I suppose we should all be used to sloppy reporting about the housing industry and its trends, but reports like one on National Public Radio this morning are stark reminders that the mass media can be counted on to make a bad situation more confusing.

        In a fevered effort to create some sweeping generalization about human behavior in the face of personal financial catastrophe, NPR reporter Alex Blumberg made it seem oh-so-simple for distressed homeowners to turn their under-water homes over to a bank and then go out and buy another house.

        “So,” Blumberg says, “imagine, you buy your house for 400 grand; now, it's worth 200. You might decide to stop paying your mortgage and simply buy another house, similar to the one you already own but for half the price. The old house: the bank can have it.”  He adds, too casually for my taste: “You suffer a blow to your credit score on the one hand, but you get a far cheaper house on the other.”

       In Blumberg’s example, that owner had better have $200,000 in cash to pay for the next home, says a mortgage specialist at the Connecticut Credit Bureau. “Your credit rating takes an especially big hit when you default on a mortgage,” she told me.  “It is unusual for people who default on their mortgage to go out and buy another with credit.”

        Any time I have heard this story about folks walking away from their homes and mortgages, the add-on is that they rent their next place.  And even renting may be difficult if a landlord checks credit ratings.  For NPR to imply that people are walking away from mortgages because they can with impunity is to do yet another disservice to the public, and to the rule of logic.

        The transcript of the NPR segment is available here.

        The fallout from a bad economy that is wreaking havoc on the high end of the leisure residential market, as well as an unfortunate bet on Tiger Woods, may have caught up with upscale Cliffs Communities in North and South Carolina.  According to a Cliffs property owner, developer Jim Anthony is testing residents' and club members’ appetite to commit $60 million in debt financing, or about 40% of what The Cliffs has reportedly invested in its High Carolina community, including land and Woods’ alleged $20 million design fee.

        The $60 million would be raised in the form of bond notes that will pay a minimum of 12% interest

        The Cliffs investigated outside debt financing but their payments would have exceeded 12%, according to the owner.  Such interest rates imply great risk and, if anything, compromise The Cliffs' well worked public image of sophistication.  That image, however, has taken a beating courtesy of the Woods scandal and the ill-timed placement of embarrassing billboards around Asheville.

        By offering ownership of the debt to residents, The Cliffs avoids the potentially unpleasant publicity of a “junk” rating.  It also avoids the potential that, in the case of a default on the loan, outside investors would likely rush to liquidate their investment, an especially unpleasant scenario for owners of Cliffs properties who could see their property values plummet along with the value of their club memberships (for which they paid as much as $150,000).

         According to our owner contact, who says he is inclined at this point to buy into the bond note, The Cliffs has opened its books to residents, and Jim Anthony has put up his personal assets, along with The Cliffs amenities.  Cliffs owners and club members, some of them lawyers and financial experts, are proceeding with due diligence, but no matter what they decide, they appear to be between a rock and a hard place.  They can either support The Cliffs with the requested $60 million or risk outside investors carving up their communities in the event of default. 

        Give Jim Anthony and The Cliffs organization props for coming up with an offer owners can hardly refuse.

        It has been a cold and long winter without golf, and I was looking forward to a March trip to South Carolina.  But my wife, bless her heart, has convinced me to head south next week to attend the annual meetings of the property owner association and golf club at Pawleys Plantation, where we own a vacation condo.  Along the way, I intend to visit and review a golf community each day and, if weather permits, play golf for the first time in three months.  And I will still get to play golf in the Myrtle Beach area in March.

        Here is the tentative list of golf communities I will review on my drive south:

Bayside Plantation, Shelbyville, DE

        This will be my first visit to a Delaware golf community, and even though many people will not consider a community so far north as a place for retirement or a vacation home, the Jack Nicklaus Signature Course has received positive reviews and the community's proximity to the ocean makes it a solid summer vacation venue.  Although New Jersey is an entire wide bay away, the ferry from Cape May, NJ, to the charming town of Lewes, DE, provides excellent and frequent service and cuts out more than hour of time and the many headaches of traveling the awful New Jersey Turnpike.

Kilmarlic Golf Club, Powell's Point, NC

        In my 20s, I played Outer Banks golf for the first time, in Kill Devil Hills, site of the Wright Brothers first flight.  It whet an appetite for coastal golf that is now four decades old.  I don't know much about Tom Steele, Kilmarlic's architect, but I do know the course was good enough to host the North Carolina Open championship twice in the last five years.  Being chosen for that honor in a state that boasts the Pinehurst courses and so many other great ones says something about Kilmarlic.

To be determined (Raleigh area)

        I have asked a local real estate agent who specializes in golf real estate to suggest a location for me to visit on the east or south side of this growing metro area.  There are many to choose among.

River Landing, Wallace, NC

        This will be a return visit to the community, which was built and continues to be owned and developed by a local family.  Against the tide, they have continued to add amenities including 18 more holes of golf in the last couple of years.  Some of the 36 holes by respected architect Clyde Johnston roll along the Cape Fear River.  River Landing's proximity (about an hour) to both Raleigh and Wilmington, two interesting but very different cities, is another plus.

        I will be in the Myrtle Beach area next weekend.  If anyone has a particular course or golf community they would like me to check out, send me a note.

        According to Golfweek magazine, a group of golf organizations have hired a high-profile lobbyist to buff the game’s image in Washington.  According to Golfweek’s Gene Yasuda, the PGA of America,

        The recent turn in golf’s reputation makes one nostalgic for the days when the game was mostly criticized for its mythical uniform -– white belts and shoes, lime green pants, etc.  These have been rough months for golf, especially for the PGA:  First Tiger Woods’ “accident” and then, this week, allegations by Scott McCarron that Phil Mickelson is a “cheater” because he is using a faux-legal square-grooved wedge in competition.  Mickelson’s rejoinder that the club is not illegal and that three other players are using it (out of more than 140 on tour) doesn’t exactly elevate the sport’s honorable image, nor does the ungentlemanly dust-up between the tour’s #2 player and a journeyman.

        Golf has been fortunate that the conduct of its principals has largely

        The PGA Tour’s formerly clever ad line, “These Guys Are Good,” rings hollow; and with the disclosures about Woods, it is filled with unfortunate double entendres.  Better the tour should start intensify its inconsisten emphasis on its contributions to charities.  Perhaps start with a campaign under the banner “These Guys Do Good.”