I could learn to love winter, as least as long as I am working with customers searching for a golf home. That is because when the cold weather kicks in, so too do the searches. There is nothing like that first morning of the season when you fire up the window defroster to get people thinking seriously about a golf vacation home or permanent home in a climate where golf is year round and four seasons means three warm and one in which no more than a sweater is required on most days. (Note: It will go down to the mid 30s tonight in Myrtle Beach, for example, but today’s high was 56 and it was sunny; to a Connecticut boy, that is early May weather.)
Daniel Island Club features a Tom Fazio layout (shown) and one by Rees Jones.
Going where everything is in its proper place
Customers I am working with now are an eclectic group looking for homes across the southeast and hailing from up and down the east coast and elsewhere. For example, one couple from Fort Myers, FL are heading to the Charleston, SC, area with their two sons to begin a new life, most likely on Daniel Island, where all amenities are in and the population and home types meet the family’s needs for diversity. In his 60s, the husband says, “I want what I want NOW, and I do not want to wait five or ten years for someone to find the money to build a proper fitness center and grille room." The 15 minutes to Charleston, many people’s favorite southern town, is a big bonus.
New Hampshire is right next door to Vermont, and a couple from The Granite State purchased a home earlier this year in the RiverTowne Country Club community of Mt. Pleasant, SC, not 10 minutes from Daniel Island. Their son is planning to attend College of Charleston, just 20 minutes over the striking Ravenel Bridge, and RiverTowne featured a home they fell in love with at first sight. Some dedicated readers of this blog may recall that renegade developer Bobby Ginn once owned RiverTowne, but in the wake of his demise, the community did not suffer the same real estate disasters of other Ginn properties. That has made it an attractive purchase for individual home buyers and a New York industrialist who purchased the fine Arnold Palmer Design golf course and paired it with the classic Snee Farm layout a few miles away on Highway 17 to form the area’s only duel golf membership plan.
Woodside Plantation features three golf courses and modern homes, many of them with the brick exteriors that are indigenous to the South.
No aching in Aiken
Whereas these customers wanted everything in place, a couple from Vermont I am working with will move to Aiken, SC, next year, likely Woodside Plantation, and eventually buy a lot that will support their new green home as well as a woodworking shop. The husband’s other requirement was for a golf course that permits walking at most times, and Woodside has three such layouts. His wife figured that if they were moving south, it should be to a town that is charming but with enough entertainment and services options to match most northern suburbs. Aiken has that, as well as a downtown area that I have described before as “right out of central casting for small town Southern town.”
They were impressed with town planning in Aiken. “They have a group responsible for what they call "smart development" meant to limit urban sprawl,” they wrote me. “One of their tools they have been using is tax incentives to get new stores to relocate and renovate tired old store fronts. Basically, all the old retail malls are being redeveloped.”
Even a long-time golf pro would be impressed by Reynolds Plantation's Creek Club, as well as its other five fine courses.
An altitude adjustment
A former golf pro and his wife, currently living on Florida’s east coast, have had it with the summer heat in the Sunshine State. They love their community in Port St. Lucie, PGA Village, and want to replicate it somewhere farther north, and at a higher altitude. We will have a serious discussion soon about alternatives that will include Mountain Air, north of Asheville; Kenmure in Flat Rock, NC; and a few communities in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Obviously, the golf pro wants a golf course that is challenging and in fine condition. He will have much to choose from, but his wife is likely to offer judgment on how close the communities they eventually visit come to replicating what they have at PGA Village.
I am enjoying working with a couple from Marietta, GA, who filled out my online golf home questionnaire a couple of weeks ago and have been clear in their requirements, which include ownership of their own golf cart to use on the roads of the community and on the golf course. (In those cases that a personal golf cart is permitted on the golf course, a “trail fee” is charged, typically in an amount between $1,000 and $2,000; also, the golf club may insist that you purchase a cart identical to the ones they rent to golfers.) At this early point in the search, we are discussing potential visits for my Georgia couple to The Reserve at Lake Keowee, The Landings near Savannah, and Reynolds Plantation in Greensboro, GA, but in the early stages, everything is open.
Somewhere in the South: Guess the location of this hole and I will give you a shout out in this space. Fill out our golf home questionnaire online and, who knows, you could become a member at this fine club well before next winter.
Are you ready?
These and others of my current customers have personal reasons for relocating to golf communities in the southeast. Some already live in the southeast but want to adjust their thermostats downward in the summer. Some, like a new customer who contacted me today, want to move from inland North Carolina to a golf community within 15 minutes of a beach. If these frosty days of winter have you thinking about relocation to a vacation or permanent home, please take a few minutes to fill out my online golf home questionnaire, send it to me, and I will offer you some initial ideas of which golf communities match your requirements. It costs you nothing and you are never under any obligation whatsoever. If the selections of golf communities makes sense to you, I can put you in touch with a local real estate professional who can answer any detailed questions and arrange for your visit to tour the communities and check out current properties for sale. Please click here for access to our golf home questionnaire.