You might have resented being told, “Go play with someone your own age” when you were young. Well, what goes round comes round, and past the age of 50, that can be pretty good advice. This month, I cover the Senior Golfers Association, a group that plays all over the world.  Also, some observations about the results of the Presidential election in the Southeast and a cost-of-living chart that may tax the assumptions of a few wannabe Floridians — all included this month.

  Keowee Key, Salem, SC, Photo by Bill Koepnick

If Politics Matters in Your Search for a Golf Home…

As an unprecedented number of folks from the North search for homes in the South during a time of political divide in the country, many will be attempting to assess where the locals stand politically.  It is nearly impossible to divine the political tilt of any particular golf community since no figures are published, no board officials would answer such a question and because, frankly, people in golf communities tend to go along to get along.  I recall a conversation with one former client who lives in an upscale community in South Carolina. While on the golf course, he listened to some blatantly offensive remarks and decided not to confront the speaker for fear it could ruin his golf group — and perhaps bruise his knuckles. I suspect a lot of that goes on.

Every four years, I take a look at county-by-county voting in the Presidential election to discern any patterns in areas populated by golf communities.  The 2020 cycle, although the parties seemed more divided than ever, pretty much followed the patterns of 2008, 2012 and 2016.  Rural votes tended to go in the Republican direction, and urban votes tilted in the direction of the Democrats. In between it was a bit of a hodgepodge set of results. (There were a few exceptions here and there.)

Counties with Large Universities Typically Vote Democrat

It is certainly possible that the inherent politics of a particular golf community may not reflect the sentiments in the community outside its gates. But those who intend to get involved in the life of the community outside the gates may wonder about the political environment.  Take the following results with a grain of salt.

I can say that, pretty much without exception, any progressive-leaning couple who wants to live in a surrounding area of like-minded people should target areas that are home to large universities.  Almost exclusively, the surrounding counties voted Democrat.  For example, Albemarle County Virginia, home to the state’s university in Charlottesville, voted overwhelmingly for President-elect Biden, 66% to 32% for President Trump.  (I have rounded up and down to eliminate decimals.)  In Tallahassee, FL, home to that state’s university and in the otherwise red panhandle of the state, the results were similar, 64% to 35%, respectively.  Few counties showed a more skewed result than in Durham County North Carolina where Biden collected 80% of the vote; Durham is home to Duke University.  Next door in Orange County, home to Chapel Hill and the University of North Carolina, Biden won 75% of the vote.

Counties with Smaller Schools Vote Republican

Counties with smaller colleges and universities tilted toward the President.  In Beaufort County North Carolina (not to be confused with a county of the same name in South Carolina), voters went 63% to 37% for President Trump; the county seat of Greensboro is home to East Carolina University.  In Horry County South Carolina, which comprises much of the Myrtle Beach area and is home to Coastal Carolina University, the vote went 66% for President Trump and 33% for Biden.  In Greenville, where Furman University is located, the surrounding county voted 58% to 40% for the President.  One of the relatively few counties to vote for Biden in South Carolina — 56% to 43% — was Charleston County, home to Charleston, the College of Charleston and the numerous golf communities that surround the city.

The votes in counties of the South largely made up of cities was a bit of a mixed bag.  In Chatham County Georgia, home to Savannah and the sprawling Landings community, the vote was 59% Biden, 40% Trump.  Richmond County (Augusta) went for Biden substantially, 68% to 31%.  Henrico County Virginia, home to Richmond, voted almost the same way, 64% to 35%.

Finding Balance in Voting Difficult

Yet in Florida, city results were all over the place.  The Tampa area’s Hillsborough County went 53% Biden, 46% Trump; yet Sarasota County, which comprises the cities of Sarasota and Venice, went 55% Trump, 44% Biden.  Duval County (Jacksonville) was close, at 51% to 47% in favor of Biden. (Yet next door in Nassau County, which includes Fernandina Beach and Amelia Island, the vote was a strong 72% for Trump and just 27% for Biden.)

Those looking for a perfect political balance in the voting results will be hard pressed to find them.  Of the 50 or so counties I looked at, the two that came closest were St. Lucie County in Florida and New Hanover in North Carolina.  The former is home to Fort Pierce and Port St. Lucie and voted 50% to 49% in favor of Trump; the famed PGA Village community, with three PGA National golf courses, is located in Port St. Lucie.  New Hanover county comprises the popular city of Wilmington and, among other communities, Landfall and Porters Neck. New Hanover voted 50% to 48% in favor of Biden.

How to Play Golf with People Your Own Age

When I was in college, my youngest brother, 11 years old at the time, was a masterful chess player. Either I or my sister would drive him from our suburban New Jersey home into New York City to compete in tournaments. I recall one match in which he played against a 50-something gentleman who, something like 15 minutes into the match, knocked over his king and extended his hand to the little kid across from him.  I recall thinking, “Why don’t you play against people your own age?”  I was thinking about the older man…

…which brings me to the Senior Golfers of America (SGA), one of the best affinity golfing groups you’ve likely never heard of.  I say that with a mix of confidence and bewilderment because there are only about 1,000 people on the group’s mailing list and millions of golfers over the age of 50 in the U.S. (a large percentage of them living inside the gates of golf communities).  SGA has the kind of programming and history that deserve better, and I am doing my small part here to spread the word. (Full disclosure: SGA Director Catherine Powell is posting an article about my new book for her membership and I, impressed by SGA’s vigorous schedule for senior golfers, offered to write about her group.)

In non-pandemic years, SGA events are scheduled virtually every month, and even in this chaotic year of 2020, the group has kept to its domestic schedule.  The events, which are both competitive and non-competitive, are a mix of lavish and demure: “Lavish” as in Christmas at The Cloister in Sea Island, GA, or a few days at Hotel Royal and the Crans sur Sierre Golf Club in Crans-Montana, Switzerland; “demure” as in The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail in Alabama and Linville Lodge in the North Carolina mountains.  Somewhere in between lie such stalwarts as Pebble Beach and Torrey Pines, both on the schedule for mid 2021.  I hope to attend the group’s Lobster Festival event next year in Boothbay Harbor, ME, a leisurely four-hour drive from my home in Connecticut.  

You might get the feeling, at this point, that membership in this club is exclusive and that you will have to take out a second mortgage to afford it.  Au contraire.  Annual membership for a single is just $75, for a golfing couple $125, and for a golfer and non-golfing spouse, $100.  The only requirements for membership, besides being a lady or gentleman and adhering to the written and unwritten rules of golf, is to be 50 years old or older.

If you would like to learn more, visit the SGA website at https://seniorgolfersamerica.com/, or contact SGA Director Catherine Powell at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

Beware the Income Tax Trap

As we approach the end of the calendar year, many of us will have taxes on our mind as we wait for our W-2 and other forms to arrive and then prepare to file our returns.  Some of us will look at the resulting tax burden and ask, “Wouldn’t it be great if we moved to a state with no income tax?”

The answer is “Maybe not.” Here is what I wrote about taxes in my new book, Glorious Back Nine: How to Find Your Dream Golf Home, available for sale at Amazon.com:

Three states in the Southeast—Florida, Alabama and Tennessee—do not impose a state income tax on their citizens. In retirement, if you earn hundreds of thousands of dollars, then God bless; Florida or the other two no- income-tax states are viable choices. But for the great majority of the rest of us, the state income tax is relatively meaningless, especially since those states without one have to make up the loss of revenue somehow. (Sales taxes seem to be a popular way.)

The overall cost of living in Florida’s cities and towns, for example, rivals that of many cities in the North and is considerably higher than most locations in the Carolinas and Georgia. Insurance rates in the Sunshine State are about the highest in the nation. And former commuters to cities like New York and Boston will relive nightmares sitting in Florida interstate and local traffic, especially during the winter months when the population level of the state explodes. (You can circumvent some of those problems by paying tolls.)  Still, if you want to play year-round golf and enjoy the best weather in the U.S. during the winter months, Florida is a great option. But unless you maintain a large income, don’t choose Florida for the income tax break alone.

The financial newsletter Kiplinger indicates that South Carolina is actually more tax friendly to retirees than is Florida. Like Florida, South Carolina does not tax Social Security income but offers additional breaks to seniors, such as the exclusion from state taxation of up to $25,000 of retirement and other income. The average property tax on a $400,000 home in Florida is $3,920 annually; in South Carolina it is $2,402. 

In the end, the determining financial factor should be cost of living, of which taxes is but one component.  In the chart below, also included in my book, cost of living for states in the Southeast and selected states elsewhere are ranked based on their comparison to the US average cost of living.

State Cost of Living Index
Compared with US average 

*states with no income tax

Source: WorldPopulationReview.com 

Glorious Back Nine: How to Find Your Dream Golf Home is available in paperback at Amazon.com. An eBook version will be available soon.

 If you are considering a search for a permanent or vacation home in a golf-oriented area, please contact me for a free, no-obligation consultation at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 Woodside, Aiken, SC

Gone with the Wind: Golf Communities Dropping “Plantation” from Names

What’s in a name?  When it comes to universities, towns, sports teams and, yes, even some golf communities, quite a lot actually.  In the wake of the police-involved deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans, and the protests that ensued, names associated with an ugly aspect of our nation’s past — slaveowners Calhoun, Jackson (as in Stonewall and Andrew), Lee and dozens of others unknown by most Americans — have been stripped from government and academic buildings. 

Business too is responding.  Branding is everything in American commerce, and golf communities are businesses, pitching themselves as bastions of leisure and relaxation.  This is why many golf communities developed in the 1980s and ’90s added the word “Plantation” to their names to imply the ethos of an Old South lifestyle.  It worked well enough until a rising consciousness about the region’s history of slave ownership, culminating in protests around the nation and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, exacerbated the distinction between the lifestyles of plantation owners and the persons they controlled.

Some communities tackled the name issue as long as a decade ago, although their reasons were more commercial than social.  For example, the former Woodside Plantation in Aiken, SC, a town about as indigenously Southern as there is, dropped the “Plantation” moniker in 2010 when the developer began to create new neighborhoods both inside and beyond the gates of the original community.

“By that time, we were actively marketing Woodside, The Village at Woodside and Hollow Creek Preserve (an equestrian community outside of Woodside),” according to Woodside’s marketing executive Diana Peters. 

“It became clear to us that using ‘Woodside Plantation’ was confusing prospects since everyone associated that name with Woodside proper.”  In 2015, the organization decided to use “Woodside Communities” to identify the growing group of communities.

However, the Woodside Plantation Property Owners Association (WPPOA), which owns the roads and signage in the community, has not yet dropped references to “Plantation” but is beginning to research the costs of changing signage and other expenses involved in a switch of names.  A vote of the property owners is likely after the research is done. 

Whereas the developers of Woodside eliminated “Plantation” from its official name for commercial reasons, more communities have followed suit recently for reasons much more related to popular concerns.  Many of those changes have also been handled quietly, especially at such deluxe communities as Wexford on Hilton Head Island and the triumvirate of high-quality golf communities in Bluffton, SC — Colleton River, Berkeley Hall and Belfair.  (Editor’s note: My vacation home is located in Pawleys Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC, and, to date, the homeowners’ association board there has not taken up the issue of a potential name change.  Given the shrinking number of communities that retain “Plantation” in their names, it is just a matter of time before some reporter at a local newspaper or TV station decides to ask why.)

In some cases, as noted above, the main objection to dropping the “Plantation” handle is financial — the cost to change printed materials and signage. But the counter argument is one of enlightened self-interest.  We are at a moment when the sellers’ market in southern golf communities has never been stronger because inventories are historically low and demand, thanks to the pandemic and more people working from home, is high.  Owners of southern golf community real estate are not about to let a little thing like the name of their communities threaten their selling power.  When two powerful motivations like social consciousness and investment security converge, change is inevitable. 

Is it Time to Migrate Your Thinking about Migration?

In last issue’s Home On The Course, I wrote about how the pandemic is boosting the fortunes of the golf industry and the prices of golf community properties.  Here are some additional thoughts on the subject.

There are many reasons to hate coronavirus. It has taken the lives of our fellow citizens, shaken up families, pretty much debilitated the economy for years to come and reinvigorated the game of golf.  Wait.  What?

It feels a bit churlish to write about the pandemic’s benefits to the golf industry, but they are too obvious — and ironic — to ignore.  The truth is golf was back on its heels before the pandemic, making something of a slow recovery from all the course closings of the prior decade but with no net growth in the number of courses in the nation and only incremental increases in rounds played.

But while driving most people indoors to safety, the pandemic has also driven many outside their homes for the only safe recreation this side of hiking.  Dormant golfers, those who gave up the game because of family responsibilities or for reasons of cost, are back, filling up tee sheets at public courses in virtually every part of the country.  Personal example:  In the summer of 2019, at my favorite local course, Keney Park in Hartford, CT, I could call the pro shop at 9 a.m. and ask for a tee time in the neighborhood of 10 a.m. and I would have a selection of times to choose.  Recently, my friend Pete called Keney to book a tee time three days in advance; the best he could get was 12 p.m.  We played with threesomes and foursomes stacked in front and behind us; it took an hour longer to play than it did last summer at the same time, and as we made our way down the 10thfairway, a threesome from two holes ahead drove past us heading to the clubhouse, complaining the play in front of them was too slow.

The pandemic is also having a profound effect on golf community home values and, in fact, home sales in some surprising areas. (Example: A report in mid-October indicated that Hartford County in Connecticut — that’s my county of residence – had the third largest real estate sales increase in August among all counties in the nation when compared with the same month’s sales figures in 2019. I knew homes were selling in our neighborhood, but I had no idea…) The real estate brokers and agents I work with in the Southeast are reporting that folks fleeing the cities are beating a path to their doors.  Inquiries about real estate in the region are way up, twice as many visits are scheduled for this fall as were requested last year, and prices are rising so fast that homeowners reluctant to list their homes for sale in prior years are coming off the sidelines.  

“It has been an amazing market here for the last several months,” Tom Jackson wrote me in early October.  Tom is my real estate contact for the Bluffton, Hilton Head and Daufuskie Island markets.  “We are seeing lots of buyers; at Haig Point (Daufuskie) we have about 23 homes under agreement right now, Colleton River and Belfair have been on fire as well.  At Palmetto Bluff (Bluffton community with million-dollar homes) we have seen so many sales that the home inventory is down to 18 homes.”

Here is another staggering figure Tom shared about Palmetto Bluff, where most homes are valued north of $1 million.  In mid-October, 47 properties there were pending sales. At the same time in 2019, that number was zero.

Golf communities are facing something of a perfect storm of incoming migration – from city dwellers who believe they will be safer at some remove from cities, to all those Baby Boomers who put their relocations on hold when the virus hit, to the millions of company employees who are going to remain working from home because they like it and their employers are going to save a bundle on office rents and utility costs (and, no surprise from this writer who works from home, those employees are just as productive there — some more so).  And since developers were slow to recover from the 2008 recession and scared to build new communities, inventories are historically low in the areas of the Southeast most popular with those relocating from elsewhere.

Even the most mathematically challenged among us knows what happens when demand is high and supply is low.  I’ve looked at pricing in a number of communities in the Southeast over recent weeks and, not surprising, the list prices for single-family homes and condos have risen perceptibly from earlier this year, whereas the price of homesites (lots) are only up incrementally, if at all.  That would argue for consideration of building your dream home but, unfortunately, construction prices are up as much — in some locations, maybe more — than the increase in resale home prices.

Because of the pandemic, many folks in the Southeast who have reached a certain age that compels them to return “home” because of health issues have not listed their southern homes for sale — yet.  When they do, the short inventory situation will convince them to list at inflated prices.  (The marketing director at Keowee Key in South Carolina told me last week that homes are selling above list price and that bidding wars are not uncommon.)  But buyer beware; we cannot predict what the herd psychology will be once a vaccine for the virus is readily available.  If the pandemic is perceived as well under control, migration patterns may return to something resembling the normal and ordinary; those who paid inflated prices during the pandemic might find themselves with a property that has depreciated in value.

On the other hand, home working for large numbers of employees may be here to stay.  It is logical to think that the millions of workers at home will start looking for lower cost of living options that will provide them with extra space for their home office; and that could continue to cause even higher prices on southern real estate, especially in golf communities perceived as high-quality. (With flexible work hours at home, expect more rounds of golf.)  If your heart is set on relocating in a southerly direction, perhaps you should get serious – yesterday.  

Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

One Golf Community Saves Itself

A few years after I started my business, Home On The Course, I learned a good lesson: Real estate values inside the gates of any community can crash within months when the adjacent country club hits the skids financially.  It took years, for example, at Mount Vintage near Aiken, SC, for property owners to recover from a takeover by the local bank that held the mortgage on their failing golf course.  Even in the currently robust market, house values are barely higher today than when that community first opened in 2000.  At the vaunted Cliffs communities, the 2009 recession and a membership plan “forced” on buyers at closing and a membership fee that reached $125,000 destroyed land and home sales and caused a change in ownership a few times over the last 10 years.  

Without question, a golf community with a successful golf course at its core supports real estate values in the community.  With the constant barrage in the media about golf community courses that can’t make it financially and are plowed over for new housing, it is gratifying to hear about one whose membership and non-golfing residents together tackled a financial shortfall and came out the other side with a viable plan.

I have written about Cypress Landing in Chocowinity, NC, a number of times since I first visited in 2015.  I cannot remember how I first heard of the community, but it surely wasn’t because of an aggressive marketing campaign.  Cypress Landing is low key about itself, even though it has much to recommend, including an adjacent river, a fun and scenic golf course and some of the most reasonably priced real estate I’ve encountered.  And its proximity to the medium sized town of Greenville, NC, home to East Carolina University and a huge medical center complex, makes it less remote than the town with a name like Chocowinity might imply.

I mention Cypress Landing in my new book, and during the course of reviewing my final draft, one golf real estate insider told me he had heard of financial difficulties at the community’s golf club. I have a reliable contact at Cypress Landing, and he confirmed the financial issues but indicated members and residents were working on a solution. The heart of the issue was that the club did not have enough members to sustain it and that fees were too low to stem the cashflow issues. 

Faced with the potential closure of the major asset the community has, members and residents debated the future of the club and came up with a plan to amend the community covenants that separated operation of the golf course from the homeowners’ association.  Without getting into too many arcane details, by a 4 to 1 vote among the 716 homeowner association (HOA) members, it was resolved that HOA annual dues would be increased by $350 annually for the next five years; a new HOA committee, called the Golf Course Committee, will consist of five members that include a non-golfing member from the community; and the HOA would have closer coordination with Billy Casper Management Group which operates the golf course for the community. There are other wrinkles to the new agreement, but that is the gist of it.

Despite friction between the golf members and non-golfing residents in many golf communities, Cypress Landing showed that enlightened self-interest, in this case real estate values, can drive consensus.  The five years of increased dues means each member of the HOA will spend a total of $1,526, or about .4% of the value of the average home in the community.  (I estimate that to be $350,000.)  Even if the golf club merely survives, let alone thrives, that is a good deal any way you look at it.

Letter to Editor

My Oops

In your latest e-mail article ("Covid-19's Surprising Effect of Golf and Golf Communities"), your math calculations are incorrect concerning the rates of confirmed cases of Covid-19 vs. the general population.

For example, the confirmed cases in Bluffton, SC do not represent .047%.  They represent 4.7%, or .047 (1,084 divided by 23,000).  The other statistics are also stated incorrectly because of the confusion between percentages vs. decimal representation.  This is a common mistake, and one that I sometimes make, too.

Otherwise, a great article, as usual.

 Richard A. Freeman, Esq.Miami Beach, FL

 Editor’s note:  Thanks, Richard, for keeping this English major’s math straight.

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If you are considering a search for a permanent or vacation home in a golf-oriented area, please contact me for a free, no-obligation consultation at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Covid-19 has had a strange effect on property sales in golf communities, but it isn’t what you’d expect. Learn more this month in Home On The Course.  The best information web sites are those that are useful and easy to use.  Thanks to a subscriber, we have found Flood Factor, which assesses flood risk by address across the nation.  Also included this month is a free offer for those searching for a golf home, or thinking about. All this and more.  Start reading now…

 Haig Point, Daufuskie Island, SC

Covid-19’s Surprising Effects on Golf and Golf Communities

 It is the very definition of counterintuitive: The deadly Covid-19 pandemic — which has driven millions of people indoors for most hours of the day — has been good for golf and good for Southern golf community real estate.  

Tee times at public or municipal golf courses have been at a premium, and if you score a mid-to-late-morning tee time, chances are you called a week in advance.  Golf is one of the few recreational sports that can be played safely as long as we accept a modest number of restrictions and modest level of risk.  I have played about a dozen times in the last six weeks and have felt no less safe than I do in my house (although my mask is always with me in my golf cart, and I am content to wear it when I check in and use the facilities at the local courses in Connecticut). 

A couple of weeks ago I was matched with two other locals at my favorite Hartford area venue, Keney Park.  On the first green, one of my partners took a bottle of water and placed it two feet to the left of the cup.  He explained that he was a “high risk” individual and wasn’t going to take any chances touching the cup or bottom of the flagstick.  The bottle would serve as his and his cousin’s “cup” for all 18 holes.  I didn’t ask him for details about his risk, but I almost signed up to putt to the bottle, given that I have Type 2 diabetes and hypertension (both controllable).  In the end, I trusted the disc of foam at the bottom of the cup that meant I could pull the ball out of the cup with two fingers.  (Every few holes, I reached for the hand sanitizer in the cart.)

I see varying degrees of caution among other players; some stand on tee boxes less than three feet from each other, gabbing away, no masks in sight.  Others, as my high-risk individual demonstrated, exercise an abundance of caution.  Suffice to say that Keney Park, like so many other courses, has a much more crowded tee sheet on weekdays than it had last summer at the same time, and more people means more risk.  The extra traffic on the golf course may be the result of fewer people traveling this summer; Hartford is essentially a blue-collar city with aerospace related businesses as well as insurance companies (Aetna, The Hartford) forming its core employment base.  But in other, higher-income urban areas, there is strong evidence that many people who can afford it are in full flight to locations they perceive as safer.

Islands imply safety to many.  Steve, a friend who fled Florida this spring for his other home on Nantucket Island off the Massachusetts coast, told me the island has been crowded with folks from New York and Boston since April, most of them owners of properties they typically use only in summer.  One of those, an analyst for Morgan Stanley in New York, has been there since March and doesn’t have plans to return to the city for the foreseeable future.  Nantucket, which has a year-round population of around 15,000 and triple that in summer, has suffered just 49 confirmed cases of coronavirus since the beginning of the pandemic.

Those numbers seem consistent with what we might expect of island living — even more so for a true island community like Haig Point on Daufuskie Island which is reached only by boat (it runs a ferry for residents to and from Hilton Head Island) and with a rather stable population.  Haig Point is among the safest places to live right now, with lots of outdoor activities (golf, a nice beach) and residences just a short golf cart away from any location in the community.  Daufuskie Island’s year-round population, most of it at Haig Point, is about 450.  The island’s latest number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began is just four, or a mere .008% of the island’s population, the best performance of any zip code in Beaufort County, SC, which has seen a total of 4,357 confirmed cases since the onset of the virus.  The small town of Sheldon, home to the high-end Brays Island golf community, has totaled just five confirmed cases.  Bluffton, where many of the area’s top golf communities are located, has suffered the most cases in the county, 1,084 for a total population of 23,000.  That works out to .047%.  (By comparison, New York City has seen 237,000 cases, or .03% of its population of 8 million.)

According to a report in the magazine Mansion Global magazine, about 50% of Haig Point’s residents live on the island year-round, but currently that population has risen to 70%.  To reinforce the notion that folks are seeking refuge on the island, in a 2 ½ month period earlier this year, Haig Point’s sales office received 300 more inquiries than it did in the same period a year earlier.

One of our newsletter subscribers, a doctor who lives at Haig Point, wrote me that everyone on the island was invited to be tested at the local fire station a couple of weeks ago.  Results were quick.  He and his wife tested negative and, to the best of his knowledge, all other residents were negative as well.

If you would like an introduction to Haig Point or other island golf communities such as Bald Head Island off the North Carolina coast, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Give and Take: Country Clubs Accept PPP Money

Private golf clubs are businesses, and businesses — with few exceptions, including mine — employ people. People are hurting right now, many in the physical sense but financially as well.  It is important that we keep our fellow citizens off bread lines, safely in their homes or at their jobs, and with a sense of hope for the future (even if there are noisy debates about the amount of relief required).

The Island Packet, the newspaper that serves the Bluffton/Hilton Head area in South Carolina, recently published a list of nearby country clubs that applied for and accepted money from the US government through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), part of the CARES Act passed by Congress to encourage companies large and small to keep their employees on their payrolls.  If those companies comply with the specifics of PPP, there is a good chance the “loan” will be forgiven.  At worst, companies will be required to pay all or part of it over time, a better deal than they could have received from most banks given the low interest rate the government has offered.

As you may have read, some companies opted to return the money they received after media and members of the public questioned whether they really needed funds they already had in reserve. Well-financed and profitable companies, the argument went, should be able to keep their employees on the job, especially if the work can be done from home or some other safe venue.  The Kiawah Island Community Association, according to The Island Packet, returned the $1 million loan it received after a U.S. Congressman complained that “wealthy community associations that have millions of dollars in reserve” should not qualify.

Private golf neighborhoods and gated community property owners’ associations in Beaufort County obtained at least $8.5 million in small business loans,” The Island Packetreported.  Among those who received between $1 million and $2 million were some well-known communities, including Berkeley Hall Plantation, Belfair Plantation and Moss Creek Plantation in Bluffton; Wexford Plantation and the Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island; and Haig Point on Daufuskie Island. The Colleton River Plantation Club and Hampton Hall in Bluffton and Long Cove on Hilton Head received loans between $350,000 and $1 million; Spring Island, near Beaufort, where homes sell at $1 million and higher, received a loan of less than $350,000.  (Of course, this is not a Hilton Head area phenomenon; private golf clubs and communities across the nation have applied for and received similar loans.)  

Even before the PPP program was announced, one of the area’s private clubs had decided to retain all its employees, according to a former Board member at the club.  

“We had no idea what the financial impact would be, but we expected significant revenue declines, which is what has happened,” he told me, asking that I not use his name or club affiliation.  Since all club employees, even the part-timers, have been retained, my contact is confident the loan will be forgiven.  But even if not, he says, “we have not used any of it for current operations, so we’ll repay it if need be; the gap would be funded by our reserves or dues raised for 2021.”

It is clear that this community and others like it could have covered the costs to retain all employees, at least for a time.  But to all of them, it made good business sense to accept, at worst, a low-interest loan from the government and, at best, free money if the loan is forgiven because the club adhered to all the rules, chief among them continued employment for its workers.

Despite its lofty objectives, PPP has not been without controversy.  The program was rushed through to respond to the pandemic and could fall well short of its intended goals, and at a whopping price tag.  

“There really is not any practical way to set up a program in the time frame available to determine the deserving versus the non-deserving,” one developer told me, “so we have a program that, I suspect, will have half the money wasted.  

“It is in the nature of government — and the pandemic.”

If you have any thoughts on this topic, please shoot me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I will print appropriate responses.

Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

Five Key Steps to Start Your Golf Home Search

I am mindful that some of you already own golf homes, but some of you may have considered searching for one before the pandemic.  I am hearing from my real estate contacts in the Southeast that they are receiving lots of inquiries about properties for sale in local golf communities, and potential buyers are planning visits for the coming months.  

If you are considering re-starting (or starting from scratch) a search for a golf community home, I have developed a short guide to conducting your search that includes five fundamental approaches you should consider.  [Click here] and I will send it to you with my compliments.  As always, if you would like my personal assistance in matching your preferences to any of the more than 150 golf communities I have visited, shoot me an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and we can discuss some ideas. 

A Flood of Concern

We are deep into hurricane season which typically means my annual caution not to overreact in deciding whether to live near the coast or not.  (I typically cite the odds of a major storm hitting a particular spot on the east coast; spoiler, the odds are good you won’t be affected and, anyway, local and state governments have become quite adept at evacuation procedures.)

In recent weeks, Hurricane Isaias pelted Pawleys Island, SC, where my wife and I own a vacation condo.  The word from our next-door neighbor was that our condo suffered no damage whatsoever.  Indeed, in the 20 years we have owned the vacation home, the worst consequence of a hurricane has been a leak from the roof that stained a couple of walls. 

Alan Eldridge, a dedicated reader of this newsletter, recently told me about a web site that is both illuminating and easy to use regarding the threat of flooding to any single property in the U.S.  I had been using the FEMA site for such information but FloodFactor.com is considerably more user friendly. (Thank you, Alan.) The site bills itself this way: “Past floods, current risks, and future projections based on peer-reviewed research from the world’s leading flood modelers.”

Plug in any address you want — say, your current home or, perhaps, one you are considering in a marshland golf community in the Southeast — and you will receive an assessment of flood risk for that property.  This is especially helpful in that flood risk determines the amount of flood insurance you must carry.

I input our address in Pawleys Island and was pleased to find out that our home had a “minimal flood risk,” a 1 in 10 chance, even though we are adjacent to a pond and just ¾ mile from the ocean.  However, Flood Factor’s recommendation is that we carry flood insurance, which we have done for 20 years because that is what FEMA recommends. (The cost is a few hundred dollars annually.)  The Flood Factor results for our address also show that 38% of the properties in our surrounding county, Georgetown, are at risk.  Especially helpful for those in the market for a home, Flood Factor estimates the likelihood of flooding over a period of time.  In our case, “this property is unlikely to flood over the next 30 years.”  Other properties closer to the marsh will not be so lucky in the future with an expected rise in sea levels.

Whew.

As I get set to publish the newsletter, I have learned that Realtor.com, where tens of thousands of homes on the market are posted, has decided to include Flood Factor’s risk ratings for many of the listings.  This is a big deal.  I checked out a few coastal homes currently for sale in communities not far from marsh and ocean, and the risk factors ranged from 1 in 10 all the way up to 10 in 10.  The latter risk factor typically warns of a better than 50/50 chance of flooding over the next five years and a more than 90 percent chance of flooding sometime in the next 30 years as sea levels rise.  Realtor.com’s decision should make potential buyers happy; sellers of homes at risk are another story.

Our latest review at OffTheBeatenCartPath.com, a hidden gem in Swanton, VT. called Champlain Country Club

 If you are considering a search for a permanent or vacation home in a golf-oriented area, please contact me for a free, no-obligation consultation at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The notion of what constitutes a bargain in a golf community home is changing. In the July issue of Home On The Course, we explore the new definitions and share some examples of current “bargains.” Plus, I have a book on the way, and an excerpt in this edition.

July 2020  Creek Club, Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA The Bargain Bin   Here are some homes currently for sale across a wide range of pricing that seem to meet the definition of “bargain” (minimum 2 BRs, 2 BAs, $ per square foot noted).  If any of these homes pique your interest, contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.   Keowee Key, Salem, SC 3 bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 3,488 sq. ft. ($71) $249,000 Keowee Key is located on Lake Keowee about 20 minutes from the college town of Clemson.  Its 18-hole golf course was renovated a few years ago.   Albemarle Plantation, Hertford, NC 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2,462 sq. ft ($104) $255,900 Albemarle Plantation is on the coast, less than an hour and a half from Norfolk International airport and on a large body of water known as the North Atlantic that extends inland from the ocean.  The Sound Golf Links has some nice views of the water.   Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, 3,581 sq. ft. ($113) $405,000 In the roaring 90s, Reynolds Plantation loaded in just about every amenity a resident would want, including six terrific golf courses.  Located on a clean and beautiful lake about 75 minutes from Atlanta, Reynolds has the added benefit of being under the guidance of the deep-pocketed and well-run Met Life organization.   Colleton River Plantation, Bluffton, SC 4 bedrooms, 4 baths, 4.662 sq. ft. ($119) $554,500 Colleton River is located a few miles inland from the bridge that leads to Hilton Head Island.  Its two golf courses by Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye are as different as they are high quality.  Club membership is mandatory and the annual carrying costs are a bit higher than most, but you cannot argue with the quality.  Biggest bargains in the community? A dozen lots listed at $1 per.   The Landings, Savannah, GA 6 bedrooms, 9.5 baths, 10,131 sq. ft. ($197) $1,995,000 Q. When is a nearly $2 million home a bargain? A. When it is listed under the $200 a square foot level.  Most homes in this stratosphere include all sorts of elegant touches. This one has that in spades, starting with views of one of The Landings six golf courses and including a look at an expanse of marsh and lagoons.  And, just in case you are wondering, of course it has a guest house, which includes a bedroom suite with 2 baths.   If you are considering a search for a permanent or vacation home in a golf-oriented area, please contact me for a free, no-obligation consultation at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Bargains Get Pricier   In the past 15 years, I have assisted couples in finding homes in golf communities in the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida that ranged in price from $200,000 to $1.2 million, and beautiful pieces of property on which to build from $5,000 to $250,000.  Although inventories have tightened up across the region in the last few years, there are still bargains across the entire price range.  But the definition of “bargain” is changing. In general, the fundamental value proposition of real estate holds true; price is determined by location.  Typically, the more remotely located golf communities are the least expensive.  However, in the 1990s, as many businesspersons accumulated wealth, some developers decided to load remotely located communities with deluxe amenities — the finest golf courses, nature-walking trails, fitness centers loaded with the latest hi-tech equipment, pools, marinas and even equestrian centers.  In the Carolinas and rural Georgia, the appeal was to the new money in cities like Atlanta and Charlotte.  It wasn’t unusual, before the 2008 recession, to see many second homes valued in the millions in these remote communities, and some of them served as second and even third homes.  Some of the best examples are Reynolds Lake Oconee in Greensboro, GA, about 75 minutes from Atlanta, and the seven Cliffs communities, strung out mostly in the upstate of South Carolina (with one about a half hour from Asheville, NC). But the 2008 recession put an end to conspicuous purchase of golf community homes, at least for most of the rest of the following decade.  And now, Covid-19 is having its own unique, if inconsistent, effects on retirement and home buying.  A clear pattern has not emerged, but with all those stay-at-home workers potentially moving to lower cost areas of the South, we could very well see a new migration south in the coming few years.   In some areas, home prices are actually up as inventories shrink.  In others, the market seems to be waiting to figure out whether retirement styles and buying behaviors have changed forever — or at least until there is a vaccine for Covid-19.  For those who are undaunted by the current crisis and see a buying opportunity or just want to get on with their lives as intended before the virus, there are still bargains to be had in terms of entire golf communities and the homes inside them.   What constitutes a “bargain”? The most basic assessment of a bargain is price — not the overall price of a house, but rather the cost per square foot.  In my 15 years working with couples to identify value in golf community homes, I have tended to look at $100 per square foot as being the magic line below which a home attains extreme bargain status.  The $100 to $125 per square foot range should still be considered bargain range as long as the house is in a quality golf community.  Until recently, such homes have been relatively easy to find, especially in the $300,000 and lower category.  However, the price of materials to build a home and related infrastructure costs (pipes, fiber optic line, road clearing) have escalated, and that has not only pushed up the price of new homes, but it has tended to increase the comparative value of existing homes as well, especially during an environment in which the inventories of homes for sale have shrunk.  Many bargain homes are located in more remote areas of the Southeast, a good distance from services and entertainment options. The formerly magic bargain line of $100 is more like $125 per square foot today.  (See sidebar for some examples.)   Getting What You Pay For In golf communities where homes tend to begin in the $400,000 range, the definition of bargain becomes less about house value and more about lifestyle value.  Generally speaking, many homes in the mid six figures have a dollar per square foot value in the $150 and up range.  These homes tend to be located in communities with a wider range of amenities, higher quality private clubs and, for the most part, are located in areas with plenty of entertainment options (that is, nearer to urban areas).  It is not unusual to find multiple golf courses inside the gates of these communities and, chances are, many homes come with substantial views — lake, river, mountains or golf course. The “bargain” in these communities lies beyond the home itself and in the amenities and services you pay a little extra for.  Although plenty of non-golfers live inside the gates of golf communities, most of them do not move to such a place to sit on their patios and watch the world go by.  For them, the communities’ country clubs offer social memberships that provide access to the clubhouses for meals and other events and a feeling of belonging that does not require a regular men’s or ladies golf group. This is why I stress to couples I work with that they should fold the cost of joining the country club into the overall budget to pay for their house.  The price you pay for your house and the initiation fee for the country club membership are both one-time payments. Once paid, they are gone — until you go to sell your home down the line and the value of belonging to the club is every bit as fundamental to your buyer’s purchase as it was for you.    Sneak Preview – An excerpt from my forthcoming book In September, I will publish a book about how to search for the golf community home that matches your requirements.  Home On The Course subscribers will receive advance notification of the publication date.  Here is an excerpt from the book.   One of the toughest decisions a retired couple makes is moving many miles away from their children and grandkids.  I've met some couples who would not think of moving more than a short car drive from their grandchildren; they see babysitting as their major retirement activity. But the vast majority, who love their kids and grandkids every bit as much, are happy to be in a warm weather climate a good half-day's drive away, which they see as close enough to react to an emergency back home but far enough to remove the temptation to be everpresent. There is a way to satisfy the desire for a warmer climate and the ability to get most places within a few hours, and that is by moving to a golf community not too far from a good regional airport or major airline hub, like Charlotte (CLT), Raleigh (RDU), Tampa (TPA), and Atlanta (ATL).  Even regional airports such as Charleston, for example, and Myrtle Beach, offer enough daily flights to major northern cities to put a couple within a half-day return home.  (For example, Charleston International Airport provides eight daily non-stop flights to the New York City area and three to Chicago.)  That also increases the likelihood your family back home will visit you in the summer.       Virtual Presentation: The Benefits of Moving South to a Planned Community When: July 15, 4 pm EDT   Where: Online — Zoom Meeting   Presenter: Me, Larry Gavrich, editor of Home On The Course   What: The keys to a successful search for a golf community in the Sunbelt.   Details: Send your name and email address to me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I will send you the link to register for the presentation.  The presentation, which is sponsored by the Simsbury, CT Public Library, should last about 40 minutes with time for questions after.       Larry Gavrich Founder & Editor Home On The Course, LLC     Read my Blog | This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.