Cliffs Communities founder Jim Anthony was one of the 40 friends of Tiger Woods invited to the fallen star’s mea culpa session on Friday. Anthony has been extremely generous in his comments about Woods since the Thanksgiving night accident that precipitated the unraveling of the golfer’s reputation. No one in the room at PGA headquarters, save for Woods, may have more at stake than Anthony as Woods seeks to repair his personal life and prepare to return to competitive golf. Anthony has asked his property owners to provide up to $100 million to help him finish the Woods course and other amenities at High Carolina, and the golfer’s continued participation in marketing the community, as well as designing the course, is critical.
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Residential construction costs in the southern U.S. are much lower than a few years ago for a few good reasons: Builders are trying to keep their workers employed and their cash flowing; and material costs are at their lowest in years because demand is so far down. I met with a realtor at the Currituck Club on the Outer Banks of North Carolina last week, and he told me homes in the area are being built for between $120 and $140 a square foot, compared with as much as $220 in 2006. I have had similar conversations with realtors and developers throughout the southeast, and they report similar numbers. A new 3,000 square foot house, dressed to the nines, should not top $500,000 to build. With developer and resale lots at their lowest prices in 10 years, the total cost of a new home is competitive with even the most aggressively priced resale homes.
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Take an outstanding Rees Jones 27-hole golf course, a 3 BR “craftsman” cottage with views of the course and a lagoon with the clubhouse beyond, a short golf cart ride to the beach, and free golf membership, and you might expect to pay as much as $1 million. Now put all that on an island reached only by ferry, and how about the entire package for $399,000? That is the price of the described home at Haig Point, on Daufuskie Island, where prices continue to fall. If island living is for you, you may never find a better deal than that...except elsewhere on Daufuskie. Contact me if you are interested.
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Some of our favorite towns in the southeast are on the BestBoomerTowns.com list of "Top Places to Live." They include: Aiken, SC; Asheville, NC; Athens, GA; Chapel Hill, NC; Charlottesville, VA; and Pinehurst, NC. I have visited golf communities and played the golf courses in all these areas and would be happy to make some recommendations about the best ones in the area. Contact me, and I will be happy to furnish you with some ideas.