cypress
     Vineyards

Florida -- Sarasote/Bradenton
     Lakewood Ranch
     Laurel Oak
     Palm-Aire
     Prestancia
     River Strand

Georgia -- Savannah
     Ford Plantation
     The Landings

No. Carolina -- Asheville area
     Champion Hills
     Mountain Air

No. Carolina -- Brunswick County
     Ocean Ridge Plantation

No. Carolina -- New Bern
     Carolina Colours

No. Carolina -- Chapel Hill
     Governors Club

No. Carolina -- Wilmington/Southport
     Brunswick Forest
     Landfall
     St. James Plantation

So. Carolina -- Bluffton/Okatie
     Belfair
     Berkeley Hall
     Colleton River
     Oldfield

So. Carolina -- Charleston
     Daniel Island

So. Carolina -- Daufuskie Island
     Haig Point

So. Carolina -- Greenville
     Cliffs Communities
     Thornblade Club

So. Carolina -- Pawleys Island
     Pawleys Plantation
     Wachesaw Plantation

Virginia -- Charlottesville
     Glenmore
     Old Trail
     Wintergreen

Virginia -- Richmond/Williamsburg
     Viniterra

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

GolfHomesLIsted.com

Your Parents’ Florida…All Over Again

    My grandparents, Max and Jenny, had one big dream when Max’s days as the owner of a parking garage in the Bronx, NY, were over:  Move to Florida.  In the early 1950s, they did just that, buying a small Miami home for a couple of thousand dollars.  They lived in that house for the next three decades. (At age five, I caught my first fish in a stream in the backyard, an eel actually.)  Pioneers, in a sense, Max and Jenny were followed to the Sunshine State by millions of other northerners seeking warm winters, low taxes and the early-bird specials at the local smorgasbord, which became one symbol of a low-cost retirement lifestyle.  
    Never mind that comedians tabbed Florida as “God’s Waiting Room.” The next generation, my parents included, looked to Florida as a place to avoid the harsh winters of the north, setting up camp in November each year and heading north before the high-temperature, high-humidity southern summers.  The Interstate road systems only made the back and forth easier.  This generation had the resources to live in two places, and many of them preserved those resources by living in Florida for six months and a day in order to qualify as residents of the no-income-tax state.

Near-death experience for “God’s Waiting Room”
     As the next generation –- many of you and me -- began to reach pre-retirement and retirement years, it became our turn to look southward for vacation and permanent homes.  But as the new century began, Florida faced growing competition from the coastal and mountainous Carolinas and a conspiracy of negatives that included damaging hurricanes (and high insurance rates), a rapidly changing demographic pattern and infrastructure issues (clogged highways, sinkholes, aging water systems) that started to prick at the Florida balloon.  Real estate speculation only exacerbated the problem.
    In 2008, after the Wall Street crash, the roaring construction industry in Florida ground to a halt and thousands of workers fled north in a desperate attempt to find work -– any work.  Florida suffered its first net population loss in 50 years, and the state’s future prospects looked bleak.  
    But sunshine is indeed a great disinfectant.  The reverse migration was only temporary, thanks to an incrementally improving national economy and the forces of the huge baby boomer demographic.  Today, based on official reports and my own observations during a two-week trip to the Gulf Coast areas from Sarasota to Naples, the “snowbirds” are back, new golf homes are going up en masse and prices, though recovering, are still dramatically lower than their peak in 2006, after which some golf community homeowners in top developments saw their market values erode by as much as 75%.  
    When supply and demand start to meet each other, the formula for price increases is in place.  The residential construction business is back with a vengeance along the Gulf Coast of Florida, even as Miami and Orlando continue to suffer the overhang of too much inventory and speculation.  A case can be made that those with an eye on the more attractive areas of Florida as a part- or full-time residence might want to plan a real estate visit soon.  (We are happy to help with ideas and arrangements; please contact us.)


The State of golf
   There are more golf courses in the state of Florida than any other, and by a good margin. As of last year, Florida could boast a total of 1,261 18-hole equivalent golf courses, with the much bigger California second at 1,007.  Texas was the only other southern state in the top five, with 906 golf courses.
   The Florida golf boom, of course, was driven by golf community development.  Even without the housing crisis and the migration halt beginning in 2007, Florida had way more golf courses than was sustainable economically.  It still does.  Florida is a buyer’s market for golf.  Membership initiation fees in most clubs are way down from their historic highs, by as much as 50%.  I played golf last week at a few private courses in notoriously expensive Naples, including the attractive Imperial Golf Club, where joining fees are just $8,000 for 36 holes of golf.  The club has raised dues in only one of the last four years (annual dues are less than $7,500 for a couple.)  Imperial's prices are reflective of many of their private club competitors.    
    But price cuts alone cannot distinguish clubs from each other; some are resorting to creative arrangements in behalf of their members.  In recognition that many of their members own homes north and south, some Florida clubs have forged relationships with northern golf clubs for reciprocal arrangements for their members.  The aforementioned Imperial Golf Club, for example, touts a “North/South Alliance” with more than a dozen clubs above the Mason/Dixon line, including those in Rutland, VT, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati.  Imperial members receive dining and golf privileges at these northern clubs when they are back north during the summer and, of course, Imperial returns the favor to the northern clubs’ members during winter.
     Some private club strategies have nothing to do with money.  Subtly, private golf courses in Florida have designed their layouts to accommodate their aging populations and keep them playing well into their golden years.  I played a few golf courses during the week where the average age of the club members was north of 65.  Developers were conscious that their residents and members would eventually get to an age at which straight, 200+ yard drives were a distant memory.  Therefore, most of the private golf courses near the Gulf Coast in Florida will not exhaust the average golfer.  The fairways are generous, the greens generally large and the lakes and ponds, though plentiful, mostly aesthetic accoutrements on all but the most challenging layouts.  Although a single-digit handicapper might have to recede to the back tees to find some of these layouts challenging, former single-digit handicappers who can still chip and putt like a youngster will find they might still have a shot at a score in the 80s… in their 80s.

 

Six months and a day
    Florida levies no tax on its citizens’ income, whether it derives from work or pension payments.  Of course, income tax is not the only tax we pay, but even considering all the other tax burdens, Florida ranks as the fourth best overall state for taxation, although its property tax rates generally rank in the middle of the pack for all states.
     We know folks who circle specific dates on their calendars for when they will leave their northern home and head south to their Florida home in order to spend 183 days, or half the year and a day, in Florida.  As official residents of the Sunshine State, they qualify for the more favorable tax treatment. To some of us, hustling down south on a date specific might seem an awful bother to save a few dollars, but it all depends on your income.  Take a couple living half the year in Stamford, CT, one of the most expensive metro areas in the nation.  If they lived in, say, Sarasota year round, their cost of living would drop by 35%.  Most of that is because housing is so much cheaper, but taxation accounts for some of it as well.  Connecticut is the fourth highest tax-burdened state, making Florida’s position at 47th look awfully good.

 

Boom, Bust, Boom
    Florida offers shelter to fit every budget and every lifestyle consideration.  During my two weeks along the Gulf Coast, I walked through brand new condos in the $100s and teed off alongside sports commentator Dick Vitale’s 25,000 square foot estate, which probably cost around $5 million.  In between, the choices are virtually limitless at all price points.  According to our Realtor in Naples, Jeff Feldman, local prices dropped more than 50% during the 2008 crisis, reaching the levels of the mid to late 1990s.  Now, he says, prices have recovered to about 2002/03 levels, or about 35% off peak.
     “It could be 20 years before we get back to where we were,” he says, “but in the meantime, we are seeing a steady recovery in prices.”
     The extent of the price recovery may be governed by supply.  Builders who were chomping at the bit to start to push dirt around on the thousands of acres to the east of Interstate 75 have begun to do so in earnest.  I spent the week in a condo at Heritage Bay, a Lennar development with 27 holes of golf that is 20 minutes from the Gulf and seemed in full construction mode.  Condos are priced at Heritage Bay starting in the $100s and single-family homes, some with views of lake and golf, begin in the $400s.  Full golf membership, including all the typical amenities like pool, fitness and tennis, as well as access to a huge clubhouse, is included in the price of all homes at Heritage Bay.
    Check out the listings in the 10 communities in Naples and the Sarasota/Bradenton area that we have posted at GolfHomesListed.  They only begin to scratch the surface of what’s available through our real estate professionals there, Jeff Feldman and Dennis Boyle, respectively.

 

Final Words about Florida in the summer

    Yes, it’s hot, but for those who can stand the relentless heat and humidity of Florida summers, the benefits can be extreme.  The courses are wide open for walk-up play; I played a three-hour round over 18 holes last week, and our starting time was the popular 8 a.m., before the hottest part of the day.  Almost all the private clubs have reciprocal arrangements with virtually all the other clubs in the Naples and Sarasota/Bradenton areas from May to November, providing the itinerant golfer with endless options (and no traffic).  But if you are not a private club member, you and your dramatically reduced green fee payment will be welcomed with open arms at any of the dozens of fine public and semi-private courses in Naples and Sarasota.  And, psst, a few of the private clubs might take your money as well. 

 
 

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Your Subscription:
[SUBSCRIPTIONS]

© 2011 Golf Community Reviews
 
    August 2012

 Golf Home
Finder Kit™: 

The tools you need to find
your dream home on the course

   The Internet is loaded with so much information about real estate that it is hard to separate fact from marketing hype.  Now, in one nice little package, we are pleased to announce our own Golf Home Finder Kit™ with the tools to make your search for a golf home easier and much more efficient.
   The Kit includes a free real estate market report for one of 20 popular golf destinations (your choice).  The report is provided by Local Market Monitor, which for more than 20 years has forecast real estate price swings in behalf of banks, investors and individuals looking to purchase property.  LMM currently sells its individual market reports for $199 each, but when you register for the Golf Home Finder Kit, you can choose one of the 20 reports with our compliments (and LMM will offer you a discount on a subscription to their service).
   In addition, when you register, you also receive the latest issue of Bowden’s Market Barometer, one of the most respected publications in the golf-related real estate industry.  Bowden’s has long been the go-to newsletter for golf industry professionals and real estate developers looking to get ahead of emerging trends and issues in golf real estate; but many savvy buyers of golf real estate have turned to Bowden's as well for an advantage in their search for golf properties.  The retail value of an edition of Bowden’s is $35, but when you register for the Golf Home Finder Kit, you receive a free copy and the offer of a nice discount on an annual subscription.
   The Golf Home Finder Kit also provides you with full access to GolfHomesListed, our companion web site, that includes pages and pages of listings of golf homes currently for sale in some of the South’s top golf communities (see below), organized by individual golf community to make searching easier.  And we provide you with automatic updates whenever a new property is posted to a community on your list of favorites.  We have just added a total of 10 communities in the Naples and Sarasota/Bradenton areas, and more communities and their properties are signing on every month.  
   We are confident we have the most organized site on the web for couples looking for their dream home on the course.  Check it out for yourself by signing up today at GolfHomesListed.com.  And if you have any questions about the web site or about what golf communities might best match your requirements, please contact me, Larry Gavrich.

Golf Homes for Sale in Top Communities

     At GolfHomesListed, properties (lots and homes) are currently listed for sale in the following communities:

Florida -- Naples
     Audubon
     Heritage Bay
     Imperial Estates
     Mediterra
     Olde Cypress
     Vineyards

Florida -- Sarasote/Bradenton
     Lakewood Ranch
     Laurel Oak
     Palm-Aire
     Prestancia
     River Strand

Georgia -- Savannah
     Ford Plantation
     The Landings

No. Carolina -- Asheville area
     Champion Hills
     Mountain Air

No. Carolina -- Brunswick County
     Ocean Ridge Plantation

No. Carolina -- New Bern
     Carolina Colours

No. Carolina -- Chapel Hill
     Governors Club

No. Carolina -- Wilmington/Southport
     Brunswick Forest
     Landfall
     St. James Plantation

So. Carolina -- Bluffton/Okatie
     Belfair
     Berkeley Hall
     Colleton River
     Oldfield

So. Carolina -- Charleston
     Daniel Island

So. Carolina -- Daufuskie Island
     Haig Point

So. Carolina -- Greenville
     Cliffs Communities
     Thornblade Club

So. Carolina -- Pawleys Island
     Pawleys Plantation
     Wachesaw Plantation

Virginia -- Charlottesville
     Glenmore
     Old Trail
     Wintergreen

Virginia -- Richmond/Williamsburg
     Viniterra

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

GolfHomesLIsted.com

Your Parents’ Florida…All Over Again

    My grandparents, Max and Jenny, had one big dream when Max’s days as the owner of a parking garage in the Bronx, NY, were over:  Move to Florida.  In the early 1950s, they did just that, buying a small Miami home for a couple of thousand dollars.  They lived in that house for the next three decades. (At age five, I caught my first fish in a stream in the backyard, an eel actually.)  Pioneers, in a sense, Max and Jenny were followed to the Sunshine State by millions of other northerners seeking warm winters, low taxes and the early-bird specials at the local smorgasbord, which became one symbol of a low-cost retirement lifestyle.  
    Never mind that comedians tabbed Florida as “God’s Waiting Room.” The next generation, my parents included, looked to Florida as a place to avoid the harsh winters of the north, setting up camp in November each year and heading north before the high-temperature, high-humidity southern summers.  The Interstate road systems only made the back and forth easier.  This generation had the resources to live in two places, and many of them preserved those resources by living in Florida for six months and a day in order to qualify as residents of the no-income-tax state.

Near-death experience for “God’s Waiting Room”
     As the next generation –- many of you and me -- began to reach pre-retirement and retirement years, it became our turn to look southward for vacation and permanent homes.  But as the new century began, Florida faced growing competition from the coastal and mountainous Carolinas and a conspiracy of negatives that included damaging hurricanes (and high insurance rates), a rapidly changing demographic pattern and infrastructure issues (clogged highways, sinkholes, aging water systems) that started to prick at the Florida balloon.  Real estate speculation only exacerbated the problem.
    In 2008, after the Wall Street crash, the roaring construction industry in Florida ground to a halt and thousands of workers fled north in a desperate attempt to find work -– any work.  Florida suffered its first net population loss in 50 years, and the state’s future prospects looked bleak.  
    But sunshine is indeed a great disinfectant.  The reverse migration was only temporary, thanks to an incrementally improving national economy and the forces of the huge baby boomer demographic.  Today, based on official reports and my own observations during a two-week trip to the Gulf Coast areas from Sarasota to Naples, the “snowbirds” are back, new golf homes are going up en masse and prices, though recovering, are still dramatically lower than their peak in 2006, after which some golf community homeowners in top developments saw their market values erode by as much as 75%.  
    When supply and demand start to meet each other, the formula for price increases is in place.  The residential construction business is back with a vengeance along the Gulf Coast of Florida, even as Miami and Orlando continue to suffer the overhang of too much inventory and speculation.  A case can be made that those with an eye on the more attractive areas of Florida as a part- or full-time residence might want to plan a real estate visit soon.  (We are happy to help with ideas and arrangements; please contact us.)


The State of golf
   There are more golf courses in the state of Florida than any other, and by a good margin. As of last year, Florida could boast a total of 1,261 18-hole equivalent golf courses, with the much bigger California second at 1,007.  Texas was the only other southern state in the top five, with 906 golf courses.
   The Florida golf boom, of course, was driven by golf community development.  Even without the housing crisis and the migration halt beginning in 2007, Florida had way more golf courses than was sustainable economically.  It still does.  Florida is a buyer’s market for golf.  Membership initiation fees in most clubs are way down from their historic highs, by as much as 50%.  I played golf last week at a few private courses in notoriously expensive Naples, including the attractive Imperial Golf Club, where joining fees are just $8,000 for 36 holes of golf.  The club has raised dues in only one of the last four years (annual dues are less than $7,500 for a couple.)  Imperial's prices are reflective of many of their private club competitors.    
    But price cuts alone cannot distinguish clubs from each other; some are resorting to creative arrangements in behalf of their members.  In recognition that many of their members own homes north and south, some Florida clubs have forged relationships with northern golf clubs for reciprocal arrangements for their members.  The aforementioned Imperial Golf Club, for example, touts a “North/South Alliance” with more than a dozen clubs above the Mason/Dixon line, including those in Rutland, VT, Milwaukee, and Cincinnati.  Imperial members receive dining and golf privileges at these northern clubs when they are back north during the summer and, of course, Imperial returns the favor to the northern clubs’ members during winter.
     Some private club strategies have nothing to do with money.  Subtly, private golf courses in Florida have designed their layouts to accommodate their aging populations and keep them playing well into their golden years.  I played a few golf courses during the week where the average age of the club members was north of 65.  Developers were conscious that their residents and members would eventually get to an age at which straight, 200+ yard drives were a distant memory.  Therefore, most of the private golf courses near the Gulf Coast in Florida will not exhaust the average golfer.  The fairways are generous, the greens generally large and the lakes and ponds, though plentiful, mostly aesthetic accoutrements on all but the most challenging layouts.  Although a single-digit handicapper might have to recede to the back tees to find some of these layouts challenging, former single-digit handicappers who can still chip and putt like a youngster will find they might still have a shot at a score in the 80s… in their 80s.

 

Six months and a day
    Florida levies no tax on its citizens’ income, whether it derives from work or pension payments.  Of course, income tax is not the only tax we pay, but even considering all the other tax burdens, Florida ranks as the fourth best overall state for taxation, although its property tax rates generally rank in the middle of the pack for all states.
     We know folks who circle specific dates on their calendars for when they will leave their northern home and head south to their Florida home in order to spend 183 days, or half the year and a day, in Florida.  As official residents of the Sunshine State, they qualify for the more favorable tax treatment. To some of us, hustling down south on a date specific might seem an awful bother to save a few dollars, but it all depends on your income.  Take a couple living half the year in Stamford, CT, one of the most expensive metro areas in the nation.  If they lived in, say, Sarasota year round, their cost of living would drop by 35%.  Most of that is because housing is so much cheaper, but taxation accounts for some of it as well.  Connecticut is the fourth highest tax-burdened state, making Florida’s position at 47th look awfully good.

 

Boom, Bust, Boom
    Florida offers shelter to fit every budget and every lifestyle consideration.  During my two weeks along the Gulf Coast, I walked through brand new condos in the $100s and teed off alongside sports commentator Dick Vitale’s 25,000 square foot estate, which probably cost around $5 million.  In between, the choices are virtually limitless at all price points.  According to our Realtor in Naples, Jeff Feldman, local prices dropped more than 50% during the 2008 crisis, reaching the levels of the mid to late 1990s.  Now, he says, prices have recovered to about 2002/03 levels, or about 35% off peak.
     “It could be 20 years before we get back to where we were,” he says, “but in the meantime, we are seeing a steady recovery in prices.”
     The extent of the price recovery may be governed by supply.  Builders who were chomping at the bit to start to push dirt around on the thousands of acres to the east of Interstate 75 have begun to do so in earnest.  I spent the week in a condo at Heritage Bay, a Lennar development with 27 holes of golf that is 20 minutes from the Gulf and seemed in full construction mode.  Condos are priced at Heritage Bay starting in the $100s and single-family homes, some with views of lake and golf, begin in the $400s.  Full golf membership, including all the typical amenities like pool, fitness and tennis, as well as access to a huge clubhouse, is included in the price of all homes at Heritage Bay.
    Check out the listings in the 10 communities in Naples and the Sarasota/Bradenton area that we have posted at GolfHomesListed.  They only begin to scratch the surface of what’s available through our real estate professionals there, Jeff Feldman and Dennis Boyle, respectively.

 

Final Words about Florida in the summer

    Yes, it’s hot, but for those who can stand the relentless heat and humidity of Florida summers, the benefits can be extreme.  The courses are wide open for walk-up play; I played a three-hour round over 18 holes last week, and our starting time was the popular 8 a.m., before the hottest part of the day.  Almost all the private clubs have reciprocal arrangements with virtually all the other clubs in the Naples and Sarasota/Bradenton areas from May to November, providing the itinerant golfer with endless options (and no traffic).  But if you are not a private club member, you and your dramatically reduced green fee payment will be welcomed with open arms at any of the dozens of fine public and semi-private courses in Naples and Sarasota.  And, psst, a few of the private clubs might take your money as well. 

 
 

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August 2012

July 2012

 
    July 2012

 Blog, Blog, Blog  

   Financial difficulties make strange bedfellows at golf communities.  As Reynolds Plantation emerges from its bankruptcy and Wintergreen Resort prepares for life in an era of Justice, residents and club members find themselves tilting against windmills and, often, each other.
   The following are recent comments on blogs related to Reynolds Plantation and the Wintergreen Resort.  We have cleaned up some of the typographical and grammatical idiosyncrasies.

Wintergreen related posts at RealCVille.blogspot.com

Written by Anonymous...
   I am one of 300 people on a list to receive a return of a portion of the ownership equity for which I wrote a check to Wintergreen of $15,000.  My check was for an equity interest.  It was not a gift to the resort.  [I understand] the resort is being sold for $16.5 million and there are no plans to honor the return of my equity investment?
   Be very careful it anyone tries to sell you on the value of an equity investment at the resort.  The resort was all smiles and great predictions for the resort and the return of my money when I bought my membership.  I lost all my money.
   If the resort sells itself for $16.5 million the first thing it should do is make good on the promises for return of equity to people who gave the resort interest free loans for all these years.  The assets that are being sold were purchased with our money; anything else totally lacks integrity.  If any of the other 300 people who are losing their money want to work with me to stop this atrocity, please contact me.

Reply to Anonymous
   It wasn't a loan.  We are/you were an owner.  Owner's equity is always going to be last in line, so we get what's left after the bills are paid, bonds are paid off, and the tax credit is satisfied.  At best you'd share in the $2.5M, which if the 300 of you were added to the pool, would mean $1,250 each.  If that's worth it to you, contact the board or WPI management (Wintergreen Parters Inc., which inherited the club from the developers, and in effect ran the resort until the recent sale), but I think they can legally limit it to active members.  $1250 or $1500, we made a bad investment.
   By the way, was it WPI members or a realtor that painted that rosy picture for you?  And how does someone contact you anyway, when you posted anonymously?

The following were posted at RIPOC.net, maintained by the Reynolds Independent Property Owners Coalition   

   Thanks for your words about your own individual situation. My life does not mirror your life. We do not desire to own any longer and think ML (MetLife) is a good owner and think they will do good things; however, releasing LLDC (Linger Longer Development Corp., the operational entity that went bankrupt), and the particular sales agent that handled our sale and Mercer and Reynolds clan involved in commingling funds with our deposits and capital are two different topics.  A lawsuit filed in the next two weeks would be in order.

*

   [I have a] National Membership; transferring to Gold.  Playing GW (Great Waters, one of Reynolds’ six courses) starting on the Member side in the a.m.  Boat already at Plantation Marina.  Delighted to be back.  Go MetLife, Go RP (Reynolds Plantation)!

*

[The following is an excerpt from a longer blog post]

My expectations from ML (MetLife) are that they will:

1.  consolidate and extend the quality of the experience offered by Reynolds Plantation;

2.  take time to understand their “constituents” and their needs and desires for the best possible future of Reynolds Plantation;

3.  manage the investment in full recognition that much of the value of their investment is in the hands of the current and future property owners and club members;

4.  do all of the above within the bounds of reasonable and sustainable costs.

   I look forward to taking my misplaced faith in Mercer Reynolds and LLDC (Linger Longer Development Corp.) and placing my next bet on MetLife and Daniel Corp. to get us back on track.   However, it will be up to the individuals within MetLife and Daniel to make this happen and make good on their promises.  It will not happen as a result of their brand or prior reputation, but only as a result of the actions and integrity of their current and future management team.  I urge them to choose and decide wisely.

*

   Amidst all the animated back and forth, one blog reader at Reynolds Plantation saw fit to inject a little bit of unrelated levity.

   My boss phoned me today.  He said, “Is everything okay at the office?” I said, “Yes, it’s all under control. It’s been a very busy day; I have been in an out of meetings all day!”

   “Can you do me a favor?” my boss asked. I said, “Of course, what is it?” “Pick up the pace a little.  I’m in the foursome behind you.”

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

GolfHomesLIsted.com

Value Play:  How you price your home might help your neighbors sell theirs, while yours languishes

    Some of you reading this are considering a move to a golf course home.  Just one little problem:  You either have to sell your current home first, or you need to be sure it will sell within a few months of closing on your new home.
    I know this is harsh, but if your house does not sell over, say, four to six months, then you priced it too high.  It is as simple as that.  There is a price at which every property sells.  Your property is worth only what someone else will pay for it, not what you think it is worth, not the added value of all the excellent improvements you made to it, not a “nostalgia supplement” for having raised your children there.  With all the inventory of homes for sale, supply is high and demand remains relatively low in most areas.  Things may be getting better, but it is still a buyer’s market; that means you had better be prepared to sell at a price lower than you would like to believe your home is worth.

Are you helping your neighbor’s house look better than yours?
     According to some real estate industry watchers, overpricing your house may create unintended consequences beyond just the amount of time it will take to sell it.  You actually may be helping your neighbor to sell his or her house.  In a market in which listings have been tough to come by, some real estate agents are purposely overestimating the value of a client’s home in an attempt to gain the listing.  “The comparables in the neighborhood show your house would be worth $500,000,” an agent might say, “but it is in such good shape, and you have that pool in the backyard, I am confident we can get $550,000.”
    And so the puffed-up sellers hire the agent with the highest estimate, list the house at $575,000 (allowing some negotiating room), and then watch as the house down the street with exactly the same layout sells first (at $495,000) and then another in the neighborhood sells at $510,000 a month later.  Our hapless sellers’ inflated price actually helped sell the other homes while becoming something of a drag on the market, generating just a few visits and no offers.  At the six-week mark, the agent suggests lowering the price by $25,000, and then by another $25,000 after six months.  Still no offers.  Eventually, the house sells at $499,000 –- 10 months after it was listed.  The neighbors who sold their homes quicker don’t come by to express their gratitude; they have already moved to the Carolinas and are too busy enjoying their new golf-oriented lifestyle…

Live high on the hog at a lower cost of living
    …and a much lower cost of living.  The differences in cost of living between high-priced northern cities and lower priced southern cities can be as much as 40%.  For a couple that spends, say, $75,000 annually on taxes, utilities, transportation costs, food, entertainment and all the other routine expenses of life, that can mean a savings of $30,000 per year.  In the example of our sellers above, they could have listed their home at $525,000 initially, accepted a realistic offer as low as $499,000 much earlier, and moved up their relocation date by almost a year.  By the end of year two in their new golf home, they would have made up in cost-of-living savings the difference between what they initially expected to fetch and the price at which they sold their home.
    Sellers should be mindful of another unfortunate phenomenon that is forcing prices down.  Professional appraisers, many Realtors complain, are not accurately reflecting the uptick in local real estate values (i.e. higher sale prices).  The appraisers are under pressure from their firms to produce conservative estimates for fear of overvaluing properties and exposing lenders to possible future litigation (and their firms to a loss of business).  What this means to anyone selling a house is that, after you have a contract to sell, the appraisal could come in lower than the agreed contract price with buyers, causing the buyers to have to increase their down payment to qualify for the mortgage loan.  If they can’t do that, the sale price is likely to be renegotiated downward or, worse, the sale could vaporize.  In a buyer’s market, the seller has to play The Price Is Right very well.

Are big, bankrupt golf communities a safe bet?

    Where does a billionaire or deep-pocketed investment firm put its money when “guaranteed” interest rates are miniscule and stock market investments are scary, given all that fuss in Europe.  The answer, apparently, is that they invest in high-end, super-amenitized golf communities in the southern U.S.
     The smart money is betting that mega-communities like The Cliffs and Reynolds Plantation will, once again, appeal to migrating baby boomers and wealthy second-home seekers when the economy turns around.  And with these former high-flying communities in receivership, the price is certainly right and the terms are pretty much what the new owners want them to be.  
    In the last few months, the largest and once-most-successful golf communities in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia have received the attention and cash infusions of such corporate pillars of strength as Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and such substantially wealthy individuals as Texans Steve and Penny Carlile.

Rescued from the edge of The Cliffs  
    The Carliles, Cliffs property owners whose multi-millions were made in the freight hauling business and related companies, stepped in to keep the six golf clubs and the other extravagant Cliffs amenities alive long enough for a few outside developers to pool their resources and expertise and purchase all the amenities and real estate.  It didn’t hurt that SunTX Urbana, one of the partners, had purchased a few mountains worth of undeveloped lots inside the Cliffs from its troubled former visionary, Jim Anthony, in the months before the communities filed for bankruptcy.  The new owners, including Arendale Holdings, an experienced land developer, have tweaked substantially The Cliffs’ vaunted club membership programs to make it easier –- and slightly more affordable -- to belong.  Initiation fees that once reached $150,000 are now $50,000 tops, and to encourage more memberships, non-members, who were shut out by The Cliffs requirement that membership be tied to the property, not the individual, now enjoy a period of “amnesty” in which they can join.  The Cliffs is expected to emerge officially from bankruptcy late this summer.

Reynolds wrapping up new membership programs
     Reynolds officials told us that revisions to their club membership plans are still in the works, but count on lower prices and easier paths to membership for residents and property owners who do not yet live on site.  Property owners and club members at the rural Georgia community with a set of its own six world-class golf courses scored the biggest coup of all when the ultra-stable Metropolitan Life rode in as Reynolds’ white knight.  The insurance giant knows a bargain when it sees one, especially a well-developed community about an hour from the ultra-wealthy northern suburbs of Atlanta.  Met Life has partnered with Daniel Corporation whose Greystone Resort near Birmingham, AL, has been an oasis of stability.  The company recently acquired Ross’ Bridge community, also in Birmingham.  Those two developments span a total of almost 7,000 acres, some confirmation that Daniel understands large-scale and complicated communities.  Reynolds too is expected to emerge from bankruptcy before the end of the year.

Wintergreen saved by Justice
     The most recent white knight action in southern golf communities is in the western hills of Virginia, where Jim Justice stepped in to rescue a floundering Wintergreen Resort.  Shortly after an almost snowless winter hurt Wintergreen’s skiing-related revenues, and without warning, Bank of America pulled the line of credit that Wintergreen, which effectively was owned by its residents, had depended upon for years.  The community’s leaders scrambled to pay its short-term obligations, resulting in significant layoffs and other cutbacks that threatened the marketing viability of the resort.  But now, Wintergreen has not only an infusion of cash, but also a new owner who has attracted substantial marketing buzz himself since rescuing the famed Greenbrier Resort from its own financial woes.  At Greenbrier, Justice has also built an underground casino and rehabilitated the golf courses to such an extent that the PGA Tour now makes an annual stop.  Wintergreen could use some updating and, in Justice, they have a hero able and willing to spend to return the community to its former glory.  At just 45 minutes from Charlottesville and directly located up against the legendary Blue Ridge Highway, Wintergreen and its residents are in an enviable position, literally and figuratively.

 

Housing values depend on clubs' success
    Despite the apparent rescues from their dire straits, some current members at both The Cliffs and Reynolds are grousing about a few added fees and the modification of rules regarding refunds of their initiation deposits.  (Even though Wintergreen’s 45-holes of golf have been semi-private and not mandatory for homeowners to join, a few members there are complaining; see sidebar.)  But considering the alternatives, we expect most of these members to recognize a gift horse when they see one.  A thriving golf club will be key to restoring and firming up housing values, and what’s a piddling few thousand dollars extra for club membership if a stable club increases home values by multiples of those?

Betting on the boomers
    If we were forced to predict the future at The Cliffs and Reynolds, we would say the picture for current property owners is cloudy in the near term but with a good chance the sun will break through in a few years.  Anyone who bought a property in these handsome communities has lost up to 50% of their value (especially for unimproved lots); speculators are suffering the most since they are not only holding a deeply depreciated asset, but they also have to pay club and homeowner association dues for a community they aren’t using.  Some of those properties are currently on the market for next to nothing, representing a good buy for couples ready to retire and build their dream homes. The somewhat pricey club dues are more palatable when you are paying $30,000 for a lot whose original price was $300,000.
    The picture for future buyers in any of these communities, however, should be mostly sunny, with only a slight chance of showers.  If these mega communities receive not only the investments they are being promised but also the organization and management skills they lacked under their prior regimes, you could see property prices begin to creep back up in tandem with the economy and housing market, and maybe even a little faster, given all those baby boomers still seeking an active lifestyle.  The boomers will push the demand side of the equation in the face of plenty of supply for years to come.

Get Met; it just might pay
    The wild card is how the new owners of the communities, representing slightly different interests, manage to get along and how tightly they agree on strategies to rebuild these communities’ reputations and sales portfolios.  The Cliffs owners are a mixed bag that includes two wealthy residents, a land investment company with substantial acreage on its books and a developer that has never tackled any project this large or complex.  Other, smaller investors own globs of land at The Cliffs and there has been some talk of lawsuits involving The Cliffs’ former eminence, Jim Anthony.  The Reynolds situation is much clearer, and much more clearly communicated:  MetLife says it is essentially an investor that will turn over responsibility for strategy and operations at Reynolds to Daniel Corporation, the experienced golf community developer with whom MetLife has a longstanding business relationship.  
    The clearest situation of all seems to be at Wintergreen, where the money and any strategic imperatives are all wrapped up in one imposing form, the 6 foot 7 inch Jim Justice.  Justice has shown at The Greenbrier that he is willing to push his considerable number of chips onto the table if he likes the hand he’s dealt himself.  Residents and members have welcomed him (and his investment) as if he were a conquering hero.  Attitude counts for a lot.  The future at Wintergreen should be a pretty good bet.
                                                              *
    Note to readers:  We have previously visited and published reviews about The Cliffs Communities and Wintergreen Resort.  Properties for sale at both, as well as at more than 20 other top golf communities, are currently listed at our companion web site, GolfHomesListed.


 
 

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© 2011 Golf Community Reviews
 
    July 2012

 Blog, Blog, Blog  

   Financial difficulties make strange bedfellows at golf communities.  As Reynolds Plantation emerges from its bankruptcy and Wintergreen Resort prepares for life in an era of Justice, residents and club members find themselves tilting against windmills and, often, each other.
   The following are recent comments on blogs related to Reynolds Plantation and the Wintergreen Resort.  We have cleaned up some of the typographical and grammatical idiosyncrasies.

Wintergreen related posts at RealCVille.blogspot.com

Written by Anonymous...
   I am one of 300 people on a list to receive a return of a portion of the ownership equity for which I wrote a check to Wintergreen of $15,000.  My check was for an equity interest.  It was not a gift to the resort.  [I understand] the resort is being sold for $16.5 million and there are no plans to honor the return of my equity investment?
   Be very careful it anyone tries to sell you on the value of an equity investment at the resort.  The resort was all smiles and great predictions for the resort and the return of my money when I bought my membership.  I lost all my money.
   If the resort sells itself for $16.5 million the first thing it should do is make good on the promises for return of equity to people who gave the resort interest free loans for all these years.  The assets that are being sold were purchased with our money; anything else totally lacks integrity.  If any of the other 300 people who are losing their money want to work with me to stop this atrocity, please contact me.

Reply to Anonymous
   It wasn't a loan.  We are/you were an owner.  Owner's equity is always going to be last in line, so we get what's left after the bills are paid, bonds are paid off, and the tax credit is satisfied.  At best you'd share in the $2.5M, which if the 300 of you were added to the pool, would mean $1,250 each.  If that's worth it to you, contact the board or WPI management (Wintergreen Parters Inc., which inherited the club from the developers, and in effect ran the resort until the recent sale), but I think they can legally limit it to active members.  $1250 or $1500, we made a bad investment.
   By the way, was it WPI members or a realtor that painted that rosy picture for you?  And how does someone contact you anyway, when you posted anonymously?

The following were posted at RIPOC.net, maintained by the Reynolds Independent Property Owners Coalition   

   Thanks for your words about your own individual situation. My life does not mirror your life. We do not desire to own any longer and think ML (MetLife) is a good owner and think they will do good things; however, releasing LLDC (Linger Longer Development Corp., the operational entity that went bankrupt), and the particular sales agent that handled our sale and Mercer and Reynolds clan involved in commingling funds with our deposits and capital are two different topics.  A lawsuit filed in the next two weeks would be in order.

*

   [I have a] National Membership; transferring to Gold.  Playing GW (Great Waters, one of Reynolds’ six courses) starting on the Member side in the a.m.  Boat already at Plantation Marina.  Delighted to be back.  Go MetLife, Go RP (Reynolds Plantation)!

*

[The following is an excerpt from a longer blog post]

My expectations from ML (MetLife) are that they will:

1.  consolidate and extend the quality of the experience offered by Reynolds Plantation;

2.  take time to understand their “constituents” and their needs and desires for the best possible future of Reynolds Plantation;

3.  manage the investment in full recognition that much of the value of their investment is in the hands of the current and future property owners and club members;

4.  do all of the above within the bounds of reasonable and sustainable costs.

   I look forward to taking my misplaced faith in Mercer Reynolds and LLDC (Linger Longer Development Corp.) and placing my next bet on MetLife and Daniel Corp. to get us back on track.   However, it will be up to the individuals within MetLife and Daniel to make this happen and make good on their promises.  It will not happen as a result of their brand or prior reputation, but only as a result of the actions and integrity of their current and future management team.  I urge them to choose and decide wisely.

*

   Amidst all the animated back and forth, one blog reader at Reynolds Plantation saw fit to inject a little bit of unrelated levity.

   My boss phoned me today.  He said, “Is everything okay at the office?” I said, “Yes, it’s all under control. It’s been a very busy day; I have been in an out of meetings all day!”

   “Can you do me a favor?” my boss asked. I said, “Of course, what is it?” “Pick up the pace a little.  I’m in the foursome behind you.”

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

GolfCommunityReviews.com

GolfHomesLIsted.com

Value Play:  How you price your home might help your neighbors sell theirs, while yours languishes

    Some of you reading this are considering a move to a golf course home.  Just one little problem:  You either have to sell your current home first, or you need to be sure it will sell within a few months of closing on your new home.
    I know this is harsh, but if your house does not sell over, say, four to six months, then you priced it too high.  It is as simple as that.  There is a price at which every property sells.  Your property is worth only what someone else will pay for it, not what you think it is worth, not the added value of all the excellent improvements you made to it, not a “nostalgia supplement” for having raised your children there.  With all the inventory of homes for sale, supply is high and demand remains relatively low in most areas.  Things may be getting better, but it is still a buyer’s market; that means you had better be prepared to sell at a price lower than you would like to believe your home is worth.

Are you helping your neighbor’s house look better than yours?
     According to some real estate industry watchers, overpricing your house may create unintended consequences beyond just the amount of time it will take to sell it.  You actually may be helping your neighbor to sell his or her house.  In a market in which listings have been tough to come by, some real estate agents are purposely overestimating the value of a client’s home in an attempt to gain the listing.  “The comparables in the neighborhood show your house would be worth $500,000,” an agent might say, “but it is in such good shape, and you have that pool in the backyard, I am confident we can get $550,000.”
    And so the puffed-up sellers hire the agent with the highest estimate, list the house at $575,000 (allowing some negotiating room), and then watch as the house down the street with exactly the same layout sells first (at $495,000) and then another in the neighborhood sells at $510,000 a month later.  Our hapless sellers’ inflated price actually helped sell the other homes while becoming something of a drag on the market, generating just a few visits and no offers.  At the six-week mark, the agent suggests lowering the price by $25,000, and then by another $25,000 after six months.  Still no offers.  Eventually, the house sells at $499,000 –- 10 months after it was listed.  The neighbors who sold their homes quicker don’t come by to express their gratitude; they have already moved to the Carolinas and are too busy enjoying their new golf-oriented lifestyle…

Live high on the hog at a lower cost of living
    …and a much lower cost of living.  The differences in cost of living between high-priced northern cities and lower priced southern cities can be as much as 40%.  For a couple that spends, say, $75,000 annually on taxes, utilities, transportation costs, food, entertainment and all the other routine expenses of life, that can mean a savings of $30,000 per year.  In the example of our sellers above, they could have listed their home at $525,000 initially, accepted a realistic offer as low as $499,000 much earlier, and moved up their relocation date by almost a year.  By the end of year two in their new golf home, they would have made up in cost-of-living savings the difference between what they initially expected to fetch and the price at which they sold their home.
    Sellers should be mindful of another unfortunate phenomenon that is forcing prices down.  Professional appraisers, many Realtors complain, are not accurately reflecting the uptick in local real estate values (i.e. higher sale prices).  The appraisers are under pressure from their firms to produce conservative estimates for fear of overvaluing properties and exposing lenders to possible future litigation (and their firms to a loss of business).  What this means to anyone selling a house is that, after you have a contract to sell, the appraisal could come in lower than the agreed contract price with buyers, causing the buyers to have to increase their down payment to qualify for the mortgage loan.  If they can’t do that, the sale price is likely to be renegotiated downward or, worse, the sale could vaporize.  In a buyer’s market, the seller has to play The Price Is Right very well.

Are big, bankrupt golf communities a safe bet?

    Where does a billionaire or deep-pocketed investment firm put its money when “guaranteed” interest rates are miniscule and stock market investments are scary, given all that fuss in Europe.  The answer, apparently, is that they invest in high-end, super-amenitized golf communities in the southern U.S.
     The smart money is betting that mega-communities like The Cliffs and Reynolds Plantation will, once again, appeal to migrating baby boomers and wealthy second-home seekers when the economy turns around.  And with these former high-flying communities in receivership, the price is certainly right and the terms are pretty much what the new owners want them to be.  
    In the last few months, the largest and once-most-successful golf communities in the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia have received the attention and cash infusions of such corporate pillars of strength as Metropolitan Life Insurance Company and such substantially wealthy individuals as Texans Steve and Penny Carlile.

Rescued from the edge of The Cliffs  
    The Carliles, Cliffs property owners whose multi-millions were made in the freight hauling business and related companies, stepped in to keep the six golf clubs and the other extravagant Cliffs amenities alive long enough for a few outside developers to pool their resources and expertise and purchase all the amenities and real estate.  It didn’t hurt that SunTX Urbana, one of the partners, had purchased a few mountains worth of undeveloped lots inside the Cliffs from its troubled former visionary, Jim Anthony, in the months before the communities filed for bankruptcy.  The new owners, including Arendale Holdings, an experienced land developer, have tweaked substantially The Cliffs’ vaunted club membership programs to make it easier –- and slightly more affordable -- to belong.  Initiation fees that once reached $150,000 are now $50,000 tops, and to encourage more memberships, non-members, who were shut out by The Cliffs requirement that membership be tied to the property, not the individual, now enjoy a period of “amnesty” in which they can join.  The Cliffs is expected to emerge officially from bankruptcy late this summer.

Reynolds wrapping up new membership programs
     Reynolds officials told us that revisions to their club membership plans are still in the works, but count on lower prices and easier paths to membership for residents and property owners who do not yet live on site.  Property owners and club members at the rural Georgia community with a set of its own six world-class golf courses scored the biggest coup of all when the ultra-stable Metropolitan Life rode in as Reynolds’ white knight.  The insurance giant knows a bargain when it sees one, especially a well-developed community about an hour from the ultra-wealthy northern suburbs of Atlanta.  Met Life has partnered with Daniel Corporation whose Greystone Resort near Birmingham, AL, has been an oasis of stability.  The company recently acquired Ross’ Bridge community, also in Birmingham.  Those two developments span a total of almost 7,000 acres, some confirmation that Daniel understands large-scale and complicated communities.  Reynolds too is expected to emerge from bankruptcy before the end of the year.

Wintergreen saved by Justice
     The most recent white knight action in southern golf communities is in the western hills of Virginia, where Jim Justice stepped in to rescue a floundering Wintergreen Resort.  Shortly after an almost snowless winter hurt Wintergreen’s skiing-related revenues, and without warning, Bank of America pulled the line of credit that Wintergreen, which effectively was owned by its residents, had depended upon for years.  The community’s leaders scrambled to pay its short-term obligations, resulting in significant layoffs and other cutbacks that threatened the marketing viability of the resort.  But now, Wintergreen has not only an infusion of cash, but also a new owner who has attracted substantial marketing buzz himself since rescuing the famed Greenbrier Resort from its own financial woes.  At Greenbrier, Justice has also built an underground casino and rehabilitated the golf courses to such an extent that the PGA Tour now makes an annual stop.  Wintergreen could use some updating and, in Justice, they have a hero able and willing to spend to return the community to its former glory.  At just 45 minutes from Charlottesville and directly located up against the legendary Blue Ridge Highway, Wintergreen and its residents are in an enviable position, literally and figuratively.

 

Housing values depend on clubs' success
    Despite the apparent rescues from their dire straits, some current members at both The Cliffs and Reynolds are grousing about a few added fees and the modification of rules regarding refunds of their initiation deposits.  (Even though Wintergreen’s 45-holes of golf have been semi-private and not mandatory for homeowners to join, a few members there are complaining; see sidebar.)  But considering the alternatives, we expect most of these members to recognize a gift horse when they see one.  A thriving golf club will be key to restoring and firming up housing values, and what’s a piddling few thousand dollars extra for club membership if a stable club increases home values by multiples of those?

Betting on the boomers
    If we were forced to predict the future at The Cliffs and Reynolds, we would say the picture for current property owners is cloudy in the near term but with a good chance the sun will break through in a few years.  Anyone who bought a property in these handsome communities has lost up to 50% of their value (especially for unimproved lots); speculators are suffering the most since they are not only holding a deeply depreciated asset, but they also have to pay club and homeowner association dues for a community they aren’t using.  Some of those properties are currently on the market for next to nothing, representing a good buy for couples ready to retire and build their dream homes. The somewhat pricey club dues are more palatable when you are paying $30,000 for a lot whose original price was $300,000.
    The picture for future buyers in any of these communities, however, should be mostly sunny, with only a slight chance of showers.  If these mega communities receive not only the investments they are being promised but also the organization and management skills they lacked under their prior regimes, you could see property prices begin to creep back up in tandem with the economy and housing market, and maybe even a little faster, given all those baby boomers still seeking an active lifestyle.  The boomers will push the demand side of the equation in the face of plenty of supply for years to come.

Get Met; it just might pay
    The wild card is how the new owners of the communities, representing slightly different interests, manage to get along and how tightly they agree on strategies to rebuild these communities’ reputations and sales portfolios.  The Cliffs owners are a mixed bag that includes two wealthy residents, a land investment company with substantial acreage on its books and a developer that has never tackled any project this large or complex.  Other, smaller investors own globs of land at The Cliffs and there has been some talk of lawsuits involving The Cliffs’ former eminence, Jim Anthony.  The Reynolds situation is much clearer, and much more clearly communicated:  MetLife says it is essentially an investor that will turn over responsibility for strategy and operations at Reynolds to Daniel Corporation, the experienced golf community developer with whom MetLife has a longstanding business relationship.  
    The clearest situation of all seems to be at Wintergreen, where the money and any strategic imperatives are all wrapped up in one imposing form, the 6 foot 7 inch Jim Justice.  Justice has shown at The Greenbrier that he is willing to push his considerable number of chips onto the table if he likes the hand he’s dealt himself.  Residents and members have welcomed him (and his investment) as if he were a conquering hero.  Attitude counts for a lot.  The future at Wintergreen should be a pretty good bet.
                                                              *
    Note to readers:  We have previously visited and published reviews about The Cliffs Communities and Wintergreen Resort.  Properties for sale at both, as well as at more than 20 other top golf communities, are currently listed at our companion web site, GolfHomesListed.


 
 

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July 2012

June 2012

 
    June 2012

  Life’s a beach:
Vero tops list of coastal foreclosures 

   Realty Trac, an online service that tracks and lists foreclosure properties across the nation, has posted its “10 Best Beach Towns for Buying Foreclosures.”  Topping the list is the Sebastian/Vero Beach metro area in Florida where foreclosed properties are selling at a discount of more than 45% to the median market price.  Other metro areas in the southeastern U.S. on the Realty Trac list include Naples/Marco Island (#3 at a 40% discount), Charleston, SC (#5, 34%) and Hilton Head Island (#6,31%).  
    Foreclosures and bank-owned properties are not for the faint of heart, but if you have a bit of an appetite for risk, can engage a savvy real estate agent (we can help, if you want a recommendation) and have the patience to deal with bank bureaucracies, you could save yourself considerable money with a “distress” sale.  One couple we are working with recently purchased a 5,000 square foot bank-owned home in The Landings near Savannah for $699,000.  The bank dropped its asking price on the home $300,000 for a quick, all-cash transaction.  The house cost $1.4 million to build before the recession and was listed for sale at $1.2 million just a couple of years ago.  The buyers engaged a local engineering inspector to give the house and property a thorough going-over, and he pronounced it in solid shape, with just a few thousand dollars in cosmetic touchups necessary.
    If you are interested in looking into foreclosed properties in the Savannah, Charleston, Hilton Head or other areas of the southern U.S., please contact me and I will connect you with real estate professionals happy to show you all the bargain properties in their area.
    To see Realty Trac’s list of 10 best beach towns for foreclosures across the U.S.,  click here. For a listing of a few foreclosed properties currently being shown by Realtors who post properties for sale at our web site, GolfHomesListed.com, see below.

 Foreclosures you
might bank on 

  Here are a few examples of recent foreclosure offerings, courtesy of Realtors who are listing properties for sale at GolfHomesListed.com.

Carolina Colours, New Bern, NC

2,144 sq. ft., 3 BRs, 2.5 BAs

Original: $399,000

Current: $275,000

Thornblade Club, Greer, SC

3,779 sq. ft., 4 BRs, 3.5 BAs

Original:  $549,000

Current:  $479,000

Cliffs At Mountain Park, 

TravelersRest, SC

4,800 sq. ft., 5 BRs, 4 BAs

+ 2 half baths

Original:  $1,475,000

Current:  $990,000

 

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

Eve of Construction:  Why this may be the time
to build your dream home

    For many, the thought of building a home from scratch is about as exciting as root canal surgery, or their mother-in-law’s next visit -- and that’s just among those who have actually had the experience of building a house.  For most of the rest of us, we would no more consider building a house than we would perform root canal on ourselves.  Personally, I sag every time I recall building that high-walled fort with Lincoln Logs when I was a kid, only to have it come crashing down when I tried to put a roof on it.  That experience overhangs my appetite to build a real house. 
    And yet, despite it all, my wife and I own a buildable lot in Pawleys Plantation (SC) and still may actually undertake the unthinkable.  We have lived in a half dozen houses together, and they were all someone else’s conception of a home.  We will never truly have a “place of our own” until we build it.  
    We’ve had a taste of what a home or our own could be like.  We tore apart the kitchen in our current home in Connecticut and essentially re-built it from scratch; five years later, it remains the most functional and attractive room we have ever lived in.  To have an entire home to our specifications –- every wall, every appliance, every window exactly where we want them -– well, that is a seductive thought.  I only hope our marriage survives the construction process.
     For those of you who might consider throwing caution to the wind to build your true dream home in a golf community, here are a few reasons why this may be the best time to take that leap of faith.

 Lots to choose among

    It was Will Rogers who advised, “Buy land.  They ain’t making more of the stuff.”  Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a ton of undeveloped land for purchase in the widest range of golf communities.  Take a huge multi-location development like The Cliffs Communities in the upland of the Carolinas; they have been selling property since the mid-1990s and, literally, have only scratched the surface in less than half their available acreage.  At Reynolds Plantation, an hour-plus from Atlanta in rural north Georgia, plenty of developer lots remain.  It may not be lost on frequent readers of our GolfCommunityReviews blog site that both these huge communities are working their way through bankruptcy processes.  But with Metropolitan Life having purchased Reynolds and a deep-pocketed consortium of companies in apparently for the long haul at The Cliffs, lots priced as much as 70% below their high points of just six years ago are beginning to look even more attractive.
     Alternately, you can choose a wonderful newer development like Carolina Colours that may lack hundreds of millions of dollars in amenities but, more importantly, lacks any crushing debt and can offer a perfectly player-friendly golf course at reasonable prices, plus an owner who lives on property.  And at just $49,500 for a lot with a lake view, and at just 10 minutes from the up and coming town of New Bern, NC, you get a lot, literally, for a little.

 

Lots of cheap lots

    Real estate operates on the simple laws of supply and demand.  As noted above, the supply of lots for sale is overwhelming and baby boomers and others have not returned to the market….yet.  In the market crash of 2008, the values of homes in golf communities in the southern U.S. took a beating.  But “unimproved” lots took a bigger beating.  If you had even a passing notion of the market for golf community properties back before Lehman Brothers, you recall that even grandmas were speculating in real estate, buying an extra condo here and a lot or two there.  Now they are trying to give them away, some literally (see below).  Many lots with outstanding water and golf course views are selling at prices formally reserved for a simple wooded lot.  But if we believe what we read about consumer confidence growing, employment inching up, and new home sales and prices poised for a modest upswing, some of the extreme bargains may start to evaporate in the coming months.

 A cheap lot can ease the pain of higher dues
   I wrote recently at our blog site about a lot that was selling for $1 in the upscale and desirable Colleton River, a community that is beyond the reach of those who either cannot afford or are unwilling to commit to $15,000 annually in club and homeowner dues.  That $1 wooded lot is a bit of an anomaly, but not by much; other “non-view” lots at Colleton are priced in the four- and low-five-figure range (the "sweet spot" is still around $200,000, though).  So consider you have, say, $750,000 budgeted for a home in your dream retirement community.  Now imagine you could purchase a nice lot for, say, $10,000, and build your 3,000-square-foot home for about $200 per square foot (that should get you hardwood floors, nice cabinetry, upscale appliances, a beautiful stone fireplace).  Simple math pegs the construction cost of your new home at about $600,000 –- leaving that extra $150,000 to dedicate to 10 years of club and homeowner dues in a community with two of the best Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye golf courses anywhere.  And keep in mind that by moving, say, from Boston to a place like Bluffton, SC, where Colleton River is located, you lower your cost of living by 25% or more.  That difference for married couples who do not deny themselves a routine diet of life’s little luxuries could amount to $15,000 alone annually.


Current lots for sale
   Check out a few current lots for sale (below) at our companion web site, GolfHomesListed.com.  Any of the real estate professionals who list their properties at the site will be happy to share their entire list of lots for sale, as well as some extreme bargain-priced houses that might be the perfect site for your brand new dream home.  Here are a few samples:

Carolina Colours, New Bern, NC, .74 acre, lake view, $49,500
The Landings, Savannah, GA, .35 acre, golf view, $149,900
Mountain Air, Burnsville, NC, .52 acre, golf & mountain view, $209,000
Landfall, Wilmington, NC, .46 acre, golf view, $175,000
Daniel Island, SC, .34 acre, golf view, $198,000
Pawleys Plantation, Pawleys Island, SC, golf and marsh view, $199,500
Wachesaw Plantation, Murrells Inlet, SC, golf view, $139,000

 
 

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© 2011 Golf Community Reviews
 
    June 2012

  Life’s a beach:
Vero tops list of coastal foreclosures 

   Realty Trac, an online service that tracks and lists foreclosure properties across the nation, has posted its “10 Best Beach Towns for Buying Foreclosures.”  Topping the list is the Sebastian/Vero Beach metro area in Florida where foreclosed properties are selling at a discount of more than 45% to the median market price.  Other metro areas in the southeastern U.S. on the Realty Trac list include Naples/Marco Island (#3 at a 40% discount), Charleston, SC (#5, 34%) and Hilton Head Island (#6,31%).  
    Foreclosures and bank-owned properties are not for the faint of heart, but if you have a bit of an appetite for risk, can engage a savvy real estate agent (we can help, if you want a recommendation) and have the patience to deal with bank bureaucracies, you could save yourself considerable money with a “distress” sale.  One couple we are working with recently purchased a 5,000 square foot bank-owned home in The Landings near Savannah for $699,000.  The bank dropped its asking price on the home $300,000 for a quick, all-cash transaction.  The house cost $1.4 million to build before the recession and was listed for sale at $1.2 million just a couple of years ago.  The buyers engaged a local engineering inspector to give the house and property a thorough going-over, and he pronounced it in solid shape, with just a few thousand dollars in cosmetic touchups necessary.
    If you are interested in looking into foreclosed properties in the Savannah, Charleston, Hilton Head or other areas of the southern U.S., please contact me and I will connect you with real estate professionals happy to show you all the bargain properties in their area.
    To see Realty Trac’s list of 10 best beach towns for foreclosures across the U.S.,  click here. For a listing of a few foreclosed properties currently being shown by Realtors who post properties for sale at our web site, GolfHomesListed.com, see below.

 Foreclosures you
might bank on 

  Here are a few examples of recent foreclosure offerings, courtesy of Realtors who are listing properties for sale at GolfHomesListed.com.

Carolina Colours, New Bern, NC

2,144 sq. ft., 3 BRs, 2.5 BAs

Original: $399,000

Current: $275,000

Thornblade Club, Greer, SC

3,779 sq. ft., 4 BRs, 3.5 BAs

Original:  $549,000

Current:  $479,000

Cliffs At Mountain Park, 

TravelersRest, SC

4,800 sq. ft., 5 BRs, 4 BAs

+ 2 half baths

Original:  $1,475,000

Current:  $990,000

 

 Reader Feedback

     We want to make this newsletter as useful as possible for you. If you have comments, suggestions or observations about the newsletter, please email them to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
      I promise to respond quickly. Thanks.
-- Larry Gavrich, Editor

Eve of Construction:  Why this may be the time
to build your dream home

    For many, the thought of building a home from scratch is about as exciting as root canal surgery, or their mother-in-law’s next visit -- and that’s just among those who have actually had the experience of building a house.  For most of the rest of us, we would no more consider building a house than we would perform root canal on ourselves.  Personally, I sag every time I recall building that high-walled fort with Lincoln Logs when I was a kid, only to have it come crashing down when I tried to put a roof on it.  That experience overhangs my appetite to build a real house. 
    And yet, despite it all, my wife and I own a buildable lot in Pawleys Plantation (SC) and still may actually undertake the unthinkable.  We have lived in a half dozen houses together, and they were all someone else’s conception of a home.  We will never truly have a “place of our own” until we build it.  
    We’ve had a taste of what a home or our own could be like.  We tore apart the kitchen in our current home in Connecticut and essentially re-built it from scratch; five years later, it remains the most functional and attractive room we have ever lived in.  To have an entire home to our specifications –- every wall, every appliance, every window exactly where we want them -– well, that is a seductive thought.  I only hope our marriage survives the construction process.
     For those of you who might consider throwing caution to the wind to build your true dream home in a golf community, here are a few reasons why this may be the best time to take that leap of faith.

 Lots to choose among

    It was Will Rogers who advised, “Buy land.  They ain’t making more of the stuff.”  Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a ton of undeveloped land for purchase in the widest range of golf communities.  Take a huge multi-location development like The Cliffs Communities in the upland of the Carolinas; they have been selling property since the mid-1990s and, literally, have only scratched the surface in less than half their available acreage.  At Reynolds Plantation, an hour-plus from Atlanta in rural north Georgia, plenty of developer lots remain.  It may not be lost on frequent readers of our GolfCommunityReviews blog site that both these huge communities are working their way through bankruptcy processes.  But with Metropolitan Life having purchased Reynolds and a deep-pocketed consortium of companies in apparently for the long haul at The Cliffs, lots priced as much as 70% below their high points of just six years ago are beginning to look even more attractive.
     Alternately, you can choose a wonderful newer development like Carolina Colours that may lack hundreds of millions of dollars in amenities but, more importantly, lacks any crushing debt and can offer a perfectly player-friendly golf course at reasonable prices, plus an owner who lives on property.  And at just $49,500 for a lot with a lake view, and at just 10 minutes from the up and coming town of New Bern, NC, you get a lot, literally, for a little.

 

Lots of cheap lots

    Real estate operates on the simple laws of supply and demand.  As noted above, the supply of lots for sale is overwhelming and baby boomers and others have not returned to the market….yet.  In the market crash of 2008, the values of homes in golf communities in the southern U.S. took a beating.  But “unimproved” lots took a bigger beating.  If you had even a passing notion of the market for golf community properties back before Lehman Brothers, you recall that even grandmas were speculating in real estate, buying an extra condo here and a lot or two there.  Now they are trying to give them away, some literally (see below).  Many lots with outstanding water and golf course views are selling at prices formally reserved for a simple wooded lot.  But if we believe what we read about consumer confidence growing, employment inching up, and new home sales and prices poised for a modest upswing, some of the extreme bargains may start to evaporate in the coming months.

 A cheap lot can ease the pain of higher dues
   I wrote recently at our blog site about a lot that was selling for $1 in the upscale and desirable Colleton River, a community that is beyond the reach of those who either cannot afford or are unwilling to commit to $15,000 annually in club and homeowner dues.  That $1 wooded lot is a bit of an anomaly, but not by much; other “non-view” lots at Colleton are priced in the four- and low-five-figure range (the "sweet spot" is still around $200,000, though).  So consider you have, say, $750,000 budgeted for a home in your dream retirement community.  Now imagine you could purchase a nice lot for, say, $10,000, and build your 3,000-square-foot home for about $200 per square foot (that should get you hardwood floors, nice cabinetry, upscale appliances, a beautiful stone fireplace).  Simple math pegs the construction cost of your new home at about $600,000 –- leaving that extra $150,000 to dedicate to 10 years of club and homeowner dues in a community with two of the best Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye golf courses anywhere.  And keep in mind that by moving, say, from Boston to a place like Bluffton, SC, where Colleton River is located, you lower your cost of living by 25% or more.  That difference for married couples who do not deny themselves a routine diet of life’s little luxuries could amount to $15,000 alone annually.


Current lots for sale
   Check out a few current lots for sale (below) at our companion web site, GolfHomesListed.com.  Any of the real estate professionals who list their properties at the site will be happy to share their entire list of lots for sale, as well as some extreme bargain-priced houses that might be the perfect site for your brand new dream home.  Here are a few samples:

Carolina Colours, New Bern, NC, .74 acre, lake view, $49,500
The Landings, Savannah, GA, .35 acre, golf view, $149,900
Mountain Air, Burnsville, NC, .52 acre, golf & mountain view, $209,000
Landfall, Wilmington, NC, .46 acre, golf view, $175,000
Daniel Island, SC, .34 acre, golf view, $198,000
Pawleys Plantation, Pawleys Island, SC, golf and marsh view, $199,500
Wachesaw Plantation, Murrells Inlet, SC, golf view, $139,000

 
 

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June 2012

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