Myrtle Beach Sun News Sunday real estate section filled with bargains

        I have a personal interest in Myrtle Beach real estate; I own an empty lot and a condo in Pawleys Island, SC, where the Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course is one of the most popular and best on the Grand Strand. Therefore, whenever I am at the condo, I make sure to check the listings in the Myrtle Beach Sun News for a hint that the depressed real estate market is on the mend.

        It’s not quite rebounding yet, based on a cursory examination of this past Sunday’s real estate section, as well as anecdotal information from my neighbors. The entire Myrtle Beach area, which stretches from 20 or so

miles above the state line with North Carolina down to Georgetown, a total distance of about 90 miles (and 100 golf courses), seems to be stuck at 2009 price levels (although local agents say business is picking up); and for those who have followed the leisure residential markets the last few years, that means Myrtle Beach is still very much a buyer’s market for now, good news for golf nuts who are looking for either a vacation home or place to retire with plenty of accessible golf. One further bit of evidence: The condo unit at the other end of our six-unit building recently sold for $249,000, slightly more than the owners paid for it 10 years ago but almost $100,000 less than their original listing price three years ago.

This being the Myrtle Beach area -- Murrells Inlet, actually -- Wachesaw Plantation's Tom Fazio layout features pines, wide expanses of sand, marsh and, often enough, ocean breezes from the Atlantic just three miles away.

 

        I noted this Sunday, for example, that there are plenty of other bargains in the area, including a two-bedroom two-bath cottage at  Wachesaw Plantation, one of the few golf communities on the Strand with a private golf club, priced at just $209,000, perfect especially for those interested in a second home at the coast. (Wachesaw’s front gate is just five miles from the magnificent Huntington Beach State Park.) Wachesaw’s Tom Fazio golf course, one of only two Fazio layouts in the entire Myrtle Beach area (Barefoot Resort is the other), is challenging for single-digit players and fun for high-handicappers, and always in great shape. Maybe best of all, Wachesaw club membership is a bargain, with both non-equity and equity plans available, with the highest initiation fee just $2,500 and dues around $400. (Click here for a sample of current Wachesaw homes for sale.)

 

Golf Course owners in price war on Grand Strand

        Myrtle Beach is one of the those golfing meccas, like Pinehurst, where you don’t have to actually belong to a private club to be assured of a round of golf on any number of courses. Right now, the area is so competitive, from the standpoint of daily fee golf, that golf course owners are slugging it out on price. For example, you can become a member of the Legends Golf Group for no initiation fee and play any of their courses for $25 per round, cart included. Golf courses in the group include Heritage Plantation in Pawleys Island, Oyster Bay just over the state line in North Carolina, and The Legends golf courses in Myrtle Beach; members also receive breakfast, lunch and two drinks (beer, if you choose) when they pay the modest green fees.

        A new active adult community called Cresswind is advertising single-family homes in the low $200s at Market Common, a rapidly developing area of shops, restaurants, movie theaters, offices and homes on the former site of the air force base in Myrtle Beach. Featuring “resort amenities” and within biking distance to the beach, bargain-hunting retirees and vacationers may find that excellent golf courses within 15 minutes in any direction of Market Common is close enough.

        I've been visiting Myrtle Beach since the late 1960s and know the area well.  If you are interested in more information or want to arrange a visit to explore real estate opportunities inside and outside the gates of the many golf communities in the area, please contact me.