I subscribe to International Living magazine, and in the publication’s September issue, the editors rank countries by their suitability as retirement destinations.   The annual “retirement index” ranks a couple of dozen countries across a number of categories, including real estate prices, overall cost of living, culture, health, infrastructure, safety/stability, climate and “special benefits”(emphasis on discounts for senior citizens).  The five top countries are featured, and for 2010, they are (in rank order) Ecuador, Panama, Mexico, France and Italy.  The United States, largely because of a low rating on “real estate,” is tied for 13^th on the list, although it scores perfect 100 ratings for “infrastructure” and “safety/stability.” France is the only other destination that racks up two scores of 100 (health and safety/stability).

        Accessible golf was not one of the criteria the editors used to determine the best places to retire.  Even promotional web sites for

        The magazine claims that a couple can live “a millionaire’s lifestyle” in Ecuador for $1,200 per month.  Four course lunches in Quito can run as low as $2, a taxi ride $1 and a nice hotel no more than $20 per night.  Two-bedroom, two bath condos with either city or ocean views are less than $50,000.

        Panama ranks second largely because of its retiree residency program which supplies deep discounts to foreign pensioners.  These include, according to International Living, 50% off entertainment, 30% off public transport and 25% off dining tabs.  A mountain home will cost as little as $85,000.  Along the golf course at Tucan Country Club and Resort near Panama City, villas start in the high $200s.

        Despite all the negative news coming out of Mexico, the magazine gives the country a score of 81 on a scale of 100 for its safety and stability.  A colonial home in the Yucatan Peninsula will run less than $200,000, with monthly total expenses per couple of about $2,000.  There are more than a half dozen well-regarded golf clubs in the Yucatan, including the well-respected Playacar Club de Golf.

        France and Italy may not offer much in the way of cost advantages for retirement living, but you will eat well.  And the golfing, while not abundant,

        Toby Tobin, the Florida real estate blogger who has followed the Bobby Ginn saga closely, is on a roll.  We reported a few days ago about Toby’s piece on how the Ginn organization has failed to pay its fair share for certain amenities at the Reunion Resort while property owners get hit with ever increasing assessments (see article immediately below).

        Toby is now reporting at GoToby.com that 170 single-family homeowners in the Ocean Hammock community in Palm Coast, FL, are petitioning to amend Ginn “master documents” that permit their fellow homeowners to rent their houses on a nightly basis.  The lack of a prohibition in the original documents, some believe, was an effort by Ginn to clear the way for nightly rentals at the nearby Hammock Beach Resort.  Whether that was the case or it was simply an oversight, the consequence is that what owners expected would be a quiet, upscale neighborhood at Ocean Hammock may soon mimic the golf resort at Disney World, with transient vacationers who are not invested -– literally or figuratively -– in the community.

        “This (the nightly rentals) has the clear potential of converting our wonderful residential community into a transient resort community,” the petition states.  The homeowners seek a language change that would make one month the minimum term for all rentals.

        Property owners at the Reunion Resort near Orlando continue to pay for having purchased property from Ginn Development. Recently they were notified of the next series of increased assessments for road and swimming pool maintenance.  Those facilities are financed and managed through a Community Development District, or CDD, a “special purpose government entity” that is separate from the property owners association.  The increased assessments are a consequence, at least in part, of the fact that a Ginn-controlled entity owes nearly $11 million to the CDD, and isn’t paying, according to Toby Tobin, a Florida blogger who has followed the Ginn saga as closely as anyone.

        The property owners, who were able to protest their way to a reduction in 2011 annual assessments from $472 and $482 to between $293 and $302, respectively (depending on which side of the golf development they live), are tilting at some significant windmills.  Holding the gavel at the CDD Board meetings, according to Tobin, is John Gray, Ginn Development’s own vice president of operations.  Ginn Development will continue to lead the board of the CDD until 250 single-family properties are sold in each half of the golf community.

        Ginn followed a similar strategy at The Conservatory at Hammock Beach, where the developer kept title to three of that golf community’s lots in order to retain all three spots on the community’s three-member board.  The Ginn controlled board hired outside contractors for security and other duties; reportedly, Ginn was an investor in the companies doing the work.  In one case, says Tobin, property owners were paying $20 per parcel for property management services while residents in other golf communities in the area were paying $4 to $5.  Once the developer sold 90% of the properties at The Conservatory, Florida law mandated that property owners take control of the POA.  After they did, they changed contractors.

        The Ginn saga is like a multi-volume saga without a final chapter.  You can read the latest chapter in this twisted tale at Toby Tobin’s web site, GoToby.com.

        Economists and the man on the street generally agree that the housing market will not recover until the jobs market does.  An unemployment rate of 9.5% is not going to help chip away at the inventory of houses for sale, more than a year’s worth currently.

Local Market Monitor, a service based in Cary, NC, that does essentially what its name implies, indicates in its latest newsletter that 100 of the 315 markets it covers are creating jobs again.  Among these are Charleston, Austin, Augusta and Durham, NC.  As we wrote recently, if you are looking for a golf community home and are not set on what city should be nearby, looking at the most stable ones -- those that are creating jobs -- makes sense.  There are excellent golf communities and non-golf housing options in all of these city areas; contact us and we can give you our take on the best.

        Other optimistic words of wisdom from Local Market Monitor:

“…Consumers are spending again. Retail spending dropped about 12 percent during the recession, and is up 7 percent this year. Big-ticket items like cars, furniture and TVs lag behind, but spending for clothes is back to pre-recession levels [and Internet shopping is up 15 percent].”

“Big spending won't happen for another year or so…but consumers' financial situation is already getting better: credit cart delinquencies dropped from almost 7 percent in early 2009, to 4.8 percent in the second quarter. A normal level is around 3 percent.”

“What does all this mean for real estate markets? The average home price was down almost 7 percent in the last year, and we forecast another 3 percent drop in the next 12 months. But the remaining damage is confined to a handful of really bad markets. Others have already hit bottom, including San Jose and the Los Angeles area, or will do so shortly, and some are good bets for the longer term: Bethesda, Charleston, Jacksonville, Albuquerque, Portland, even Stockton and Modesto.”

According to Local Market Monitor, Charleston, SC, is a "good bet" for the longer term which could mean an uptick in sales at upscale communities like Briar's Creek on nearby Johns Island.