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2016 Newsletters

July 2016

Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA
  July 2016  Creek Club, Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA

The Land of Discovery Packages

Let’s say the information at one golf community’s web site piques your interest enough to consider a visit to the community.  What is the most comprehensive and cost effective way to explore that community in person?

Most golf communities offer “discovery” packages that combine lodging, a meal or two, and access to the golf club and other amenities over a couple of days, and at prices you would be hard pressed to duplicate by arranging the visit yourself.  In order to qualify, you must consent to a tour of the community with one of its salespeople but, in our experience, these are of short duration –- typically 90 minutes or so –- and the salespeople are savvy enough not to exert pressure. It is the best way to "discover" the community. 

The following is a rundown of discovery packages in golf communities we can recommend.  Because it is important to feel as if you are a member and resident during your visit, we are not including discovery packages that feature lodging in a hotel or inn off premises, although many fine golf communities do not have homes available to offer to discovery package guests.  Contact me and I will be happy to identify other communities we recommend that feature discovery packages.

We have worked with the owners and salespeople in most of these communities and might be able to arrange for an extra or two to be thrown in with the package (or reduce the cost).  Please contact me if you would like to visit and I will discuss with the community.

The Landings, Savannah, GA

It is not surprising that The Landings, one of the most comprehensively organized golf communities in the Southeast, offers one of the most comprehensive discovery packages over a choice of three or four days.  At just $375 per couple, and given the size of The Landings and its six golf courses, we encourage you to opt for the four-day package.  You’ll stay in one of the homes inside the gates of the 4,800-acre community only 15 minutes from the exciting city of Savannah.  You’ll have the access of a member to all the amenities in the community, including golf, plus a narrated boat tour around the island and a “Savannah adventure.”  Food is on your dime, but with access to The Landings’ clubhouses, you’ll get a good idea of what the chefs can produce.

Belfair/Berkeley Hall/Colleton River Plantation, Bluffton, SC

The big three of Bluffton, all the products of local uber-developer John Reed, go one step beyond many discovery packages by adding a clubhouse lunch to their offerings.  It is an especially good idea to experience life as a member at one of these communities, albeit for only a couple of days, because club membership is mandatory with property ownership.  Package prices vary a bit among the three multi-course communities but the features are virtually the same and include the lunches, on-site lodging in a golf cottage, golf each day, and access to tennis courts, fitness centers, golf practice areas and the clubhouses.  Three day, two-night stays range from $450 to $675 per couple, depending on time of the year.

Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA

Reynolds calls its discovery visit a “lifestyle” package, but whatever you call it, it is a comprehensive introduction to one of the highest quality, multi-golf-course communities in the South, with a few extra goodies you won’t find in other packages.  These include a two-hour pontoon ride on beautiful Lake Oconee, complimentary breakfast each morning, and a $75 credit good for dining, marina or merchandise.  Two rounds of golf are also part of the package, but if that doesn’t rub you the right way, you can redeem the privilege for a $100 spa certificate at the on-site Ritz Carlton hotel (weekdays only).  Accommodations are at a choice of the Ritz or a cottage condominium, and all the pools, tennis courts and fitness center are at your disposal as well.

The Cliffs, seven locations in NC & SC

The Cliffs, whose deluxe communities are located near Asheville, NC, and across the upstate area of South Carolina, including Lake Keowee, provides a discovery package for $495 that includes lodging in a Cliffs home (or alternately, a local partner hotel), a $100 dining credit at any of their clubhouse restaurants, use of the wellness centers, tennis, hiking trails, and kayaks and paddleboards at the Beach Club plus, of course, a round of golf for two at any of the community’s seven golf courses.  Given a choice, I’d play either the Keowee Vineyards course (Fazio), the Walnut Cove course (Nicklaus) or the Mountain Park course (Player) about a half-hour from Greenville, but all Cliffs courses are always in peak condition.   

Country Club of Landfall, Wilmington, NC

Okay, the discovery package at Landfall does not include on-site lodging, but the two hotels the club uses are located across the street from the community’s entrance and out on Wrightsville Beach, about 10 minutes away.  That is a minor inconvenience given the price -– just $249 -- for the couple’s discovery package at this sprawling 45-hole golf community nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the historic, yet modern, city of Wilmington.  Included in the two-night package is lodging, lunch and dinner in the clubhouse or other dining facilities on property, a round of golf each day on the Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye courses and access to the Drysdale Sports Center (as in Cliff Drysdale, former world champion tennis pro) that includes pool, tennis and fitness center. 

 

 

If you would like more information about any of the communities listed above, or dozens of others we can recommend, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Golf Community Web Sites Say Something About Their Communities

I wish I had a dime for every time golf community web sites used the phrase “Championship Golf Course.”  What does that mean anyway, especially when the club championship is about the highest-level event ever played on the course?  Ditto the come-ons “World Class Golf,” “Welcome to Paradise” and “Natural Beauty.”  Such vacuous tags front and center on a web site are a bad introduction to a community and promise a Shangri-La that only exists in fairy tales. 

Golf community prospects who start their searches on the Internet –- that is virtually everyone –- deserve more, much more.  Most golf communities know this and are waiting, many of them with elaborately constructed web sites designed, ostensibly, to reflect the look, feel and lifestyle of the community.  In that regard, they should emphasize details and dispense with the meaningless phrases.

Indeed, a golf community web site should have one goal in mind:  Get you to visit. Golf community representatives I have spoken with over the years have indicated that, on average, one out of every five or six couples that visit their communities eventually purchase a property.  Those odds are good enough to compel golf communities to spend a large chunk of their marketing budgets on their web sites and to develop discount-priced “discovery packages” for the serious customers.  (See sidebar.)

No rational developer or real estate agency expects you to plunk down $300,000 or more after seeing a few photos and reading a few descriptions of a golf community.  The trick for them is to be enticing enough to provoke the keen interest of couples looking to retire to a warm weather location, relocate for better job prospects or establish a family vacation spot. The best way to do that is with information, not puffery.

Some golf communities spend their web communication money wisely, others less so.  After visiting hundreds of golf community and real estate agency web sites, I have seen the full gamut.  Below, I provide some unsolicited advice on how golf communities can make their web sites more customer-friendly.  Customers can judge the web sites they visit against these standards to assess whether any of these communities are worth a visit.  (I am happy to discuss such visits and make arrangements.)  Only a visit over a few days will convince you that the golf and “natural beauty” of a community comes close to matching the descriptions on its web site.

Be Forthcoming About Costs of Membership

No couple is going to buy into a golf community if they can’t afford the membership fees.  And yet virtually no golf communities publish their club initiation fees and dues levels, forcing the prospective resident and member to find another source of information or call the community’s golf club for the details.

The monthly dues level is more important to a prospective buyer than is the initiation fee.  Initiation fees alone should never stand in the way of moving to a particular golf community.  Say that a couple has budgeted $400,000 for a home and $10,000 for an initiation fee, but the club in the community that attracts their interest charges $25,000.  Because most people move to a golf community to both play golf and enjoy the social aspects of the club, customers should consider the initiation fee as part of the cost of the home; in the above example, buying a home priced at $385,000 or lower, instead of $400,000, would make up the $15,000 difference in the initiation fees.  The slightly lower priced home may have every feature you want.

Dues levels are much more important because they are part of the overall carrying costs for a golf community home, along with taxes, homeowner association fees and utilities.  And they can rise over time as the costs of maintaining the clubhouse, golf course and other amenities rise.  Golf communities would do well to publish their current dues levels at their web sites rather than make prospective customers ask or, worse, not ask because they are frustrated with the lack of information and have moved on with their search.

Some golf community web sites tease you with an almost complete rundown of information on the club, but stop short of sharing anything to do with costs.  Landfall, the well-organized coastal golf community near Wilmington that features 45 holes of golf by Dye and Nicklaus, is near the top of our recommendation list.  But its otherwise helpful FAQ (frequently asked questions) section dodges the most frequently asked question of all –- “What are the costs?” 

In some cases, it is possible to discover the initiation fees and dues from a source other than the developer’s web site.  Daniel Island in coastal South Carolina is one of our favorite golf communities because, within walking distance or a two-minute drive, it encompasses all the day-to-day services that any family or couple would need.  The Daniel Island Club is second to few in terms of golf -– 36 holes by Tom Fazio and Rees Jones –- and its proximity to a great American city, Charleston, just 15 minutes away.  But the club does not publish its prices at the official Daniel Island web site.  Membership there is not for the budget minded –- full-golf initiation fee for residents is $85,000 per family -- but a search for “Daniel Island club initiation fees” surfaces the web site of a local real estate agency called Daniel Island Property (DanielIslandProperty.com) and a rundown of the various membership categories (as of 2012), including prices.  Of course, any customer seriously interested in a fine community like Daniel Island could phone the on-site real estate office, ask about membership fees and get a direct response.  But many of us would rather make that call only once we intend to visit, after we have obtained all possible information from the community’s web site, including club fees.

Customer Takeaway:  Don’t obsess about initiation fees unless, combined with the price of a home you like, they push you over your total budget for real estate and golf club.  Focus more on the dues level as that will be an ongoing obligation and will determine if you can afford the lifestyle.

List Home Prices in Ascending Order

Most golf community (and real estate agency) web sites offer visitors the option to click to see the prices of homes for sale in ascending or descending order.  But the default, for most, is descending order; that is, the highest priced home in the community is at top and the lowest priced is a long scroll away (or reached only after the clicking of a few additional buttons).

Virtually every community we have visited or researched, even those whose sweet spot for real estate is, say, $300,000, features one home or more for sale above $1 million.  The risk of putting that $1 million home at the top and forcing $300,000 customers to scroll through the expensive homes to get to their price range is that they won’t; that top listing sets the tone for prices in the community, and it is not unreasonable for casual customers to assume either the homes are more expensive than they can afford or that the on-site real estate agency is trying to compel them to buy something above their price ranges.

The customers I work with know exactly what they can afford to spend for a house.  The most enlightened communities highlight price ranges on their real estate listings home page.  If prices range from, say, $400,000 to $1.3 million, the developer might feature buttons for homes priced $400K to $600k, $600K to $750K, $750K to $1 million, and $1 million+.  Such an arrangement gives the customer full control of the search and gives the developer a better shot at converting a potential customer to a visitor, and eventually to a buyer.  A second best approach is the let customers fill in their own price ranges, an option many golf community web sites feature.

Takeway:  Home listings are the most important pages on a golf community’s web site (ditto for local real estate agencies that sell golf community properties).  Expect them to be logically organized and easy to browse.  If they aren’t, you may find that other aspects of the community are not quite organized.

Publish Overall Carrying Costs

I have some sympathy for expensive golf communities that don’t publish what it truly costs to live inside the gates.  But like all key information, if it is important to customers, they will find it out eventually.  Why make it hard for them?

I know of one (of many) Florida communities whose web site says nothing about carrying costs but encourages you to “download a fact sheet.”  But when you try to download the fact sheet, you are asked to supply your name and address under a page headed “Request Fact Sheet.”  This tactic, a cousin of “bait and switch,” is no way to start a relationship with a potential customer.  Neither is offering the web site visitor a tab labeled “Membership” only to take you to a page with no details other than the email address and phone number of the membership director.

A friend in his 70s who lives in one particular east coast Florida club became burdened a few years ago with the overall carrying costs of club membership and home ownership in the community.  He was paying homeowner association fees for the entire community, separate fees to his neighborhood association and golf dues that, in the aggregate, amounted to over $30,000 per year.  (To save money, he recently opted for a social membership rather than a golf membership.)  In all visible respects, this is a wonderful community with a well-tended golf course, a recently rehabbed clubhouse and an active group of members.  But my friend tells me he expects to have trouble selling his house at a fair price. Those who might otherwise be interested understand the burden of the total carrying costs.

I would share the name of this particular community if it were an isolated example, but many golf communities, especially in Florida, assess fees that are not exactly visible from the start of the buying process.  (I am happy to share the name of the community if you contact me.)

Takeway:  Make sure you ask about overall carrying costs when you make your initial contact with a golf community.  Or, better yet, ask me to do that for you.

 

Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA
  July 2016  Creek Club, Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA

The Land of Discovery Packages

Let’s say the information at one golf community’s web site piques your interest enough to consider a visit to the community.  What is the most comprehensive and cost effective way to explore that community in person?

Most golf communities offer “discovery” packages that combine lodging, a meal or two, and access to the golf club and other amenities over a couple of days, and at prices you would be hard pressed to duplicate by arranging the visit yourself.  In order to qualify, you must consent to a tour of the community with one of its salespeople but, in our experience, these are of short duration –- typically 90 minutes or so –- and the salespeople are savvy enough not to exert pressure. It is the best way to "discover" the community. 

The following is a rundown of discovery packages in golf communities we can recommend.  Because it is important to feel as if you are a member and resident during your visit, we are not including discovery packages that feature lodging in a hotel or inn off premises, although many fine golf communities do not have homes available to offer to discovery package guests.  Contact me and I will be happy to identify other communities we recommend that feature discovery packages.

We have worked with the owners and salespeople in most of these communities and might be able to arrange for an extra or two to be thrown in with the package (or reduce the cost).  Please contact me if you would like to visit and I will discuss with the community.

The Landings, Savannah, GA

It is not surprising that The Landings, one of the most comprehensively organized golf communities in the Southeast, offers one of the most comprehensive discovery packages over a choice of three or four days.  At just $375 per couple, and given the size of The Landings and its six golf courses, we encourage you to opt for the four-day package.  You’ll stay in one of the homes inside the gates of the 4,800-acre community only 15 minutes from the exciting city of Savannah.  You’ll have the access of a member to all the amenities in the community, including golf, plus a narrated boat tour around the island and a “Savannah adventure.”  Food is on your dime, but with access to The Landings’ clubhouses, you’ll get a good idea of what the chefs can produce.

Belfair/Berkeley Hall/Colleton River Plantation, Bluffton, SC

The big three of Bluffton, all the products of local uber-developer John Reed, go one step beyond many discovery packages by adding a clubhouse lunch to their offerings.  It is an especially good idea to experience life as a member at one of these communities, albeit for only a couple of days, because club membership is mandatory with property ownership.  Package prices vary a bit among the three multi-course communities but the features are virtually the same and include the lunches, on-site lodging in a golf cottage, golf each day, and access to tennis courts, fitness centers, golf practice areas and the clubhouses.  Three day, two-night stays range from $450 to $675 per couple, depending on time of the year.

Reynolds Lake Oconee, Greensboro, GA

Reynolds calls its discovery visit a “lifestyle” package, but whatever you call it, it is a comprehensive introduction to one of the highest quality, multi-golf-course communities in the South, with a few extra goodies you won’t find in other packages.  These include a two-hour pontoon ride on beautiful Lake Oconee, complimentary breakfast each morning, and a $75 credit good for dining, marina or merchandise.  Two rounds of golf are also part of the package, but if that doesn’t rub you the right way, you can redeem the privilege for a $100 spa certificate at the on-site Ritz Carlton hotel (weekdays only).  Accommodations are at a choice of the Ritz or a cottage condominium, and all the pools, tennis courts and fitness center are at your disposal as well.

The Cliffs, seven locations in NC & SC

The Cliffs, whose deluxe communities are located near Asheville, NC, and across the upstate area of South Carolina, including Lake Keowee, provides a discovery package for $495 that includes lodging in a Cliffs home (or alternately, a local partner hotel), a $100 dining credit at any of their clubhouse restaurants, use of the wellness centers, tennis, hiking trails, and kayaks and paddleboards at the Beach Club plus, of course, a round of golf for two at any of the community’s seven golf courses.  Given a choice, I’d play either the Keowee Vineyards course (Fazio), the Walnut Cove course (Nicklaus) or the Mountain Park course (Player) about a half-hour from Greenville, but all Cliffs courses are always in peak condition.   

Country Club of Landfall, Wilmington, NC

Okay, the discovery package at Landfall does not include on-site lodging, but the two hotels the club uses are located across the street from the community’s entrance and out on Wrightsville Beach, about 10 minutes away.  That is a minor inconvenience given the price -– just $249 -- for the couple’s discovery package at this sprawling 45-hole golf community nestled between the Atlantic Ocean and the historic, yet modern, city of Wilmington.  Included in the two-night package is lodging, lunch and dinner in the clubhouse or other dining facilities on property, a round of golf each day on the Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye courses and access to the Drysdale Sports Center (as in Cliff Drysdale, former world champion tennis pro) that includes pool, tennis and fitness center. 

 

 

If you would like more information about any of the communities listed above, or dozens of others we can recommend, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Golf Community Web Sites Say Something About Their Communities

I wish I had a dime for every time golf community web sites used the phrase “Championship Golf Course.”  What does that mean anyway, especially when the club championship is about the highest-level event ever played on the course?  Ditto the come-ons “World Class Golf,” “Welcome to Paradise” and “Natural Beauty.”  Such vacuous tags front and center on a web site are a bad introduction to a community and promise a Shangri-La that only exists in fairy tales. 

Golf community prospects who start their searches on the Internet –- that is virtually everyone –- deserve more, much more.  Most golf communities know this and are waiting, many of them with elaborately constructed web sites designed, ostensibly, to reflect the look, feel and lifestyle of the community.  In that regard, they should emphasize details and dispense with the meaningless phrases.

Indeed, a golf community web site should have one goal in mind:  Get you to visit. Golf community representatives I have spoken with over the years have indicated that, on average, one out of every five or six couples that visit their communities eventually purchase a property.  Those odds are good enough to compel golf communities to spend a large chunk of their marketing budgets on their web sites and to develop discount-priced “discovery packages” for the serious customers.  (See sidebar.)

No rational developer or real estate agency expects you to plunk down $300,000 or more after seeing a few photos and reading a few descriptions of a golf community.  The trick for them is to be enticing enough to provoke the keen interest of couples looking to retire to a warm weather location, relocate for better job prospects or establish a family vacation spot. The best way to do that is with information, not puffery.

Some golf communities spend their web communication money wisely, others less so.  After visiting hundreds of golf community and real estate agency web sites, I have seen the full gamut.  Below, I provide some unsolicited advice on how golf communities can make their web sites more customer-friendly.  Customers can judge the web sites they visit against these standards to assess whether any of these communities are worth a visit.  (I am happy to discuss such visits and make arrangements.)  Only a visit over a few days will convince you that the golf and “natural beauty” of a community comes close to matching the descriptions on its web site.

Be Forthcoming About Costs of Membership

No couple is going to buy into a golf community if they can’t afford the membership fees.  And yet virtually no golf communities publish their club initiation fees and dues levels, forcing the prospective resident and member to find another source of information or call the community’s golf club for the details.

The monthly dues level is more important to a prospective buyer than is the initiation fee.  Initiation fees alone should never stand in the way of moving to a particular golf community.  Say that a couple has budgeted $400,000 for a home and $10,000 for an initiation fee, but the club in the community that attracts their interest charges $25,000.  Because most people move to a golf community to both play golf and enjoy the social aspects of the club, customers should consider the initiation fee as part of the cost of the home; in the above example, buying a home priced at $385,000 or lower, instead of $400,000, would make up the $15,000 difference in the initiation fees.  The slightly lower priced home may have every feature you want.

Dues levels are much more important because they are part of the overall carrying costs for a golf community home, along with taxes, homeowner association fees and utilities.  And they can rise over time as the costs of maintaining the clubhouse, golf course and other amenities rise.  Golf communities would do well to publish their current dues levels at their web sites rather than make prospective customers ask or, worse, not ask because they are frustrated with the lack of information and have moved on with their search.

Some golf community web sites tease you with an almost complete rundown of information on the club, but stop short of sharing anything to do with costs.  Landfall, the well-organized coastal golf community near Wilmington that features 45 holes of golf by Dye and Nicklaus, is near the top of our recommendation list.  But its otherwise helpful FAQ (frequently asked questions) section dodges the most frequently asked question of all –- “What are the costs?” 

In some cases, it is possible to discover the initiation fees and dues from a source other than the developer’s web site.  Daniel Island in coastal South Carolina is one of our favorite golf communities because, within walking distance or a two-minute drive, it encompasses all the day-to-day services that any family or couple would need.  The Daniel Island Club is second to few in terms of golf -– 36 holes by Tom Fazio and Rees Jones –- and its proximity to a great American city, Charleston, just 15 minutes away.  But the club does not publish its prices at the official Daniel Island web site.  Membership there is not for the budget minded –- full-golf initiation fee for residents is $85,000 per family -- but a search for “Daniel Island club initiation fees” surfaces the web site of a local real estate agency called Daniel Island Property (DanielIslandProperty.com) and a rundown of the various membership categories (as of 2012), including prices.  Of course, any customer seriously interested in a fine community like Daniel Island could phone the on-site real estate office, ask about membership fees and get a direct response.  But many of us would rather make that call only once we intend to visit, after we have obtained all possible information from the community’s web site, including club fees.

Customer Takeaway:  Don’t obsess about initiation fees unless, combined with the price of a home you like, they push you over your total budget for real estate and golf club.  Focus more on the dues level as that will be an ongoing obligation and will determine if you can afford the lifestyle.

List Home Prices in Ascending Order

Most golf community (and real estate agency) web sites offer visitors the option to click to see the prices of homes for sale in ascending or descending order.  But the default, for most, is descending order; that is, the highest priced home in the community is at top and the lowest priced is a long scroll away (or reached only after the clicking of a few additional buttons).

Virtually every community we have visited or researched, even those whose sweet spot for real estate is, say, $300,000, features one home or more for sale above $1 million.  The risk of putting that $1 million home at the top and forcing $300,000 customers to scroll through the expensive homes to get to their price range is that they won’t; that top listing sets the tone for prices in the community, and it is not unreasonable for casual customers to assume either the homes are more expensive than they can afford or that the on-site real estate agency is trying to compel them to buy something above their price ranges.

The customers I work with know exactly what they can afford to spend for a house.  The most enlightened communities highlight price ranges on their real estate listings home page.  If prices range from, say, $400,000 to $1.3 million, the developer might feature buttons for homes priced $400K to $600k, $600K to $750K, $750K to $1 million, and $1 million+.  Such an arrangement gives the customer full control of the search and gives the developer a better shot at converting a potential customer to a visitor, and eventually to a buyer.  A second best approach is the let customers fill in their own price ranges, an option many golf community web sites feature.

Takeway:  Home listings are the most important pages on a golf community’s web site (ditto for local real estate agencies that sell golf community properties).  Expect them to be logically organized and easy to browse.  If they aren’t, you may find that other aspects of the community are not quite organized.

Publish Overall Carrying Costs

I have some sympathy for expensive golf communities that don’t publish what it truly costs to live inside the gates.  But like all key information, if it is important to customers, they will find it out eventually.  Why make it hard for them?

I know of one (of many) Florida communities whose web site says nothing about carrying costs but encourages you to “download a fact sheet.”  But when you try to download the fact sheet, you are asked to supply your name and address under a page headed “Request Fact Sheet.”  This tactic, a cousin of “bait and switch,” is no way to start a relationship with a potential customer.  Neither is offering the web site visitor a tab labeled “Membership” only to take you to a page with no details other than the email address and phone number of the membership director.

A friend in his 70s who lives in one particular east coast Florida club became burdened a few years ago with the overall carrying costs of club membership and home ownership in the community.  He was paying homeowner association fees for the entire community, separate fees to his neighborhood association and golf dues that, in the aggregate, amounted to over $30,000 per year.  (To save money, he recently opted for a social membership rather than a golf membership.)  In all visible respects, this is a wonderful community with a well-tended golf course, a recently rehabbed clubhouse and an active group of members.  But my friend tells me he expects to have trouble selling his house at a fair price. Those who might otherwise be interested understand the burden of the total carrying costs.

I would share the name of this particular community if it were an isolated example, but many golf communities, especially in Florida, assess fees that are not exactly visible from the start of the buying process.  (I am happy to share the name of the community if you contact me.)

Takeway:  Make sure you ask about overall carrying costs when you make your initial contact with a golf community.  Or, better yet, ask me to do that for you.

 

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.
 

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June 2016

cliffs at keowee vinyard sunset sc
  June 2016  Cliffs at Keowee Vineyard, Sunset, SC

Playing Around:  The Non-Golf Community Solution

It seems like heresy for someone who reviews and writes about golf communities to stipulate that golf communities aren’t the best choice for all golfers.  But that is reality, and in recent months I have helped customers purchase homes near excellent golf courses, but not adjacent to them.

These communities are every bit as nicely landscaped as nearby golf communities but do not impose the same level of overall carrying costs.  Golf is available nearby, either in the form of private club membership or enough publicly accessible golf to enthuse a serious golfer.

One such community is Alston Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC, home to one of the best collections of golf courses anywhere.  Alston is less than five minutes away from Heritage Plantation, Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, True Blue Plantation, Pawleys Plantation and the Founders Club.  Caledonia and True Blue offer a combined annual membership that is almost laughably inexpensive for the kind of quality golf they offer, less than $2,000 per year, without payment of an initiation fee.  (Caledonia is on virtually everyone’s list of the best of 100 golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area.)

“I can’t imagine living among all these courses and playing the same one 90% of the time,” says Mario Lattanzio, who purchased a vacation home in Alston Plantation two years ago.  “If I did want a golf membership though, the deal at Caledonia/True Blue seems to be as good or better than anything you would get in your own golf community. 

“But I kind of like the fact that I am equally free to play at any golf course and don’t feel an obligation to a home course.” 

Here are two other non-golf communities in Beaufort, SC, Celadon and Habersham, located near excellent golf and a charming coastal city.  There are many more examples I would be happy to discuss if you contact me. 

Celadon

I had a nice tour of Celadon, a small community in Beaufort, SC, during a recent golf trip to Secession Club.  Secession is essentially a “national” golf club with most of its members flying in for a long weekend or week of golf.  The club does, however, offer a few local memberships, and you can’t get more local than Celadon, which is less than five minutes away from the course and the charming Beaufort, SC.  Experienced developer J. C. Taylor, a principal at Blue Sky Real Estate Company, drove me around the community and the Beaufort area and hit all the essential justifications for a golfer to consider a community like Celadon, which is named for the pale green color of much-prized Chinese pottery.

“The Celadon name was inherited," J.C. told me.  “We went through an extensive branding exercise and determined the name was quite good.  The color green implies many things, but nature, wellness, green building, and soothing typically come to mind.  Celadon embodies all of these.”

Justification for a golfer to buy into a non-golf community include, of course, costs; the charming, Low Country style homes in Celadon start in the mid-$300s if you use one of the community’s approved builders, but you are perfectly free to choose your own architect and design (as long as it meshes with the overall look of Celadon’s other homes).  Home sites run from around $75K to $125K.

Homeowner association fees are super reasonable at just $2,200 per year, but that is not because Celadon skimps on amenities.  The Wellness Club -– the club is staffed and membership is included with HOA dues –- is as well outfitted as many we have seen in much larger and higher priced golf communities, and it includes a junior Olympic swimming pool, steam rooms, certified personal trainers and even a spa. 

The two tidy models I walked through were beautifully outfitted with hardwood floors, nicely appointed cabinetry and top-notch appliances; to maximize the sense of community at Celadon, front porches are mandatory for each design, and a network of sidewalks and pocket parks enhance the convivial nature of the community. 

Golfers looking either for a club to join or courses to play ad hoc will not be disappointed in the area.  Sanctuary Island Golf Club is a links style course a mere six miles from Celadon with a no-initiation fee membership available at dues of just $339 per month per couple.  ($258 for a single member.)  I haven’t played the course but I have driven by it; it has been well reviewed online, although some point to conditions that seem to vary from season to season.  Dataw Island, itself a golf community with two fine layouts (Arthur Hills and Tom Fazio), is just seven miles away and offers non-resident memberships.  And if you like safe and secure golf, you won’t do any better than The Legends at Parris Island, inside the gates of the famous marine base, about a half hour from Celadon.  The course is well rated and green fees are just $31 and up.

Habersham

Do a quick online search with the terms “habersham” and “golf club” and you might have a notion there is a golf course inside a community named Habersham.  But the online page for Habersham Golf, complete with a logo that looks like it belongs to a golf club, is nevertheless clear about its intentions:  “While Habersham doesn’t have a golf course, that doesn’t mean there’s not golf at Habersham!”  Indeed, almost three-dozen male golfers will testify to that.  And, it appears, a group for female golfers is in the offing.  (“Stay Tuned!” the club’s web site announces.) The club’s home course is The Legends at Parris Island, where the men play every Tuesday year round; on Thursdays, they rotate the choice of course among more than a half dozen other local clubs.

For those who crave the perquisites of a private club and are happy to spend what they save by living outside a golf community, Callawassie and Chechessee Creek Club are within 20 minutes.  Of Chechessee, its co-designer Ben Crenshaw told LINKS magazine:  “It’s Lowcountry, but it’s low key. It’s a very quiet place to play golf. It’s really that simple.”

Habersham, which seemed alive but itself quiet during a drive through I made a couple of years ago, is squarely in the camp of “new urbanism,” which combines living, working and a commercial center.  A few residents actually live where they work, above their shops or offices.  Others can easily walk to work in the town center and, still others, who are blissfully retired from work, simply like the small town pace of a community like Habersham or Celadon.  Habersham is considerably larger than Celadon and features restaurants, retail shops and offices in its “marketplace.”  It isn’t every residential community that includes, for example, an Indian restaurant inside its gates. 

 

If you would like more information about any of the communities listed above, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Multiple Golf Course
Approach to Retirement

As many of us prepare for retirement, we dream of playing golf everyday. But like me, you also know full well your marriage would not survive it, and neither would your body. Better to pace yourself and promote connubial bliss by aiming for a few rounds per week.
Let’s say you are able to negotiate a schedule of four rounds weekly: Will you be content playing the same layout (or two) over and over again, like the golfing equivalent of Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in Groundhog Day? If not, read on. We have a few ideas on how you can get the most out of your golfing retirement by playing the most golf courses –- and, in some cases, for annual costs that are lower than for a private membership at a club with just one course.

Different Golf Course Every Day

You could play a different golf course virtually every day of the week by living in one of the South’s best golf communities. The best choice, in terms of proximity and quality of courses, is the legendary Pinehurst in central North Carolina. With the addition of National Golf Club a couple of years ago, a Pinehurst membership now makes nine good-to-great golf courses available to its members for an initiation price of around $45,000 and dues of $445 per month (the latest fee schedule we could find was dated 2014); this membership provides full access to Pinehurst #1 through #6 and advanced tee times for the other courses. Initiation is pegged at $25,000 for unlimited golf only on Pinehurst #1 through #6. You must be a resident of Pinehurst to gain membership. If those prices are either too steep or you simply want the freedom to play as you go at whatever golf course you want, Pinehurst and Southern Pines areas will not disappoint, with more than 40 layouts you can access as a member of the public. One of them is Tobacco Road, the Mike Strantz masterpiece -– a few would say “messterpiece” for its wacky hole designs -– in nearby Sanford.

The Cliffs communities boast seven lavishly tended layouts that stretch from the Asheville, NC, area south to the Greenville and Lake Keowee areas of South Carolina. Membership in the Cliffs country clubs is tied to each property; make sure if you purchase a resale at The Cliffs that the owner of the property is a Cliffs club member, otherwise you may be shut out (or compelled to purchase a developer or resale property with membership attached). Initiation fees range from $25,000 to $50,000. The latest Cliffs golf course to open (in 2011) is at Mountain Park in Travelers Rest, a sporty, links-like affair designed by Gary Player along the Saluda River. Our other favorite Cliffs layout is the Tom Fazio design at Keowee Vineyard; Fazio uses the lake to great visual and routing effect. The long par 3 17th hole may be the best one-shotter in the state, and certainly the most dramatic. Count on great conditions and excellent service at all the Cliffs golfing venues.

The state of Georgia sports two of the best multi-club communities anywhere. The upstate Reynolds Plantation provides three levels of membership, depending on how many and which of its six golf courses you intend to play regularly, with initiation fees that range from around $22,000. But within each membership plan is an option, for a slightly higher dues level and the payment of green fees that permit you to play the courses not included in the basic plan. (Note: Initiation fee for unrestricted play on all six courses is $65,000.) Figuring out which plan to opt for may cause you to involve a computer or accountant, but the quality of the golf courses is worth noodling around with the numbers. Down by the coast, and just outside the exotic city of Savannah, The Landings provides its own roster of six golf courses by the likes of Fazio, Palmer and Arthur Hills. Initiation fees are around $30,000 for full access to all six courses, which provide as much variety of layouts as you will find along one stretch of the coastal South, ranging from parkland to marshland to hybrids of both. Because all its golf courses are within a reasonable cart ride of each other, The Landings has one of the largest and most convivial group of members anywhere.

For the ultimate in golfing excess, some will consider The Villages in north central Florida, a “city” unto itself and the source of both praise and ridicule (and each opinion very much along political lines). Suffice to say that 35 golf courses within a half hour or so of each other will sate the most gourmand of golfers; and for those who consider The Villages something of joke, understand that many of the 100,000 retirees who live there are laughing all the way to the first tee.

Semi-Private Membership with Privileges at More than Six Clubs

Most retirees who have spent decades as golf club members will insist on a private club in retirement, perhaps one like those described above, or one with just a single golf course. Old habits die hard, and the pleasures of a club where the golf course is well groomed, pace of play is quick, everybody knows your name and the staff treat you royally are difficult to give up.

But for others not used to the perquisites –- and the costs -– of country club living, but every bit as interested in playing a lot of golf, an “affiliate” membership in a consortium of clubs is a viable alternative. In the wake of the 2008 recession especially, many golf club operators with a bit of cash to spend bought up hard-pressed golf clubs and stitched them together into an attractive group that those who love variety can play for a modest initiation fee and deeply discounted green fees. In the Myrtle Beach area, for example, two groups of Chinese businessmen purchased a combined 35 area courses, fully one-third of all courses considered part of the area’s “supermarket” of layouts. One, named Founders Group International, owns a total of 22 clubs, including Pawleys Plantation (Jack Nicklaus), Long Bay (Nicklaus), Kings North (Arnold Palmer) and TPC Myrtle Beach (Tom Fazio), some of the most popular and best reviewed courses on the Grand Strand.

The sign-up fee for Founders’ Prime Time membership to all 22 courses in its group is just $225, after which green fees start at $33 per round (cart included) and free rounds are accrued after as few as two 18-hole trips. Up to three guests can play with you at discounted rates. As a second-home owner and long-time member at Pawleys Plantation, I am an automatic member of the Prime Time group, with the same privileges as others (except my member dues of around $300 per month gets me free play at Pawleys Plantation and the waiver of the $225 initiation fee for Prime Time membership). Frankly, if I purchased my condominium today, rather than in 1999, I would not opt for a full membership but would instead go for the $225 Prime Time membership. I am not in Pawleys Island often enough to justify a membership more suited to someone who can play the golf course a few days per week, year round.  (Note:  There has been some noise lately in the Myrtle Beach media that the Chinese owners of the area's golf courses may be in legal trouble back in China.)

There are many other group memberships that work like Prime Time. One example is in Bluffton, SC, which is home to some of the most upscale private golf communities in the South, including Palmetto Bluff (and its May River Golf Club), Colleton River (two and a half courses by Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye), Belfair and Berkeley Hall, with 36 holes each by Tom Fazio. But those latter three communities all require a mandatory golf membership with the purchase of property; for those unable or unwilling to commit to such a plan, Brown Management, which owns five courses in Bluffton and one on Hilton Head Island, offers a reasonably priced membership that encompasses all six of its courses, which includes the Old South Club.

What distinguishes the aforementioned memberships from others is that you can own a home that is not in a golf community, generally pay less (or nothing at all) for the amenities on offer there and, often, pay less for a home comparable to one in a nearby gated golf community. For more on non-golf communities near excellent golf, see the article at left.

The Network Solution: Some Clubs Offer Hundreds of Courses to Members

One of the best deals in membership, especially for those for whom travel distance is of minor consequence when searching for excellent golf, is to join a club managed by a company like Troon Golf, ClubCorp, or the Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper management groups. One of the attractions when these firms pitch their services to a country club is that members have access to most courses managed by the company. The Tournament Players Club was one of the first to offer such privileges to its members and, today, TPC members have access to more than 30 of its layouts, many of them familiar as hosts of annual pro events. If, for example, you are a member of TPC Prestancia in Sarasota, FL, you have access to TPC River Highlands outside Hartford, CT, and host of the Travelers Championship, a favorite course of PGA tour players. Joining fees for TPC vary but $15,000 to $25,000 is probably a good range estimate.

ClubCorp claims more than 3,400 holes of golf under its management umbrella, about 430,000 members and some of the most recognized golf courses in the U.S., including Firestone, Mission Hills and The Woodlands. For a modest extra fee, members of any of the 200 ClubCorp clubs may access any other club in the system. ClubCorp runs country clubs we are especially familiar with, including Woodside Plantation in Aiken, SC, Cateechee in Hartwell, GA, Currituck Club on the Outer Banks in Corolla, NC, Neuse Golf Club in Clayton, NC, The Golf Club at Indigo Run on Hilton Head Island, SC, and Queen’s Harbour in Jacksonville, FL.  They are all excellent.

Because it represents one of the best values in private club memberships, we have written often about the McConnell Group, which is based in Raleigh, NC, and has stitched together a dozen of the best private golf clubs in the Carolinas and, as of a few months ago, Tennessee, with the addition of the Donald Ross designed Holston Hills outside Knoxville. Join one McConnell club and you gain access to all the others. Your initiation fee depends on your “home” club, but we have seen such fees as low as $5,000 in recent years at The Reserve Club of Litchfield just south of Myrtle Beach. If you live in the Raleigh/Durham area, where McConnell clubs include Raleigh Country Club, Treyburn and TPC at Wakefield Plantation, you don’t have to drive too far to enjoy multiple layouts. And Greensboro, home to McConnell’s Sedgefield Country Club, with 18 holes designed by Donald Ross, and another 18 by Pete Dye, is just an hour away.

Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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cliffs at keowee vinyard sunset sc
  June 2016  Cliffs at Keowee Vineyard, Sunset, SC

Playing Around:  The Non-Golf Community Solution

It seems like heresy for someone who reviews and writes about golf communities to stipulate that golf communities aren’t the best choice for all golfers.  But that is reality, and in recent months I have helped customers purchase homes near excellent golf courses, but not adjacent to them.

These communities are every bit as nicely landscaped as nearby golf communities but do not impose the same level of overall carrying costs.  Golf is available nearby, either in the form of private club membership or enough publicly accessible golf to enthuse a serious golfer.

One such community is Alston Plantation in Pawleys Island, SC, home to one of the best collections of golf courses anywhere.  Alston is less than five minutes away from Heritage Plantation, Caledonia Golf & Fish Club, True Blue Plantation, Pawleys Plantation and the Founders Club.  Caledonia and True Blue offer a combined annual membership that is almost laughably inexpensive for the kind of quality golf they offer, less than $2,000 per year, without payment of an initiation fee.  (Caledonia is on virtually everyone’s list of the best of 100 golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area.)

“I can’t imagine living among all these courses and playing the same one 90% of the time,” says Mario Lattanzio, who purchased a vacation home in Alston Plantation two years ago.  “If I did want a golf membership though, the deal at Caledonia/True Blue seems to be as good or better than anything you would get in your own golf community. 

“But I kind of like the fact that I am equally free to play at any golf course and don’t feel an obligation to a home course.” 

Here are two other non-golf communities in Beaufort, SC, Celadon and Habersham, located near excellent golf and a charming coastal city.  There are many more examples I would be happy to discuss if you contact me. 

Celadon

I had a nice tour of Celadon, a small community in Beaufort, SC, during a recent golf trip to Secession Club.  Secession is essentially a “national” golf club with most of its members flying in for a long weekend or week of golf.  The club does, however, offer a few local memberships, and you can’t get more local than Celadon, which is less than five minutes away from the course and the charming Beaufort, SC.  Experienced developer J. C. Taylor, a principal at Blue Sky Real Estate Company, drove me around the community and the Beaufort area and hit all the essential justifications for a golfer to consider a community like Celadon, which is named for the pale green color of much-prized Chinese pottery.

“The Celadon name was inherited," J.C. told me.  “We went through an extensive branding exercise and determined the name was quite good.  The color green implies many things, but nature, wellness, green building, and soothing typically come to mind.  Celadon embodies all of these.”

Justification for a golfer to buy into a non-golf community include, of course, costs; the charming, Low Country style homes in Celadon start in the mid-$300s if you use one of the community’s approved builders, but you are perfectly free to choose your own architect and design (as long as it meshes with the overall look of Celadon’s other homes).  Home sites run from around $75K to $125K.

Homeowner association fees are super reasonable at just $2,200 per year, but that is not because Celadon skimps on amenities.  The Wellness Club -– the club is staffed and membership is included with HOA dues –- is as well outfitted as many we have seen in much larger and higher priced golf communities, and it includes a junior Olympic swimming pool, steam rooms, certified personal trainers and even a spa. 

The two tidy models I walked through were beautifully outfitted with hardwood floors, nicely appointed cabinetry and top-notch appliances; to maximize the sense of community at Celadon, front porches are mandatory for each design, and a network of sidewalks and pocket parks enhance the convivial nature of the community. 

Golfers looking either for a club to join or courses to play ad hoc will not be disappointed in the area.  Sanctuary Island Golf Club is a links style course a mere six miles from Celadon with a no-initiation fee membership available at dues of just $339 per month per couple.  ($258 for a single member.)  I haven’t played the course but I have driven by it; it has been well reviewed online, although some point to conditions that seem to vary from season to season.  Dataw Island, itself a golf community with two fine layouts (Arthur Hills and Tom Fazio), is just seven miles away and offers non-resident memberships.  And if you like safe and secure golf, you won’t do any better than The Legends at Parris Island, inside the gates of the famous marine base, about a half hour from Celadon.  The course is well rated and green fees are just $31 and up.

Habersham

Do a quick online search with the terms “habersham” and “golf club” and you might have a notion there is a golf course inside a community named Habersham.  But the online page for Habersham Golf, complete with a logo that looks like it belongs to a golf club, is nevertheless clear about its intentions:  “While Habersham doesn’t have a golf course, that doesn’t mean there’s not golf at Habersham!”  Indeed, almost three-dozen male golfers will testify to that.  And, it appears, a group for female golfers is in the offing.  (“Stay Tuned!” the club’s web site announces.) The club’s home course is The Legends at Parris Island, where the men play every Tuesday year round; on Thursdays, they rotate the choice of course among more than a half dozen other local clubs.

For those who crave the perquisites of a private club and are happy to spend what they save by living outside a golf community, Callawassie and Chechessee Creek Club are within 20 minutes.  Of Chechessee, its co-designer Ben Crenshaw told LINKS magazine:  “It’s Lowcountry, but it’s low key. It’s a very quiet place to play golf. It’s really that simple.”

Habersham, which seemed alive but itself quiet during a drive through I made a couple of years ago, is squarely in the camp of “new urbanism,” which combines living, working and a commercial center.  A few residents actually live where they work, above their shops or offices.  Others can easily walk to work in the town center and, still others, who are blissfully retired from work, simply like the small town pace of a community like Habersham or Celadon.  Habersham is considerably larger than Celadon and features restaurants, retail shops and offices in its “marketplace.”  It isn’t every residential community that includes, for example, an Indian restaurant inside its gates. 

 

If you would like more information about any of the communities listed above, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The Multiple Golf Course
Approach to Retirement

As many of us prepare for retirement, we dream of playing golf everyday. But like me, you also know full well your marriage would not survive it, and neither would your body. Better to pace yourself and promote connubial bliss by aiming for a few rounds per week.
Let’s say you are able to negotiate a schedule of four rounds weekly: Will you be content playing the same layout (or two) over and over again, like the golfing equivalent of Phil Connors (Bill Murray) in Groundhog Day? If not, read on. We have a few ideas on how you can get the most out of your golfing retirement by playing the most golf courses –- and, in some cases, for annual costs that are lower than for a private membership at a club with just one course.

Different Golf Course Every Day

You could play a different golf course virtually every day of the week by living in one of the South’s best golf communities. The best choice, in terms of proximity and quality of courses, is the legendary Pinehurst in central North Carolina. With the addition of National Golf Club a couple of years ago, a Pinehurst membership now makes nine good-to-great golf courses available to its members for an initiation price of around $45,000 and dues of $445 per month (the latest fee schedule we could find was dated 2014); this membership provides full access to Pinehurst #1 through #6 and advanced tee times for the other courses. Initiation is pegged at $25,000 for unlimited golf only on Pinehurst #1 through #6. You must be a resident of Pinehurst to gain membership. If those prices are either too steep or you simply want the freedom to play as you go at whatever golf course you want, Pinehurst and Southern Pines areas will not disappoint, with more than 40 layouts you can access as a member of the public. One of them is Tobacco Road, the Mike Strantz masterpiece -– a few would say “messterpiece” for its wacky hole designs -– in nearby Sanford.

The Cliffs communities boast seven lavishly tended layouts that stretch from the Asheville, NC, area south to the Greenville and Lake Keowee areas of South Carolina. Membership in the Cliffs country clubs is tied to each property; make sure if you purchase a resale at The Cliffs that the owner of the property is a Cliffs club member, otherwise you may be shut out (or compelled to purchase a developer or resale property with membership attached). Initiation fees range from $25,000 to $50,000. The latest Cliffs golf course to open (in 2011) is at Mountain Park in Travelers Rest, a sporty, links-like affair designed by Gary Player along the Saluda River. Our other favorite Cliffs layout is the Tom Fazio design at Keowee Vineyard; Fazio uses the lake to great visual and routing effect. The long par 3 17th hole may be the best one-shotter in the state, and certainly the most dramatic. Count on great conditions and excellent service at all the Cliffs golfing venues.

The state of Georgia sports two of the best multi-club communities anywhere. The upstate Reynolds Plantation provides three levels of membership, depending on how many and which of its six golf courses you intend to play regularly, with initiation fees that range from around $22,000. But within each membership plan is an option, for a slightly higher dues level and the payment of green fees that permit you to play the courses not included in the basic plan. (Note: Initiation fee for unrestricted play on all six courses is $65,000.) Figuring out which plan to opt for may cause you to involve a computer or accountant, but the quality of the golf courses is worth noodling around with the numbers. Down by the coast, and just outside the exotic city of Savannah, The Landings provides its own roster of six golf courses by the likes of Fazio, Palmer and Arthur Hills. Initiation fees are around $30,000 for full access to all six courses, which provide as much variety of layouts as you will find along one stretch of the coastal South, ranging from parkland to marshland to hybrids of both. Because all its golf courses are within a reasonable cart ride of each other, The Landings has one of the largest and most convivial group of members anywhere.

For the ultimate in golfing excess, some will consider The Villages in north central Florida, a “city” unto itself and the source of both praise and ridicule (and each opinion very much along political lines). Suffice to say that 35 golf courses within a half hour or so of each other will sate the most gourmand of golfers; and for those who consider The Villages something of joke, understand that many of the 100,000 retirees who live there are laughing all the way to the first tee.

Semi-Private Membership with Privileges at More than Six Clubs

Most retirees who have spent decades as golf club members will insist on a private club in retirement, perhaps one like those described above, or one with just a single golf course. Old habits die hard, and the pleasures of a club where the golf course is well groomed, pace of play is quick, everybody knows your name and the staff treat you royally are difficult to give up.

But for others not used to the perquisites –- and the costs -– of country club living, but every bit as interested in playing a lot of golf, an “affiliate” membership in a consortium of clubs is a viable alternative. In the wake of the 2008 recession especially, many golf club operators with a bit of cash to spend bought up hard-pressed golf clubs and stitched them together into an attractive group that those who love variety can play for a modest initiation fee and deeply discounted green fees. In the Myrtle Beach area, for example, two groups of Chinese businessmen purchased a combined 35 area courses, fully one-third of all courses considered part of the area’s “supermarket” of layouts. One, named Founders Group International, owns a total of 22 clubs, including Pawleys Plantation (Jack Nicklaus), Long Bay (Nicklaus), Kings North (Arnold Palmer) and TPC Myrtle Beach (Tom Fazio), some of the most popular and best reviewed courses on the Grand Strand.

The sign-up fee for Founders’ Prime Time membership to all 22 courses in its group is just $225, after which green fees start at $33 per round (cart included) and free rounds are accrued after as few as two 18-hole trips. Up to three guests can play with you at discounted rates. As a second-home owner and long-time member at Pawleys Plantation, I am an automatic member of the Prime Time group, with the same privileges as others (except my member dues of around $300 per month gets me free play at Pawleys Plantation and the waiver of the $225 initiation fee for Prime Time membership). Frankly, if I purchased my condominium today, rather than in 1999, I would not opt for a full membership but would instead go for the $225 Prime Time membership. I am not in Pawleys Island often enough to justify a membership more suited to someone who can play the golf course a few days per week, year round.  (Note:  There has been some noise lately in the Myrtle Beach media that the Chinese owners of the area's golf courses may be in legal trouble back in China.)

There are many other group memberships that work like Prime Time. One example is in Bluffton, SC, which is home to some of the most upscale private golf communities in the South, including Palmetto Bluff (and its May River Golf Club), Colleton River (two and a half courses by Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye), Belfair and Berkeley Hall, with 36 holes each by Tom Fazio. But those latter three communities all require a mandatory golf membership with the purchase of property; for those unable or unwilling to commit to such a plan, Brown Management, which owns five courses in Bluffton and one on Hilton Head Island, offers a reasonably priced membership that encompasses all six of its courses, which includes the Old South Club.

What distinguishes the aforementioned memberships from others is that you can own a home that is not in a golf community, generally pay less (or nothing at all) for the amenities on offer there and, often, pay less for a home comparable to one in a nearby gated golf community. For more on non-golf communities near excellent golf, see the article at left.

The Network Solution: Some Clubs Offer Hundreds of Courses to Members

One of the best deals in membership, especially for those for whom travel distance is of minor consequence when searching for excellent golf, is to join a club managed by a company like Troon Golf, ClubCorp, or the Arnold Palmer and Billy Casper management groups. One of the attractions when these firms pitch their services to a country club is that members have access to most courses managed by the company. The Tournament Players Club was one of the first to offer such privileges to its members and, today, TPC members have access to more than 30 of its layouts, many of them familiar as hosts of annual pro events. If, for example, you are a member of TPC Prestancia in Sarasota, FL, you have access to TPC River Highlands outside Hartford, CT, and host of the Travelers Championship, a favorite course of PGA tour players. Joining fees for TPC vary but $15,000 to $25,000 is probably a good range estimate.

ClubCorp claims more than 3,400 holes of golf under its management umbrella, about 430,000 members and some of the most recognized golf courses in the U.S., including Firestone, Mission Hills and The Woodlands. For a modest extra fee, members of any of the 200 ClubCorp clubs may access any other club in the system. ClubCorp runs country clubs we are especially familiar with, including Woodside Plantation in Aiken, SC, Cateechee in Hartwell, GA, Currituck Club on the Outer Banks in Corolla, NC, Neuse Golf Club in Clayton, NC, The Golf Club at Indigo Run on Hilton Head Island, SC, and Queen’s Harbour in Jacksonville, FL.  They are all excellent.

Because it represents one of the best values in private club memberships, we have written often about the McConnell Group, which is based in Raleigh, NC, and has stitched together a dozen of the best private golf clubs in the Carolinas and, as of a few months ago, Tennessee, with the addition of the Donald Ross designed Holston Hills outside Knoxville. Join one McConnell club and you gain access to all the others. Your initiation fee depends on your “home” club, but we have seen such fees as low as $5,000 in recent years at The Reserve Club of Litchfield just south of Myrtle Beach. If you live in the Raleigh/Durham area, where McConnell clubs include Raleigh Country Club, Treyburn and TPC at Wakefield Plantation, you don’t have to drive too far to enjoy multiple layouts. And Greensboro, home to McConnell’s Sedgefield Country Club, with 18 holes designed by Donald Ross, and another 18 by Pete Dye, is just an hour away.

Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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May 2016

savannah lakes
  May 2016  Savannah Lakes Village

 

Quietest Golf Communities
Provide Loud Bargains

Here are some remotely located golf communities to consider if you want to live like landed gentry in retirement.  We have cut down our usual windy prose descriptions into short highlights for each community.  We define “remote” as located more than 45 minutes from a town of at least 100,000 people.  But towns with far less population can offer an almost full range of services (although possibly only one or two very good restaurants).  For more information on any of these communities, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

River Landing, Wallace, NC

Developed 20 years ago by a local farm family to attract top employees to their firm with fairly priced homes and excellent golf…located directly off Interstate 40 between Raleigh (80 minutes) and Wilmington (50 minutes)…Big, beautiful arts and crafts style clubhouse with top “master” chef at the helm…Two 18-hole golf courses ranked top 50 in North Carolina…River House is magnet for residents’ barbecues and celebrations…Walmart and other shopping three minutes outside the front gate…Homes from $266,000, lots from $7,900. ***Note:  We are planning a special couples event at River Landing scheduled for Fall 2016.  For advanced details, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Savannah Lakes Village, McCormick, SC

Located on large, man-made Lake Thurmond…two top-rated 18-hole golf courses of totally different character (one classic, one with significant altitude changes)…fairest amenity fees we have encountered, with $106 per month HOA dues that provide access to all amenities (pay per play golf)…for golf nuts, just $3,000 in annual dues for all the golf you can manage…Supermarket just eight minutes away but for all other stuff, Greenwood is a 35-minute drive…Homes from $130,000, lots from $57,000.

Grand Harbor, Ninety Six, SC

Golf course in ruins, since Davis Love III placed Revolutionary War fort ruins beside and behind some of the greens at Grand Harbor…lakeside community struggled at first but coming into its own now…lots of modern housing at fair prices…just 15 minutes from Greenwood, a college town with more than ample services…Homes from $260,000 (new construction), lots from $15,000.

Stoney Point, Greenwood, SC

On lake, about as close as you get to in-town living…husband and wife run, semi-private golf club good enough to lure players from Greenville, one hour away…no initiation fee, less than $350 per month dues…less a golf community than a neighborhood with a golf course…Shopping mall within 10 minutes…Homes from low $200s, lots from $40,000.

Keowee Key, Salem, SC

The well-established community offers homes on the lake that are priced, in some cases, below $100 per square foot…located on Lake Keowee, with mix of condos and single-family homes…20 minutes to Clemson, SC, and its famed university…Duke Power nuclear plant three miles away tamps down prices in community…condos from $60,000, waterfront condos from $85,000…single-family homes from $114,000…waterfront homes from $339,000.

Country Club of South Carolina, Florence, SC

Well-rated Ellis Maples designed 18-hole golf course in mid-state location, about 90 minutes from Myrtle Beach…full roster of amenities, including lighted tennis, with reasonable fees…street names of famous golfers (Hogan, Sarazen, etc.)…single-family homes from $229,000 (at less than $100 per square foot).

Fairfield Glade, Fairfield Glade, TN

Located on the “cool” Cumberland Plateau between Nashville and Knoxville…Five golf courses in excellent condition and of varying challenge…bent grass greens on Joe Lee’s Stonehenge layout, arguably the best of a very good collection…huge, sprawling community with plenty to do besides golf…flexible memberships provide pay as you go or annual membership fees for golf every day…lots from $1,000, condos from $80,000, single-family homes from $100,000.

Currahee Club, Toccoa, GA

Set in the mountains of northern Georgia, not far from South Carolina state line and along Lake Hartwell…golf course a significant challenge by George Fazio, characterized by elevated greens and swirling fairways…community less than 10 years old and featuring modern, indigenous mountain designs…single-family homes only from $439,000, lots from $105,000.

Sapelo Hammock Club, Shellman Bluff, GA

Abutted by two communities, Sutherland Bluff and Cooper’s Point…about as remote as it gets in a coastal location 90 minutes from Jacksonville and an hour from Savannah…for boaters, easy access to waterway and ocean…golf course is links-like and fun to play, with a friendly group of locals forming the membership core…just a few hundred yards from fishing village and 40 minutes from I-95…opened in 2002, sales have been slow, but a perfect place for those who literally want to get away from it all…golf course lots from $20,000, homes from $349,000 (just a few for sale).

Old North State Club, Uwharrie Point, NC

The developer of this Badin Lake community refused to talk with me after I wrote that Uwharrie Point was “remotely located” (a full 25 minutes from the burg of Albemarle, NC, population 16,000, and an hour from Charlotte)…the lake is the setting for the Old North State Club, designed by Tom Fazio and one of a dozen courses in the McConnell Golf Group portfolio; ranked #3 by the state’s golf rating panel…homes from $340,000, lots from $20,000.

If you would like more information about any of the communities listed above, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Eyes Wide Open:
With or Without a Plan, Couple Adapts to Rural Life

I made the mistake of starting my phone conversation with married couple David Staniford and Lucia Getsi by asking about the challenges of living in such a “remote” golf community as Savannah Lakes Village.

“It is not remote,” countered David, emphatically, as if he had defended his McCormick, SC, golf community from the charge of being “out there” many times before. For the record, Savannah Lakes Village is 35 minutes from the town of Greenwood and 40 minutes from Augusta, with not much in between.  But one man’s remote is another man’s paradise, and in this case paradise for David is a steady retirement gig as the community’s tennis pro, a healthy body that only once in 10 years has required medical care outside the community (more about that later) and the close-enough location of a Food Lion supermarket eight miles from Savannah Lakes.

Sea Change by the Lake

Lucia (pronounced Lew-sha), on the other hand, requires more in terms of shopping options and access to other activities she once took for granted as a university professor in a town of 100,000 people, Bloomington, IL.  But a life in the liberal arts and an upbringing in a small Tennessee town provided strong lessons in adaptability.

“It’s a sea change,” says Lucia about going from active pre-retirement status to a retirement community.  “Your environment around you changes and you must adapt, although many don’t do it successfully.”

Lucky that the former professor of comparative literature, poetics, and poetry and published author was used to long-distance driving during her career to teach at writer’s conferences, tuck away in quiet artists' colonies to write, and as a visiting lecturer.  An enthusiastic gourmet cook, Lucia thinks nothing of making the 40-minute drive to Augusta once a week to shop at Whole Foods or a recently opened Publix market in Greenwood, only slightly closer.

“I know Augusta and Greenwood very well [after 10 years],” she says.

David, on the other hand, would be content to never leave the Savannah Lakes campus and to maintain his routine every day.  That routine consists of morning tennis lessons and other responsibilities on the community’s lighted clay and composition courts, and a meet-up with a regular playing partner on one of Savannah Lakes’ two golf courses on a few mid-afternoons every week.

“We sometimes have the course to ourselves,” says David, “and we can zip around in time for me to be back home for drinks and dinner with Lucia.”

“Should Have Married a Chiropractor”

Although when they moved to Savannah Lakes 10 years ago, Lucia was an active and proficient golfer, a fall she took ended her playing days.

“I should have married a chiropractor,” she says, referencing one of the four specialists she sees regularly in Greenwood and Augusta.  Self-deprecating humor plays a big part in neutralizing the sting of 90-mile round-trips to see doctors.

As mentioned, David is a healthy soon-to-be 70, but he learned how inconvenient distance from doctors can be when he suffered a detached retina last year that caused additional complications.  Although he and Lucia disagree on how many trips he made to Augusta eye doctors — she says 50, he says “much fewer” — the round trips were clearly a major disturbance in their busy lives.

Busy Bodies Help

Keeping busy, of course, is an excellent formula for success in a remote — sorry David — community. Lucia, unlike David, didn’t have a “game plan” for how she would continue her profession outside an academic environment that gave it obvious purpose.  In the first year at Savannah Lakes, she didn’t really need a plan; beyond golf and gardening and her love of swimming and dancing, she became a full-time caregiver to her father while superintending the building of the couple's home she had designed and built on the lake.

Five Ways to Thrive
in a Rural Golf Community

If you are considering taking advantage of the extreme bargains in home prices in golf communities located at some distance from their nearest towns, here is some guidance:

  1. Embrace change — retirement is not a rerun of the previous 40 years, no matter where you choose to live.
  2. Own a comfortable car — preferably one with satellite radio.  Books on tape help, too.
  3. Stay busy — even if you have to force yourself, join as many clubs and activities as you can handle.
  4. Plan ahead — shop for a week of meals, schedule handymen for repairs well in advance.
  5. Get out of Dodge occasionally — your golf community may seem like paradise, but a change of scenery can recharge the batteries.  And what you save in real estate costs and taxes will help fund your travel.

For Lucia, golf was scratched after she took an untimely tumble onto some unforgiving rocks while inspecting her own construction site.  But the main reason she had chosen Savannah Lakes originally was for the junior Olympic indoor pool.  And after her golf career ended, and missing the 41 years of teaching and her former professional community, she turned lemons into lemonade by schooling herself in aquatic fitness training to become a Master Trainer.  Today, not only does Lucia provide lessons to dozens of Savannah Lakes residents, but she also is in demand nationwide as more and more baby boomers have learned to appreciate such high-resistance, low-impact exercise.

“Between a month-long trip to Europe every year or two,” says Lucia, “and the travel to teach aquatic instructor certification events or during vacations in Jamaica and Mexico, I am probably away from Savannah Lakes for two months a year.”  She acknowledges that the travel probably ameliorates the less urbane aspects of life in McCormick, SC.  David, on the other hand, spends an average three weeks away each year, teaching tennis for two weeks annually at a resort on the island of Jamaica and another week teaching tennis or competing at USTA events at different U.S. locations.

“That’s more than enough time away for me,” he says.

Like Pre-Retirement, Only Busier

Both David and Lucia agree that they are as busy in retirement as they were during their busy careers — maybe more so.

“When you live in a place like Savannah Lakes,” says Lucia, “you have to spend a lot of time organizing your lives.  There aren’t enough people available on short notice to work around your house, in the yards or inside for repairs, so you spend a lot of time scheduling things to be done.”  As people in the community have aged, the couple agrees, they can’t keep up with many of the responsibilities of home ownership; the largest homes in Savannah Lakes have been coming up for sale the last few years as those reaching 80 and older downsize or leave for assisted living accommodations.  (Note to those considering a golf community by a beautiful lake:  Plenty of bargains available at Savannah Lakes Village.  Contact me for more information.)

I was most curious about how a couple so used to university life in cities like Bloomington, IL, for Lucia, and Milwaukee for Dave, where he was tennis coach at Marquette University, came to choose a Savannah Lakes for their retirement.  Lucia, it turns out, grew up in McMinnville, TN, and felt comfortable with small-town living, although she admits McCormick does not much remind her of McMinnville.  And David was drawn to the two excellent golf courses and then-nascent tennis program he played a large role in building at Savannah Lakes.  But the transition is not without its challenges, according to the couple, especially for women.

“When couples first move to a location like Savannah Lakes,” says David, “men have enough with the golf and one or two other activities.  Women want more things to do.”

Lucia, who didn’t disagree with the gender distinction, had this bit of advice for those contemplating a move to a community at some distance from a town with ample services and cultural activities:  “You not only have to prepare for change, you also actually have to look forward to it.  No matter where you move to, retiring from something you have done for years, and leaving the community and environment in which you've done it, is going to mean change.”

“Wherever you go, there you are”

Her prescription is to get involved with activities as she has at Savannah Lakes — with her aquatics fitness sessions, participation on the community’s strategic planning committee, gardening, continuing to write (she has another book coming out this year), and participating and helping support the community’s many art, history, and musical activities. 

“If women band together in tennis groups, golf, quilting, book and card groups, exercise classes, and get involved in activities that help them build communities they love,” she adds, “they can have a sense of continuum from their past lives. 

“It’s an immersion,” she adds, “and pretty much a baptism into a new world, which can feel scary and empty or entirely too full and scattered.  A sense of community and shared purpose is critical.”

And so too is maintaining a commitment to things that made for a happy pre-retirement life.  After all, as Lucia is fond of saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

Larry Gavrich
Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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savannah lakes
  May 2016  Savannah Lakes Village

 

Quietest Golf Communities
Provide Loud Bargains

Here are some remotely located golf communities to consider if you want to live like landed gentry in retirement.  We have cut down our usual windy prose descriptions into short highlights for each community.  We define “remote” as located more than 45 minutes from a town of at least 100,000 people.  But towns with far less population can offer an almost full range of services (although possibly only one or two very good restaurants).  For more information on any of these communities, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

River Landing, Wallace, NC

Developed 20 years ago by a local farm family to attract top employees to their firm with fairly priced homes and excellent golf…located directly off Interstate 40 between Raleigh (80 minutes) and Wilmington (50 minutes)…Big, beautiful arts and crafts style clubhouse with top “master” chef at the helm…Two 18-hole golf courses ranked top 50 in North Carolina…River House is magnet for residents’ barbecues and celebrations…Walmart and other shopping three minutes outside the front gate…Homes from $266,000, lots from $7,900. ***Note:  We are planning a special couples event at River Landing scheduled for Fall 2016.  For advanced details, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Savannah Lakes Village, McCormick, SC

Located on large, man-made Lake Thurmond…two top-rated 18-hole golf courses of totally different character (one classic, one with significant altitude changes)…fairest amenity fees we have encountered, with $106 per month HOA dues that provide access to all amenities (pay per play golf)…for golf nuts, just $3,000 in annual dues for all the golf you can manage…Supermarket just eight minutes away but for all other stuff, Greenwood is a 35-minute drive…Homes from $130,000, lots from $57,000.

Grand Harbor, Ninety Six, SC

Golf course in ruins, since Davis Love III placed Revolutionary War fort ruins beside and behind some of the greens at Grand Harbor…lakeside community struggled at first but coming into its own now…lots of modern housing at fair prices…just 15 minutes from Greenwood, a college town with more than ample services…Homes from $260,000 (new construction), lots from $15,000.

Stoney Point, Greenwood, SC

On lake, about as close as you get to in-town living…husband and wife run, semi-private golf club good enough to lure players from Greenville, one hour away…no initiation fee, less than $350 per month dues…less a golf community than a neighborhood with a golf course…Shopping mall within 10 minutes…Homes from low $200s, lots from $40,000.

Keowee Key, Salem, SC

The well-established community offers homes on the lake that are priced, in some cases, below $100 per square foot…located on Lake Keowee, with mix of condos and single-family homes…20 minutes to Clemson, SC, and its famed university…Duke Power nuclear plant three miles away tamps down prices in community…condos from $60,000, waterfront condos from $85,000…single-family homes from $114,000…waterfront homes from $339,000.

Country Club of South Carolina, Florence, SC

Well-rated Ellis Maples designed 18-hole golf course in mid-state location, about 90 minutes from Myrtle Beach…full roster of amenities, including lighted tennis, with reasonable fees…street names of famous golfers (Hogan, Sarazen, etc.)…single-family homes from $229,000 (at less than $100 per square foot).

Fairfield Glade, Fairfield Glade, TN

Located on the “cool” Cumberland Plateau between Nashville and Knoxville…Five golf courses in excellent condition and of varying challenge…bent grass greens on Joe Lee’s Stonehenge layout, arguably the best of a very good collection…huge, sprawling community with plenty to do besides golf…flexible memberships provide pay as you go or annual membership fees for golf every day…lots from $1,000, condos from $80,000, single-family homes from $100,000.

Currahee Club, Toccoa, GA

Set in the mountains of northern Georgia, not far from South Carolina state line and along Lake Hartwell…golf course a significant challenge by George Fazio, characterized by elevated greens and swirling fairways…community less than 10 years old and featuring modern, indigenous mountain designs…single-family homes only from $439,000, lots from $105,000.

Sapelo Hammock Club, Shellman Bluff, GA

Abutted by two communities, Sutherland Bluff and Cooper’s Point…about as remote as it gets in a coastal location 90 minutes from Jacksonville and an hour from Savannah…for boaters, easy access to waterway and ocean…golf course is links-like and fun to play, with a friendly group of locals forming the membership core…just a few hundred yards from fishing village and 40 minutes from I-95…opened in 2002, sales have been slow, but a perfect place for those who literally want to get away from it all…golf course lots from $20,000, homes from $349,000 (just a few for sale).

Old North State Club, Uwharrie Point, NC

The developer of this Badin Lake community refused to talk with me after I wrote that Uwharrie Point was “remotely located” (a full 25 minutes from the burg of Albemarle, NC, population 16,000, and an hour from Charlotte)…the lake is the setting for the Old North State Club, designed by Tom Fazio and one of a dozen courses in the McConnell Golf Group portfolio; ranked #3 by the state’s golf rating panel…homes from $340,000, lots from $20,000.

If you would like more information about any of the communities listed above, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Eyes Wide Open:
With or Without a Plan, Couple Adapts to Rural Life

I made the mistake of starting my phone conversation with married couple David Staniford and Lucia Getsi by asking about the challenges of living in such a “remote” golf community as Savannah Lakes Village.

“It is not remote,” countered David, emphatically, as if he had defended his McCormick, SC, golf community from the charge of being “out there” many times before. For the record, Savannah Lakes Village is 35 minutes from the town of Greenwood and 40 minutes from Augusta, with not much in between.  But one man’s remote is another man’s paradise, and in this case paradise for David is a steady retirement gig as the community’s tennis pro, a healthy body that only once in 10 years has required medical care outside the community (more about that later) and the close-enough location of a Food Lion supermarket eight miles from Savannah Lakes.

Sea Change by the Lake

Lucia (pronounced Lew-sha), on the other hand, requires more in terms of shopping options and access to other activities she once took for granted as a university professor in a town of 100,000 people, Bloomington, IL.  But a life in the liberal arts and an upbringing in a small Tennessee town provided strong lessons in adaptability.

“It’s a sea change,” says Lucia about going from active pre-retirement status to a retirement community.  “Your environment around you changes and you must adapt, although many don’t do it successfully.”

Lucky that the former professor of comparative literature, poetics, and poetry and published author was used to long-distance driving during her career to teach at writer’s conferences, tuck away in quiet artists' colonies to write, and as a visiting lecturer.  An enthusiastic gourmet cook, Lucia thinks nothing of making the 40-minute drive to Augusta once a week to shop at Whole Foods or a recently opened Publix market in Greenwood, only slightly closer.

“I know Augusta and Greenwood very well [after 10 years],” she says.

David, on the other hand, would be content to never leave the Savannah Lakes campus and to maintain his routine every day.  That routine consists of morning tennis lessons and other responsibilities on the community’s lighted clay and composition courts, and a meet-up with a regular playing partner on one of Savannah Lakes’ two golf courses on a few mid-afternoons every week.

“We sometimes have the course to ourselves,” says David, “and we can zip around in time for me to be back home for drinks and dinner with Lucia.”

“Should Have Married a Chiropractor”

Although when they moved to Savannah Lakes 10 years ago, Lucia was an active and proficient golfer, a fall she took ended her playing days.

“I should have married a chiropractor,” she says, referencing one of the four specialists she sees regularly in Greenwood and Augusta.  Self-deprecating humor plays a big part in neutralizing the sting of 90-mile round-trips to see doctors.

As mentioned, David is a healthy soon-to-be 70, but he learned how inconvenient distance from doctors can be when he suffered a detached retina last year that caused additional complications.  Although he and Lucia disagree on how many trips he made to Augusta eye doctors — she says 50, he says “much fewer” — the round trips were clearly a major disturbance in their busy lives.

Busy Bodies Help

Keeping busy, of course, is an excellent formula for success in a remote — sorry David — community. Lucia, unlike David, didn’t have a “game plan” for how she would continue her profession outside an academic environment that gave it obvious purpose.  In the first year at Savannah Lakes, she didn’t really need a plan; beyond golf and gardening and her love of swimming and dancing, she became a full-time caregiver to her father while superintending the building of the couple's home she had designed and built on the lake.

Five Ways to Thrive
in a Rural Golf Community

If you are considering taking advantage of the extreme bargains in home prices in golf communities located at some distance from their nearest towns, here is some guidance:

  1. Embrace change — retirement is not a rerun of the previous 40 years, no matter where you choose to live.
  2. Own a comfortable car — preferably one with satellite radio.  Books on tape help, too.
  3. Stay busy — even if you have to force yourself, join as many clubs and activities as you can handle.
  4. Plan ahead — shop for a week of meals, schedule handymen for repairs well in advance.
  5. Get out of Dodge occasionally — your golf community may seem like paradise, but a change of scenery can recharge the batteries.  And what you save in real estate costs and taxes will help fund your travel.

For Lucia, golf was scratched after she took an untimely tumble onto some unforgiving rocks while inspecting her own construction site.  But the main reason she had chosen Savannah Lakes originally was for the junior Olympic indoor pool.  And after her golf career ended, and missing the 41 years of teaching and her former professional community, she turned lemons into lemonade by schooling herself in aquatic fitness training to become a Master Trainer.  Today, not only does Lucia provide lessons to dozens of Savannah Lakes residents, but she also is in demand nationwide as more and more baby boomers have learned to appreciate such high-resistance, low-impact exercise.

“Between a month-long trip to Europe every year or two,” says Lucia, “and the travel to teach aquatic instructor certification events or during vacations in Jamaica and Mexico, I am probably away from Savannah Lakes for two months a year.”  She acknowledges that the travel probably ameliorates the less urbane aspects of life in McCormick, SC.  David, on the other hand, spends an average three weeks away each year, teaching tennis for two weeks annually at a resort on the island of Jamaica and another week teaching tennis or competing at USTA events at different U.S. locations.

“That’s more than enough time away for me,” he says.

Like Pre-Retirement, Only Busier

Both David and Lucia agree that they are as busy in retirement as they were during their busy careers — maybe more so.

“When you live in a place like Savannah Lakes,” says Lucia, “you have to spend a lot of time organizing your lives.  There aren’t enough people available on short notice to work around your house, in the yards or inside for repairs, so you spend a lot of time scheduling things to be done.”  As people in the community have aged, the couple agrees, they can’t keep up with many of the responsibilities of home ownership; the largest homes in Savannah Lakes have been coming up for sale the last few years as those reaching 80 and older downsize or leave for assisted living accommodations.  (Note to those considering a golf community by a beautiful lake:  Plenty of bargains available at Savannah Lakes Village.  Contact me for more information.)

I was most curious about how a couple so used to university life in cities like Bloomington, IL, for Lucia, and Milwaukee for Dave, where he was tennis coach at Marquette University, came to choose a Savannah Lakes for their retirement.  Lucia, it turns out, grew up in McMinnville, TN, and felt comfortable with small-town living, although she admits McCormick does not much remind her of McMinnville.  And David was drawn to the two excellent golf courses and then-nascent tennis program he played a large role in building at Savannah Lakes.  But the transition is not without its challenges, according to the couple, especially for women.

“When couples first move to a location like Savannah Lakes,” says David, “men have enough with the golf and one or two other activities.  Women want more things to do.”

Lucia, who didn’t disagree with the gender distinction, had this bit of advice for those contemplating a move to a community at some distance from a town with ample services and cultural activities:  “You not only have to prepare for change, you also actually have to look forward to it.  No matter where you move to, retiring from something you have done for years, and leaving the community and environment in which you've done it, is going to mean change.”

“Wherever you go, there you are”

Her prescription is to get involved with activities as she has at Savannah Lakes — with her aquatics fitness sessions, participation on the community’s strategic planning committee, gardening, continuing to write (she has another book coming out this year), and participating and helping support the community’s many art, history, and musical activities. 

“If women band together in tennis groups, golf, quilting, book and card groups, exercise classes, and get involved in activities that help them build communities they love,” she adds, “they can have a sense of continuum from their past lives. 

“It’s an immersion,” she adds, “and pretty much a baptism into a new world, which can feel scary and empty or entirely too full and scattered.  A sense of community and shared purpose is critical.”

And so too is maintaining a commitment to things that made for a happy pre-retirement life.  After all, as Lucia is fond of saying, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

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.
 

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April 2016

Laurel Oak CC, Sarasota, FL
  March 2016  Laurel Oak CC, Sarasota, FL

10 Reasons to Consider Reynolds Lake Oconee

People love lists, especially those with a round number of entries like 10, for example.  Consider the following list and descriptions as shorthand for why couples with certain criteria should consider a golf community like Reynolds Lake Oconee.  I will add other high-quality communities to the list in future editions of Home On The Course.  As ever, if you would like more information on any community or any golf-rich area of the South, please do not hesitate to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Here is what I think makes Reynolds worthy of consideration.

Six outstanding golf courses

Except for Pinehurst and The Landings in Savannah, we know of no other golf communities with six or more golf courses available to their member residents.  At Pinehurst, you share your club with lots of traveling golfers; because there is a Ritz-Carlton inside the gates of Reynolds, hotel guests have access to five of the six excellent layouts; the sixth, Jim Engh’s Creek Club, is off limits to non-members.  It is a feast for the eyes and looks way more difficult than it is (though no pushover).  A wide range of membership plans are offered.

Homes to suit every taste and most budgets

Champagne taste and a beer budget will still get you a comfortable 2-bedroom, 2-bath “cottage” overlooking the fairway of The Plantation Course for just $179,000.  And the house is furnished!  Single-family homes start at $388,000 currently, and that will get you 2,500 square feet comprising 3 bedrooms and 3 ½ baths, a two-car garage and hardwood floors on the main level.  You can spend more if you like, up to nearly $4 million for a 10,500 square foot behemoth with stunning views of the lake and golf course (and a 1,000 bottle wine cellar).

Growing Greensboro

Customers who eventually purchased a lot and built a home in Chapel Hill, NC, loved Reynolds but thought it was too remote.  That was three years ago, and a lot has changed since; a large and growing local golf community with residents who have built up resources over the years will do that to a town.  In the last year, a new hospital has opened a mile outside Reynolds’ gates, and the Publix supermarket even closer to the entrance is as large and comprehensive as any such facility we’ve seen in the South.  With all there is to do inside Reynolds –- the golf, the lake, the clubs, the social events, the continuing education opportunities – “remote” gets a “so-what” response from Reynolds residents.

Hotlanta just 90 minutes away

For those stir-crazy former urbanites who need their city fix every once in a while, Atlanta is less than 90 minutes away, its sophisticated northern suburbs even closer.  Atlanta has become quite the foodie’s refuge in recent years, and if you live at Reynolds and are traveling long distances on vacation, Atlanta's international airport is one of the most sophisticated in the nation, with flights to virtually everywhere, including Europe, South America and Asia. 

Lake Oconee

The marketing officials at Reynolds recently changed the community’s name from Reynolds Plantation to Reynolds Lake Oconee.  Some wags will claim that owners Metropolitan Life Insurance are being politically correct in eliminating from the name a term with connotations related to slavery.  Perhaps that is an accurate assumption but in playing up the lake in its new official name, it is trading on its biggest asset.  The lake itself is big -– the second largest in Georgia -- beautiful, a center for dozens of activities, including all manner of boating and excellent fishing, and a magnet for all those grandkids who visit during summer.  After an exhausting day of golf, doesn’t a moonlight cruise sound inviting?  

Got Met, It Pays

Speaking of names, give Metropolitan Life credit for leaving the Reynolds name attached, even though the community went into bankruptcy during the Reynolds family’s reign.  But before the recession cost them their community and Met Life swooped in to save it, the Reynolds clan plowed lots of money into building one of the most recognized, aggressively marketed multi-golf-course communities in the nation.  Met Life is a conservatively managed organization that knows a good deal when it sees one, and its deep pockets are a sign that the financial future looks as bright at Reynolds as the sun shining on a crystal clear lake.

Flexible Membership Program

We can share specific numbers with anyone interested in the membership plans at Reynolds –- it is a bit complicated – but here’s the outline:  You can opt for a plan that gives you unfettered access, without the payment of extra green fees, for two, four or all six of the community’s golf courses.  Initiation fees range from the low $20s to around $60,000 for golf on all courses without any additional payment (other than monthly dues and cart fees).  For additional dues payments and nominal green fee payments, those who opt for the lower initiation fees and fewer number of golf courses can have access to the other courses, but will pay nominal green fees.  I told you it was complicated, but if you want all the details and numbers, write me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I will have our real estate professional at Reynolds, Jere Mills, send you the membership package. 

Gentleman Real Estate Agent

Speaking of Jere Mills, I have known him for almost 10 years and when I say he is straight out of central casting for “Southern gentleman,” I am probably understating it.  I haven’t embarrassed him by asking to see his customer testimony file, but I am sure it is loaded with hosannas about how he takes seriously his search for the perfect home for his customers.  If ever there was a reason to look seriously at a golf community because of the integrity and seriousness of purpose of one of its salespersons, it is at Reynolds Lake Oconee.

Putting On The Ritz

You don’t see this very often in a golf community, but Ritz-Carlton has maintained one of its high-end hotels inside the gates of Reynolds since just after the Reynolds family began selling lots there in the 1990s.  If you have rich relations or friends who insist on staying in a hotel when they visit, you and they could certainly do a lot worse than putting up at the Ritz.  Typical rooms are in the $400 range but we couldn’t help but notice that during the first weekend in April, the only rooms available were priced around $1,300 per night.  It turned out there was a modest little golf gathering down the road about 70 miles in Augusta and some attendees chose to lodge at Reynolds.

Eat Your Heart Out

Reynolds is conscious that the surrounding town of Greensboro isn’t exactly Charleston or New Orleans when it comes to restaurants.  It wisely offers nine dining establishments inside the gates, and lists of on-site continuing education courses we’ve seen include seminars on food and wine.  But every once in a while, you just want to get away and eat in town, or even farther afield.  You can do that in Greensboro, especially after the opening of The National Tavern recently, an eatery where one food critic from Atlanta wrote, “every bite was amazing and [she] never wanted it to end.”  There are a few other options including Yesterday’s Café, where I consumed a nice meal at the lively bar a few years ago.  But for serious dining, Atlanta northern suburbs are a little over an hour away and offer a good selection to top restaurants.  Just don’t drink too much before the drive home.

 

If you would like more information about Reynolds Lake Oconee or would like an introduction to our professional agent there, Jere Mills, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Florida Conundrum

Comprehensive Living, But At A Price

There is no doubt that Florida is back as a destination for baby boomers seeking sun and fun.  After a few years of net population loss, Sunshine State developers are back to building everything from inexpensive condos to estate homes.  The U.S. Census Bureau tells us why:  “For the first time in almost a decade, Florida added more people than California between July 2014 and July 2015…[The state] gained 365,703 people, leapfrogging over New York to become the nation’s third most populous state, after California and Texas.”

Sunshine State golf communities can be an easy choice for those on a fairly strict budget, with many homes costing less than $200,000; and although some of the state’s golf communities offer an endless buffet of amenities for one reasonable price –-The Villages near Ocala, for example –-retirees targeting golf communities with real estate choices in the $300,000 to $600,000 range have a decision to make that has less to do with the homes and more to do with golf:  The carrying costs in many top golf communities in Florida are a significant percentage of real estate costs.

Take the triumvirate communities of Piper’s Landing, Jonathan’s Landing and Harbour Ridge, all located inside a 45-minute circle with Port St. Lucie and Jupiter at the edges, and with homes generally starting in the $300s.  These communities, like most of their mid-priced competitors along the east coast of the state, feature the widest range of amenities available to all residents for one set dues level.  The golf courses are excellent and well conditioned, with 36 holes each at Jonathan’s and Harbour Ridge, and 18 at Piper’s.  I daresay these communities are well financed also since club membership is mandatory with the purchase of a home; as long as homes are on the tax rolls, the clubs have a steady flow of revenue to lavish on the courses, their clubhouses and other amenities.

It (Almost) All Comes Back to You

At first look, initiation fees seem high as well, in the $70,000 area, but most of that down payment is returned a couple of weeks after members sell their homes.  Of course, the new owners of the house understand the obligation of the mandatory membership and the annual dues payments. But the carrying costs are high on a relative basis, in some cases as high as $30,000 annually.  The highest annual carrying costs we have encountered outside Florida are around $20,000 for such communities as Colleton River, Belfair and Berkeley Hall in Bluffton and almost as much at Haig Point on Daufuskie Island, SC; club membership is mandatory at Colleton River, which includes terrific Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus golf courses, but not at the isolated Haig Point where, if you are not a member, you could feel very lonely.

The argument for paying the high carrying costs at the Florida communities is that they tend to cover just about every activity and luxury inside the gates, including some unexpected ones.  At Piper’s Landing, for example, every membership includes golf and tennis, trail fees (use of your own golf cart on the course and in the community for no additional fee), 24-hour security, water and sewer charges, enhanced cable, trash pickup and staff gratuities.  At many communities we have encountered, a trail fee can run up to $2,000 annually. Most of the homes in Piper’s Landing –- except “custom” built homes -- also receive free landscaping for the $22,600 to $25,400 in annual dues.  The community also assesses capital fund and clubhouse renovation fees that amount to about $2,500 annually per home.

You Get What You Pay For.

At Piper’s Landing’s sister club, Harbour Ridge Yacht & Country Club, the story is much the same.  After an initiation payment of $84,000, of which $68,000 is refundable at the time you sell your home, total annual payments for the club and POA fees is in the neighborhood of $25,000 if you include the optional annual trail fee.  But as is the case in many upper-end Florida golf communities, a “neighborhood” assessment is required in addition to the overall POA fees.  At Harbour Ridge, those assessments range from $0 (for some of the custom homes) to $2,600 per quarter, or more than $10,000 per year.  Note that these neighborhood payments include landscaping, maintenance of each community’s pools, trash pickup and pest control in the condo neighborhoods, as well as contributions to reserve funds used for painting and road repair in most areas.

In the end, the decision to live in one of these types of Florida golf communities comes down to whether you mind writing many checks for in-community services or prefer writing just a few that come out to a slightly higher total.  More importantly, it depends on whether $25,000 to $30,000 in carrying costs fits your annual budget. 

Why Golf Doesn’t Rank Near the Top as an Amenity

CarolinaLiving.com, a web site for which I write a column about golf living, has produced some new data about what amenities are most important to those intending to move to North and South Carolina.  The results are revealing as much about the psychology of retirees as they are about which amenities communities might be wise to offer their future residents.

CarolinaLiving, which is based in Columbia, SC, used data from 4,000 “households” that responded to its online questionnaire.  Folks over the age of 50 who are considering relocation to the Carolinas use CarolinaLiving as a resource for information about a wide range of topics related to the two states, from the best places to eat to the best hospitals. 

Golf Just Misses The Top 10

The top 10 amenities of choice among the responders, in order from #1, are:  Walking Paths, Shopping, Gardening, Swimming, Bicycling, Museums, History, Fishing, Boating and Health Club.  You will no doubt have noticed that Golf is not on the list; Golf finished at #11, just ahead of Computers, Marina, Canoeing and Clubhouse.

If that ranking implies that the game of golf is in trouble, then consider the alleged plight of Tennis, the only other “competitive” sport on the list, which finished at #18, stuck between Civic Clubs and Sailing.  On a relative basis, at least, golf seems to be in pretty good shape.

There is no doubt that communities, with or without golf, need to offer as many activities and amenities as they can to attract the widest number of retirees (and the children and grandchildren who will visit them once or twice a year).

“Based on 130,000 surveys over 30 years,” says Pat Mason, co-founder of Carolina Living, “developers and property owner associations need to pitch a robust and wide band of lifestyle activity options to address all members of the family.”

The golf game’s mediocre ranking on the list is the result of a few factors.  First, people tend to idealize their retirements before they actually look for a new home.  Golf is burdened with the perception of being a “soft” sport, not particularly aerobic, especially when you use a golf cart, and I understand why “swimming” and “walking” would show up more often in responses.  Out-of-shape 60-somethings, like yours truly, see themselves tending to their fitness and wellness once they “finally” will have the time to exercise.  If that sounds far fetched, consider that “Museums” and “History” are ranked #6 and #7, respectively, in the survey.  After living part-time in a retiree-oriented community in South Carolina, and having visited a couple hundred other golf communities, I have never met a soul who touted access to a local museum (in most cases because there isn’t one within 50 miles); my wife and I have made it to the Burroughs-Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, the only art museum in the area, as well as a few in Charleston, but I’d say our visits averaged out to once a year.  My ratio of golf rounds to museum visits is about 40 to 1.  In other words, the notion of museums being truly the 6th most important activity for retirees is just that, a notion. 

Cost Implications Hurt Golf’s Rating

Golf and #10 Health Club are probably the only activities of the top 11 that require a fee for use.  Most of us will not assume we have to pay for fishing and swimming, and certainly not to shop, walk or garden (except for purchasing the seeds).  Wariness about spending too much in retirement might very well be driving the golf numbers lower, and the spectre of "free" activities may be driving their numbers higher.

The implication of golf’s costs probably works against the game’s ranking more than anything.  Certainly, we all know that there are plenty of golf communities throughout the Southern U.S., and most of them have facilities for swimming, walking, bicycling, fitness (health clubs) and gardening; and many on lakes and rivers include boating and fishing. (I’ve yet to find a museum inside the gates of a residential community.)  Many pre-retirees, with some justification, consider that golf communities will exact a higher tariff in terms of dues and other carrying costs, and that swimming and fitness carry no cost in communities without golf (not true in many cases).  That too could pollute the responses somewhat and make golf appear a little less popular than it is.

There is no denying that golf is relatively expensive.  But then so is a meal with a bottle of wine in a nice restaurant (even more expensive in a Nice restaurant!); or a cruise through the Greek Isles; or a major league baseball game (especially if you consider the $8 beers and $6 hot dogs).  We know of private golf community clubs that can be joined for less than $3,000 and semi-private clubs for way less than that (some for no initiation fee at all).  A well-thought-out budget can absorb the costs of golf; and after a 40-year career, raising a family and sacrificing some of the luxuries of life, that seems like the least you can do for yourself.

 april resizedThe Creek Club at Reynolds Lake Oconee, designed by Jim Engh, is the only strictly private club of the six in the community.  (Guests at the on-site Ritz Carlton are granted privileges at the other five courses.)  On view is the par 3 13th hole, short but with a wildly shaped snake of a green with severe mounding but surprisingly accessible pin positions (if you don’t mind five foot breaks).

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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Laurel Oak CC, Sarasota, FL
  March 2016  Laurel Oak CC, Sarasota, FL

10 Reasons to Consider Reynolds Lake Oconee

People love lists, especially those with a round number of entries like 10, for example.  Consider the following list and descriptions as shorthand for why couples with certain criteria should consider a golf community like Reynolds Lake Oconee.  I will add other high-quality communities to the list in future editions of Home On The Course.  As ever, if you would like more information on any community or any golf-rich area of the South, please do not hesitate to contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Here is what I think makes Reynolds worthy of consideration.

Six outstanding golf courses

Except for Pinehurst and The Landings in Savannah, we know of no other golf communities with six or more golf courses available to their member residents.  At Pinehurst, you share your club with lots of traveling golfers; because there is a Ritz-Carlton inside the gates of Reynolds, hotel guests have access to five of the six excellent layouts; the sixth, Jim Engh’s Creek Club, is off limits to non-members.  It is a feast for the eyes and looks way more difficult than it is (though no pushover).  A wide range of membership plans are offered.

Homes to suit every taste and most budgets

Champagne taste and a beer budget will still get you a comfortable 2-bedroom, 2-bath “cottage” overlooking the fairway of The Plantation Course for just $179,000.  And the house is furnished!  Single-family homes start at $388,000 currently, and that will get you 2,500 square feet comprising 3 bedrooms and 3 ½ baths, a two-car garage and hardwood floors on the main level.  You can spend more if you like, up to nearly $4 million for a 10,500 square foot behemoth with stunning views of the lake and golf course (and a 1,000 bottle wine cellar).

Growing Greensboro

Customers who eventually purchased a lot and built a home in Chapel Hill, NC, loved Reynolds but thought it was too remote.  That was three years ago, and a lot has changed since; a large and growing local golf community with residents who have built up resources over the years will do that to a town.  In the last year, a new hospital has opened a mile outside Reynolds’ gates, and the Publix supermarket even closer to the entrance is as large and comprehensive as any such facility we’ve seen in the South.  With all there is to do inside Reynolds –- the golf, the lake, the clubs, the social events, the continuing education opportunities – “remote” gets a “so-what” response from Reynolds residents.

Hotlanta just 90 minutes away

For those stir-crazy former urbanites who need their city fix every once in a while, Atlanta is less than 90 minutes away, its sophisticated northern suburbs even closer.  Atlanta has become quite the foodie’s refuge in recent years, and if you live at Reynolds and are traveling long distances on vacation, Atlanta's international airport is one of the most sophisticated in the nation, with flights to virtually everywhere, including Europe, South America and Asia. 

Lake Oconee

The marketing officials at Reynolds recently changed the community’s name from Reynolds Plantation to Reynolds Lake Oconee.  Some wags will claim that owners Metropolitan Life Insurance are being politically correct in eliminating from the name a term with connotations related to slavery.  Perhaps that is an accurate assumption but in playing up the lake in its new official name, it is trading on its biggest asset.  The lake itself is big -– the second largest in Georgia -- beautiful, a center for dozens of activities, including all manner of boating and excellent fishing, and a magnet for all those grandkids who visit during summer.  After an exhausting day of golf, doesn’t a moonlight cruise sound inviting?  

Got Met, It Pays

Speaking of names, give Metropolitan Life credit for leaving the Reynolds name attached, even though the community went into bankruptcy during the Reynolds family’s reign.  But before the recession cost them their community and Met Life swooped in to save it, the Reynolds clan plowed lots of money into building one of the most recognized, aggressively marketed multi-golf-course communities in the nation.  Met Life is a conservatively managed organization that knows a good deal when it sees one, and its deep pockets are a sign that the financial future looks as bright at Reynolds as the sun shining on a crystal clear lake.

Flexible Membership Program

We can share specific numbers with anyone interested in the membership plans at Reynolds –- it is a bit complicated – but here’s the outline:  You can opt for a plan that gives you unfettered access, without the payment of extra green fees, for two, four or all six of the community’s golf courses.  Initiation fees range from the low $20s to around $60,000 for golf on all courses without any additional payment (other than monthly dues and cart fees).  For additional dues payments and nominal green fee payments, those who opt for the lower initiation fees and fewer number of golf courses can have access to the other courses, but will pay nominal green fees.  I told you it was complicated, but if you want all the details and numbers, write me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and I will have our real estate professional at Reynolds, Jere Mills, send you the membership package. 

Gentleman Real Estate Agent

Speaking of Jere Mills, I have known him for almost 10 years and when I say he is straight out of central casting for “Southern gentleman,” I am probably understating it.  I haven’t embarrassed him by asking to see his customer testimony file, but I am sure it is loaded with hosannas about how he takes seriously his search for the perfect home for his customers.  If ever there was a reason to look seriously at a golf community because of the integrity and seriousness of purpose of one of its salespersons, it is at Reynolds Lake Oconee.

Putting On The Ritz

You don’t see this very often in a golf community, but Ritz-Carlton has maintained one of its high-end hotels inside the gates of Reynolds since just after the Reynolds family began selling lots there in the 1990s.  If you have rich relations or friends who insist on staying in a hotel when they visit, you and they could certainly do a lot worse than putting up at the Ritz.  Typical rooms are in the $400 range but we couldn’t help but notice that during the first weekend in April, the only rooms available were priced around $1,300 per night.  It turned out there was a modest little golf gathering down the road about 70 miles in Augusta and some attendees chose to lodge at Reynolds.

Eat Your Heart Out

Reynolds is conscious that the surrounding town of Greensboro isn’t exactly Charleston or New Orleans when it comes to restaurants.  It wisely offers nine dining establishments inside the gates, and lists of on-site continuing education courses we’ve seen include seminars on food and wine.  But every once in a while, you just want to get away and eat in town, or even farther afield.  You can do that in Greensboro, especially after the opening of The National Tavern recently, an eatery where one food critic from Atlanta wrote, “every bite was amazing and [she] never wanted it to end.”  There are a few other options including Yesterday’s Café, where I consumed a nice meal at the lively bar a few years ago.  But for serious dining, Atlanta northern suburbs are a little over an hour away and offer a good selection to top restaurants.  Just don’t drink too much before the drive home.

 

If you would like more information about Reynolds Lake Oconee or would like an introduction to our professional agent there, Jere Mills, please send me a note at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

The Florida Conundrum

Comprehensive Living, But At A Price

There is no doubt that Florida is back as a destination for baby boomers seeking sun and fun.  After a few years of net population loss, Sunshine State developers are back to building everything from inexpensive condos to estate homes.  The U.S. Census Bureau tells us why:  “For the first time in almost a decade, Florida added more people than California between July 2014 and July 2015…[The state] gained 365,703 people, leapfrogging over New York to become the nation’s third most populous state, after California and Texas.”

Sunshine State golf communities can be an easy choice for those on a fairly strict budget, with many homes costing less than $200,000; and although some of the state’s golf communities offer an endless buffet of amenities for one reasonable price –-The Villages near Ocala, for example –-retirees targeting golf communities with real estate choices in the $300,000 to $600,000 range have a decision to make that has less to do with the homes and more to do with golf:  The carrying costs in many top golf communities in Florida are a significant percentage of real estate costs.

Take the triumvirate communities of Piper’s Landing, Jonathan’s Landing and Harbour Ridge, all located inside a 45-minute circle with Port St. Lucie and Jupiter at the edges, and with homes generally starting in the $300s.  These communities, like most of their mid-priced competitors along the east coast of the state, feature the widest range of amenities available to all residents for one set dues level.  The golf courses are excellent and well conditioned, with 36 holes each at Jonathan’s and Harbour Ridge, and 18 at Piper’s.  I daresay these communities are well financed also since club membership is mandatory with the purchase of a home; as long as homes are on the tax rolls, the clubs have a steady flow of revenue to lavish on the courses, their clubhouses and other amenities.

It (Almost) All Comes Back to You

At first look, initiation fees seem high as well, in the $70,000 area, but most of that down payment is returned a couple of weeks after members sell their homes.  Of course, the new owners of the house understand the obligation of the mandatory membership and the annual dues payments. But the carrying costs are high on a relative basis, in some cases as high as $30,000 annually.  The highest annual carrying costs we have encountered outside Florida are around $20,000 for such communities as Colleton River, Belfair and Berkeley Hall in Bluffton and almost as much at Haig Point on Daufuskie Island, SC; club membership is mandatory at Colleton River, which includes terrific Pete Dye and Jack Nicklaus golf courses, but not at the isolated Haig Point where, if you are not a member, you could feel very lonely.

The argument for paying the high carrying costs at the Florida communities is that they tend to cover just about every activity and luxury inside the gates, including some unexpected ones.  At Piper’s Landing, for example, every membership includes golf and tennis, trail fees (use of your own golf cart on the course and in the community for no additional fee), 24-hour security, water and sewer charges, enhanced cable, trash pickup and staff gratuities.  At many communities we have encountered, a trail fee can run up to $2,000 annually. Most of the homes in Piper’s Landing –- except “custom” built homes -- also receive free landscaping for the $22,600 to $25,400 in annual dues.  The community also assesses capital fund and clubhouse renovation fees that amount to about $2,500 annually per home.

You Get What You Pay For.

At Piper’s Landing’s sister club, Harbour Ridge Yacht & Country Club, the story is much the same.  After an initiation payment of $84,000, of which $68,000 is refundable at the time you sell your home, total annual payments for the club and POA fees is in the neighborhood of $25,000 if you include the optional annual trail fee.  But as is the case in many upper-end Florida golf communities, a “neighborhood” assessment is required in addition to the overall POA fees.  At Harbour Ridge, those assessments range from $0 (for some of the custom homes) to $2,600 per quarter, or more than $10,000 per year.  Note that these neighborhood payments include landscaping, maintenance of each community’s pools, trash pickup and pest control in the condo neighborhoods, as well as contributions to reserve funds used for painting and road repair in most areas.

In the end, the decision to live in one of these types of Florida golf communities comes down to whether you mind writing many checks for in-community services or prefer writing just a few that come out to a slightly higher total.  More importantly, it depends on whether $25,000 to $30,000 in carrying costs fits your annual budget. 

Why Golf Doesn’t Rank Near the Top as an Amenity

CarolinaLiving.com, a web site for which I write a column about golf living, has produced some new data about what amenities are most important to those intending to move to North and South Carolina.  The results are revealing as much about the psychology of retirees as they are about which amenities communities might be wise to offer their future residents.

CarolinaLiving, which is based in Columbia, SC, used data from 4,000 “households” that responded to its online questionnaire.  Folks over the age of 50 who are considering relocation to the Carolinas use CarolinaLiving as a resource for information about a wide range of topics related to the two states, from the best places to eat to the best hospitals. 

Golf Just Misses The Top 10

The top 10 amenities of choice among the responders, in order from #1, are:  Walking Paths, Shopping, Gardening, Swimming, Bicycling, Museums, History, Fishing, Boating and Health Club.  You will no doubt have noticed that Golf is not on the list; Golf finished at #11, just ahead of Computers, Marina, Canoeing and Clubhouse.

If that ranking implies that the game of golf is in trouble, then consider the alleged plight of Tennis, the only other “competitive” sport on the list, which finished at #18, stuck between Civic Clubs and Sailing.  On a relative basis, at least, golf seems to be in pretty good shape.

There is no doubt that communities, with or without golf, need to offer as many activities and amenities as they can to attract the widest number of retirees (and the children and grandchildren who will visit them once or twice a year).

“Based on 130,000 surveys over 30 years,” says Pat Mason, co-founder of Carolina Living, “developers and property owner associations need to pitch a robust and wide band of lifestyle activity options to address all members of the family.”

The golf game’s mediocre ranking on the list is the result of a few factors.  First, people tend to idealize their retirements before they actually look for a new home.  Golf is burdened with the perception of being a “soft” sport, not particularly aerobic, especially when you use a golf cart, and I understand why “swimming” and “walking” would show up more often in responses.  Out-of-shape 60-somethings, like yours truly, see themselves tending to their fitness and wellness once they “finally” will have the time to exercise.  If that sounds far fetched, consider that “Museums” and “History” are ranked #6 and #7, respectively, in the survey.  After living part-time in a retiree-oriented community in South Carolina, and having visited a couple hundred other golf communities, I have never met a soul who touted access to a local museum (in most cases because there isn’t one within 50 miles); my wife and I have made it to the Burroughs-Chapin Museum in Myrtle Beach, the only art museum in the area, as well as a few in Charleston, but I’d say our visits averaged out to once a year.  My ratio of golf rounds to museum visits is about 40 to 1.  In other words, the notion of museums being truly the 6th most important activity for retirees is just that, a notion. 

Cost Implications Hurt Golf’s Rating

Golf and #10 Health Club are probably the only activities of the top 11 that require a fee for use.  Most of us will not assume we have to pay for fishing and swimming, and certainly not to shop, walk or garden (except for purchasing the seeds).  Wariness about spending too much in retirement might very well be driving the golf numbers lower, and the spectre of "free" activities may be driving their numbers higher.

The implication of golf’s costs probably works against the game’s ranking more than anything.  Certainly, we all know that there are plenty of golf communities throughout the Southern U.S., and most of them have facilities for swimming, walking, bicycling, fitness (health clubs) and gardening; and many on lakes and rivers include boating and fishing. (I’ve yet to find a museum inside the gates of a residential community.)  Many pre-retirees, with some justification, consider that golf communities will exact a higher tariff in terms of dues and other carrying costs, and that swimming and fitness carry no cost in communities without golf (not true in many cases).  That too could pollute the responses somewhat and make golf appear a little less popular than it is.

There is no denying that golf is relatively expensive.  But then so is a meal with a bottle of wine in a nice restaurant (even more expensive in a Nice restaurant!); or a cruise through the Greek Isles; or a major league baseball game (especially if you consider the $8 beers and $6 hot dogs).  We know of private golf community clubs that can be joined for less than $3,000 and semi-private clubs for way less than that (some for no initiation fee at all).  A well-thought-out budget can absorb the costs of golf; and after a 40-year career, raising a family and sacrificing some of the luxuries of life, that seems like the least you can do for yourself.

 april resizedThe Creek Club at Reynolds Lake Oconee, designed by Jim Engh, is the only strictly private club of the six in the community.  (Guests at the on-site Ritz Carlton are granted privileges at the other five courses.)  On view is the par 3 13th hole, short but with a wildly shaped snake of a green with severe mounding but surprisingly accessible pin positions (if you don’t mind five foot breaks).

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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March 2016

Bulls Bay Golf Club, Awendaw, SC
  March 2016  Bulls Bay Golf Club, Awendaw, SC

The Politics of Relocation
in the Southeast

This election season does not need me to weigh in on how wacky and divisive it is.  But the current U.S. Presidential race is hard to avoid, given the rabid press coverage and, for some of us, a tendency toward the kind of rubbernecking schadenfreude associated typically with other types of wrecks.  Therefore, I feel it my responsibility to answer in this space a question I am receiving more often lately from couples searching for a golf home in the Southeast:  "Where will we feel most comfortable given our political persuasion?"

If you have been watching the incessant television coverage of the primary elections, you know that numbers are being crunched and analyzed every which way.  Of course, results are not available on a per golf community basis, but the county that surrounds a golf community gives a strong hint at what the politics of that particular community might be.    

Political Safe Havens

For progressives, those counties carried most emphatically by Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic Socialist, would seem to provide some safe haven.  You are most likely to find such havens in counties where major universities dominate the employment in the area and young people dominate the population.

For example, the county seat of Richland County, SC, is Columbia, which is also the state capital and home to the University of South Carolina.  In the recent Republican primary, the state went strongly for Donald Trump, who garnered 32.5% of the statewide vote. (Source:  Politico.)  Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz finished in a virtual tie for second with a little more than 22% of the vote.  And, yet, in Richland County, Rubio beat Trump by a few percentage points.  Those results probably won’t convince a progressive couple looking for a golf community that Columbia might be politically friendly.  For that, they might look to the Democrat party primary results, which showed Hillary Clinton with a whopping 76% to 24% pummeling of Senator Sanders.  But more to the point, Secretary Clinton’s total vote count was 39,243 and, combined with the Sanders vote, total Democrat primary voting reached nearly 52,000 in Richland County.  The Republican primary vote total for all six candidates was 39,259.  By those numbers, a progressive couple might look more favorably on a Columbia golf community, knowing there are a fair number of like-minded individuals in the area.  (See below for some Columbia golf community suggestions.)

Conservatively Speaking

Conservative couples, of course, search for golf communities too, and in most counties in the Southeast, they will have an easier time finding a comfortable political environment, especially if they search in the most rural locations.  We took a look at primary results along the popular marshlands from Charleston County north to Georgetown and Horry Counties, home to some of the best-rated golf communities and courses on the eastern seaboard.  For the so-called “mainstream” Republican which, the media tells us, has been represented by Marco Rubio, Charleston County should be a target as the Florida Senator eked out a victory over Trump and Senator Ted Cruz.  But up the coast, in Georgetown and Horry Counties (the latter is home to Myrtle Beach), the Donald won commanding victories.  Whereas the Rubio win in the Charleston area might say something about the politics and social proclivities of that old city’s residents, we leave to other pundits the assessment of the nearly 50% of the vote Trump received in Horry County.  (Secretary Clinton, for the record, earned more than two-thirds of the vote in all three counties in her primary contest.)

Independent-Minded Communities

I admire the politically Independent voter and golf community enthusiast, and I take it as a challenge, in these divided times, to find areas that seem balanced in their political sensibilities.  For that, it is best to look backward to a time that seems long ago –- 2012 –- when Presidential discourse was spirited but not loony, when it was progressive Democrat Obama against conservative Republican Mitt Romney.  One of the more balanced counties in the South was New Hanover in North Carolina, a small county in size that is almost entirely populated by the metro Wilmington area.  Wilmington, though home to a large branch of the University of North Carolina, went for Romney by the slight margin of 51.7% to 47.1%.  (See a few recommendations of Wilmington area golf communities below.)  Back in South Carolina, in McCormick County, which hugs Lake Thurmond and is home to the large golf community of Savannah Lakes Village (see below), voters gave the nod to Obama by a similarly slim margin.  (An anomaly in that you do not get much more rural than McCormick County.)

Many of the online voting maps (click here for one example) characterize the way a county votes by a shade of blue or red -- light color for slightly more conservative or progressive than the other side of the aisle, a darker shade for a more dominant political strain.  If you like to tilt at windmills, politically speaking, target your search for a home in a dark blue or dark red county that is the opposite of your own point of view.  If you want more of a fair fight, though, go for a lighter shade of blue or red.  If you want help finding the community that is right for you, contact me.

Politically correct 
golf community choices

Columbia, SC (Richland County)

Woodcreek Farms and Wildewood, two mature sister golf communities, offer their members access to both clubs for one reasonable price.  Tom Fazio designed the Woodcreek course, which has played host to both top amateur and professional golf events.  The Wildewood course is the product of architect Russell Breeden, who laid out many courses in The Carolinas during the 1970s and ‘80s…Cobblestone Park in nearby Blythewood was the brainchild of infamous developer Bobby Ginn, whose Trumpian personality and expensive marketing junkets convinced many customers that lots at Cobblestone were worth the $300,000 and more he was asking.  Today, some of the homes on those lots are selling for barely more than $300,000.  The good news is that national builder D.R. Horton bought up a majority of land in the community and built reasonably priced homes on lots beside the well-regarded Lee Janzen 27-hole golf course.  A new, long-promised clubhouse is finally open, leaving the last unfulfilled Ginn promise to fade into memory.

Charleston/Mt. Pleasant, SC
(Charleston County)

Daniel Island could be the best-organized golf community on the east coast, given that it is a self-contained oasis of living, with homes, offices, shopping, restaurants and sports activities in close proximity.  And the golf –- courses by Tom Fazio and Rees Jones –- are special too, although membership fees are a bit pricey.  Still, you won’t find a more buttoned-up and service-oriented club than Daniel Island Club, a perfect venue for splendid coexistence among retirees and families.  The location just 10 minutes from plenty of shopping in Mt. Pleasant and 15 minutes from the best restaurants on the east coast in historic Charleston puts Daniel Island at the top of many couples’ lists…Mt. Pleasant has exploded in population and shopping areas in the last decade.  With Highway 17 finally widened to accommodate all the traffic in and through the town on the way to Charleston, golf communities like Rivertowne, Charleston National, Snee Farm and Dunes West should be getting even more looks.  Nothing is missing in Mt. Pleasant; a modern hospital, the beautiful recently built Ravenel Bridge to Charleston, the nearby Isle of Palms beaches and the many seafood and other restaurants along the Shem Creek should continue driving traffic toward Mt. Pleasant…We played the Links Course at Wild Dunes Resort recently, and both the golf course and the clubhouse area had been spiffed up considerably since our last visit five years ago (when large white bags of sand were barely holding up the 18th green).  Tom Fazio and his group recently completed a beautiful renovation of the Links Course, including relocation of the 18th green (and changing the par 5 to a par 3).  The occasionally maligned Harbor Course, also by Fazio, was just fine, a bit narrow for spray hitters and with some long cart rides between holes; it gave us the sense that the layout was shoehorned into the community.  But we’re not quibbling about 36 holes of fine golf near and on the ocean. 

Wilmington, NC (New Hanover County)

It isn’t easy to find top quality golf communities within 10 minutes of a good-sized city, but in Wilmington, we know of at least three.  Landfall lies between the city and the sea and offers 45 holes of golf by Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye.  Mostly single-family homes run the gamut of prices from $300,000 into the millions.  Best of all for sun worshippers, Wrightsville Beach is less than 10 minutes out the back gate.  Porters Neck is as close to Wilmington as is Landfall and only a few minutes farther to the beach.  It offers just 18 holes of golf, but they are prime Tom Fazio holes, renovated at the behest of an involved membership group just a few years ago.  The most striking effect of a first look at Porters Neck is the landscaping, a combination of gardeners’ handiwork with sprawling live oak trees.  Brunswick Forest lies just outside New Hanover County, in rapidly growing and very conservative Brunswick County, but this rapidly growing community is as close to the city as is Landfall and Porters Neck.  Thanks to its well-financed owners and an organized approach to development, Brunswick Forest skated through the recession with nary an issue.  It has been one of the fastest selling golf communities on the east coast over the last decade.  And its Tom Cate golf course is one of the best-reviewed courses on the coast in recent years.

Savannah Lakes Village, SC
(McCormick County)

Savannah Lakes Village, beside Lake Thurmond in the upstate western part of the state, certainly won’t fool any visitors into thinking it is centrally located near any of the services many of us take for granted.  This is golf community living at its most remote but residents are more than happy to do their supermarket shopping once a week and entertain themselves on site with friends in their homes, at the community’s bowling alley or on one of the two excellently conditioned golf courses.  Those who play a lot of golf will find that the membership fees make the cost per round a pittance, and the many other on-campus activities will appeal to virtually everyone else. What will appeal most, however, are the ridiculously low-priced, high-value homes, some on offer for less than $100 per square foot, land included.

The “Affordable” $75,000 Golf Membership

Mandatory initiation fees have a lousy reputation in the Southeast.  In many cases, members who provided a “deposit” of tens of thousands of dollars with the club they joined have now been waiting 10 years for the return of their deposit.  In some cases, their children have a better chance of inheriting the deposit after the parents are gone; this is because many reimbursement plans depend on dozens of new members joining before those on the waiting list for refunds rise to the top of the list.

Memberships tied to property, not individual

In other cases, top-drawer golf developments like The Cliffs Communities tied membership to the owner’s property, not to the individual, giving the member the opportunity to pass on the expensive membership to the next owner of their home; at one point, a Cliffs initiation fee reached $125,000.  Those who did not opt for the membership at the time of property purchase were out of luck, as were all future owners of properties without the associated membership.  Many potential Cliffs owners resented having to make the decision to join the club at the time of closing on their property, especially if they bought a lot on which they did not expect to build a home for some years.  I assume that mandatory policy cost The Cliffs a number of sales with folks who opted for upscale communities with more flexible terms.

At the upscale golf communities along Fording Island Road in Bluffton, SC, the only route onto Hilton Head Island, mandatory memberships were not as expensive as at The Cliffs.  Today, the joining costs are $17,000.  But in the happy years before the Great Recession, property owners at Colleton River, Berkeley Hall and Belfair were so taken by the price appreciation on their lots and homes that they bought additional lots, some at prices upwards of $400,000.  After the recession, values plummeted because no one was buying property in golf communities and dues and homeowner fees of up to $20,000 annually were owed on each lot.  Today, a few of those lots are still available, priced down to $1 each, some of them with golf course views, so that their owners can get out from under the annual golf dues and homeowner fee obligations.

$75,000 turned into $10,000

Recently we encountered other types of “mandatory” golf membership on the east coast of Florida whose initiation fees look expensive but are more reasonable than they appear.  Piper’s Landing in Palm City, FL, for example, located between the cities of Port St. Lucie and Jupiter, is similar in its membership structure to other private high-end country clubs up and down the east coast of the Sunshine State.  Between its joining fee of $65,000 and capital contribution of $10,000, Piper’s Landing initiation costs are more than double those at The Landings in Savannah, GA, which offers five more golf courses (six in all), and Landfall in Wilmington, NC, where Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye contributed a total of 45 holes.

And yet, closer inspection of Piper’s Landing shows that the net outlay to join the club is just the $10,000 non-refundable capital contribution; the other $65,000 is returned to the member within a couple of weeks after they sell their home.  Because membership is tied to the property, and the club is quite upfront about that in its marketing materials, anyone who is considering Piper’s Landing as a place to live is well aware of the requirements of a deposit.  And those who value the lifestyle that comes with a private club membership may compare the guaranteed returns on a bank CD of around 2% over five years with the guaranteed 0% returns on their country club deposit and find the country club outlay the better deal because of the lifestyle considerations it provides.

Of greater concern for some may be the ongoing annual fees that, at many private Florida clubs, exceed $25,000 per year.  Again, Piper’s Landing is indicative of other such private clubs near the mid-coast area of Florida; dues –- labeled as “residential maintenance” -- includes not only golf but also tennis, trail fees (use your own golf cart on the course), round-the-clock security, trash pickup, landscaping, enhanced cable TV and even staff gratuities.  Since you are going to have to pay for most of those services anyway, no matter where you choose to reside, it appears you don’t have to be a member of the millionaire or billionaire class to live in a private Florida coastal golf community.

Ranking Golf Community Areas

I am often asked about my favorite golf communities, and the question is akin to asking me to name my favorite child.  I have no favorite community; each is different and will appeal to different customers.  But I have no such loyalty to the areas that surround the best golf communities in the Southeast.  Therefore, as a service to our subscribers, I am going to join the legions of media sources that just can’t help themselves from assessing cities for their livability.

I’ve chosen 10 categories to assess on a scale of 1 to 10 each; I believe these are the most important characteristics for those looking for a golf community and a happy lifestyle.  Although, over time, you will be able to compare the total scores of the areas we rate to come up with a comparative ranking of the top areas for golf and the other important aspects of a happy life, I encourage you to resist the urge.  Instead, focus on the individual categories that are most important to you and your significant other.  If you need to be near museums and theaters, pay attention to the “Culture” category.  If you dine out a few days a week, focus as well on the “Restaurants” category.  Our first scorecard is below.  If you think I have missed an important category, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I will consider adding it for future rankings.  Also, if you have visited an area I assess and have a different opinion overall or on specific categories, please let me know and I will share your opinion with our other readers.

Here’s our initial assessment for the area South of Myrtle Beach (each category rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 the highest score).  This area comprises the coastal towns of Pawleys Island, Litchfield Beach and Murrells Inlet:

South of Myrtle Beach

Climate 8 Spring and fall are the best for golf, summer the best for beach.  Golf courses remain open throughout winters, when temperature rarely drops below the 40s and often is in the 60s.
Medical Care 7 Plenty of options under Tidelands Health umbrella, including mid-sized hospitals in Murrells Inlet and Georgetown, cancer centers and a rehab facility; Tidelands also maintains a fitness center.
Restaurants 7 Surprising tasty choices include Frank’s in Pawleys Island, always top rated in SC.  Historic Front St. in Georgetown is home to a reliable group of eateries.  Hog Heaven in PI may have the best fried chicken on the Carolina coast.  Charleston, one of America’s top foodie cities, is just one hour away.
Transportation 6 Myrtle Beach airport just 35 minutes, but most flights from North are expensive. Flights to Charleston, 70 minutes away, are generally half the Myrtle Beach prices.
Continuing Education 6 Small but well-chosen array of courses from Coastal Carolina University offered at many locations on the Grand Strand.  For best choice, the main campus is 40 minutes away in Conway.
Culture  4 One small museum ½ hour away in Myrtle Beach.  Best option is drive to Charleston for museum or historical site followed by an excellent meal.
Shopping (supermarkets) 9 Five supermarkets within five miles, including Publix, Loews and Fresh market (like Whole Foods).  Great choices, competitive prices.
Shopping (malls) 7 30 minutes to Market Common (shops, supermarket, restaurants); 40 minutes to Coastal Grand Mall with regional department stores, Costco, Best Buy, etc.  Sprawling outlet mall in Myrtle Beach.  Loads of resort-type gift stores. 
Entertainment 6 Strolling is the primary form of entertainment -– on beautiful clean beaches, through the spectacular Brookgreen Gardens (flora, sculptures, a zoo) and along Front Street in Georgetown.
Golf Communities 9 This is, after all, the Myrtle Beach area.  Of course there’s plenty of golf -– private, semi-private and public.  Of few private Myrtle area clubs, Pawleys Island area has the most (DeBordieu, The Reserve at Litchfield, Wachesaw Plantation).

 

IMG 1123 580

 

IMG 1138 580

Top photo, the 17th hole at Wild Dunes’ Links course at Isle of Palms, SC.  Bottom photo, the oceanside green at Wild Dunes Links 18th hole was moved away from the beach when the Tom Fazio design group renovated the course last year.  The par 5 was converted to a par 3.  Wild Dunes Resort was host to the annual meeting of the South Carolina Golf Rating Panel, where the group revealed its choices of the Top 50 golf courses in the state.

 

Golf Rating Panel Gives Nod to Golf Community Courses

The South Carolina Golf Rating Panel has published its bi-annual list of the top golf courses in the state, and #1 is the Ocean Course at the Kiawah Island Resort, the panel’s perennial choice over the last few cycles of voting.  The results of the voting by the panel’s 125 members were announced at the group’s annual banquet, this year at Wild Dunes Resort on Isle of Palms.  Wild Dunes’ Links golf course was renovated last year and an executive from the Tom Fazio design group shared with panel members many of the details of the work done there, including restoration of the 18th green, which had collapsed onto the adjacent beach twice in the last five years.    

I was pleased to see how many highly rated golf courses are located inside the gates of South Carolina golf communities that I have visited and reviewed favorably.  For example, Sea Pines Plantation’s Harbour Town Golf Links finished second in the voting, up from #5 in 2014.  Hilton Head Island, inarguably where golf communities were first built, offers a wide range of homes, in style and in prices.  The homes inside Palmetto Bluff Resort, home to the 4th-ranked May River Golf Club in Bluffton, are decidedly upscale, starting in the $1 million range, but the Jack Nicklaus golf course is rich in condition and layout.  One of the best values in private golf club membership, Greenville Country Club is home to #5 Chanticleer, a Robert Trent Jones masterpiece whose layout seems so perfectly suited to the terrain that you forget how close the adjacent estate homes are at some points on the golf course.

Other golf community courses we admire that made the top 25 of the published 50 best are the Colleton River Nicklaus course in Bluffton (#13) and its companion Pete Dye course (#20): Old Tabby Links on Spring Island, between Beaufort and Bluffton (#16); Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards on Lake Keowee (#18); Haig Point on Daufuskie Island (#19); and The Golf Club at Briar’s Creek outside Charleston (#25).  Bulls Bay in Awendaw, the final contribution from the late Mike Strantz, was ranked #22; loosely stated, Bulls Bay is a golf community, with a few choice lots for sale around the golf course and a group of golf cottages just inside the gated entrance.  I’ll be writing more about Bulls Bay and the rest of the top 50 list at GolfCommunityReviews.com and for CarolinaLiving.com.  Click here for the 2016 SC Panel rankings.

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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© 2015 Golf Community Reviews
Bulls Bay Golf Club, Awendaw, SC
  March 2016  Bulls Bay Golf Club, Awendaw, SC

The Politics of Relocation
in the Southeast

This election season does not need me to weigh in on how wacky and divisive it is.  But the current U.S. Presidential race is hard to avoid, given the rabid press coverage and, for some of us, a tendency toward the kind of rubbernecking schadenfreude associated typically with other types of wrecks.  Therefore, I feel it my responsibility to answer in this space a question I am receiving more often lately from couples searching for a golf home in the Southeast:  "Where will we feel most comfortable given our political persuasion?"

If you have been watching the incessant television coverage of the primary elections, you know that numbers are being crunched and analyzed every which way.  Of course, results are not available on a per golf community basis, but the county that surrounds a golf community gives a strong hint at what the politics of that particular community might be.    

Political Safe Havens

For progressives, those counties carried most emphatically by Senator Bernie Sanders, the self-described Democratic Socialist, would seem to provide some safe haven.  You are most likely to find such havens in counties where major universities dominate the employment in the area and young people dominate the population.

For example, the county seat of Richland County, SC, is Columbia, which is also the state capital and home to the University of South Carolina.  In the recent Republican primary, the state went strongly for Donald Trump, who garnered 32.5% of the statewide vote. (Source:  Politico.)  Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz finished in a virtual tie for second with a little more than 22% of the vote.  And, yet, in Richland County, Rubio beat Trump by a few percentage points.  Those results probably won’t convince a progressive couple looking for a golf community that Columbia might be politically friendly.  For that, they might look to the Democrat party primary results, which showed Hillary Clinton with a whopping 76% to 24% pummeling of Senator Sanders.  But more to the point, Secretary Clinton’s total vote count was 39,243 and, combined with the Sanders vote, total Democrat primary voting reached nearly 52,000 in Richland County.  The Republican primary vote total for all six candidates was 39,259.  By those numbers, a progressive couple might look more favorably on a Columbia golf community, knowing there are a fair number of like-minded individuals in the area.  (See below for some Columbia golf community suggestions.)

Conservatively Speaking

Conservative couples, of course, search for golf communities too, and in most counties in the Southeast, they will have an easier time finding a comfortable political environment, especially if they search in the most rural locations.  We took a look at primary results along the popular marshlands from Charleston County north to Georgetown and Horry Counties, home to some of the best-rated golf communities and courses on the eastern seaboard.  For the so-called “mainstream” Republican which, the media tells us, has been represented by Marco Rubio, Charleston County should be a target as the Florida Senator eked out a victory over Trump and Senator Ted Cruz.  But up the coast, in Georgetown and Horry Counties (the latter is home to Myrtle Beach), the Donald won commanding victories.  Whereas the Rubio win in the Charleston area might say something about the politics and social proclivities of that old city’s residents, we leave to other pundits the assessment of the nearly 50% of the vote Trump received in Horry County.  (Secretary Clinton, for the record, earned more than two-thirds of the vote in all three counties in her primary contest.)

Independent-Minded Communities

I admire the politically Independent voter and golf community enthusiast, and I take it as a challenge, in these divided times, to find areas that seem balanced in their political sensibilities.  For that, it is best to look backward to a time that seems long ago –- 2012 –- when Presidential discourse was spirited but not loony, when it was progressive Democrat Obama against conservative Republican Mitt Romney.  One of the more balanced counties in the South was New Hanover in North Carolina, a small county in size that is almost entirely populated by the metro Wilmington area.  Wilmington, though home to a large branch of the University of North Carolina, went for Romney by the slight margin of 51.7% to 47.1%.  (See a few recommendations of Wilmington area golf communities below.)  Back in South Carolina, in McCormick County, which hugs Lake Thurmond and is home to the large golf community of Savannah Lakes Village (see below), voters gave the nod to Obama by a similarly slim margin.  (An anomaly in that you do not get much more rural than McCormick County.)

Many of the online voting maps (click here for one example) characterize the way a county votes by a shade of blue or red -- light color for slightly more conservative or progressive than the other side of the aisle, a darker shade for a more dominant political strain.  If you like to tilt at windmills, politically speaking, target your search for a home in a dark blue or dark red county that is the opposite of your own point of view.  If you want more of a fair fight, though, go for a lighter shade of blue or red.  If you want help finding the community that is right for you, contact me.

Politically correct 
golf community choices

Columbia, SC (Richland County)

Woodcreek Farms and Wildewood, two mature sister golf communities, offer their members access to both clubs for one reasonable price.  Tom Fazio designed the Woodcreek course, which has played host to both top amateur and professional golf events.  The Wildewood course is the product of architect Russell Breeden, who laid out many courses in The Carolinas during the 1970s and ‘80s…Cobblestone Park in nearby Blythewood was the brainchild of infamous developer Bobby Ginn, whose Trumpian personality and expensive marketing junkets convinced many customers that lots at Cobblestone were worth the $300,000 and more he was asking.  Today, some of the homes on those lots are selling for barely more than $300,000.  The good news is that national builder D.R. Horton bought up a majority of land in the community and built reasonably priced homes on lots beside the well-regarded Lee Janzen 27-hole golf course.  A new, long-promised clubhouse is finally open, leaving the last unfulfilled Ginn promise to fade into memory.

Charleston/Mt. Pleasant, SC
(Charleston County)

Daniel Island could be the best-organized golf community on the east coast, given that it is a self-contained oasis of living, with homes, offices, shopping, restaurants and sports activities in close proximity.  And the golf –- courses by Tom Fazio and Rees Jones –- are special too, although membership fees are a bit pricey.  Still, you won’t find a more buttoned-up and service-oriented club than Daniel Island Club, a perfect venue for splendid coexistence among retirees and families.  The location just 10 minutes from plenty of shopping in Mt. Pleasant and 15 minutes from the best restaurants on the east coast in historic Charleston puts Daniel Island at the top of many couples’ lists…Mt. Pleasant has exploded in population and shopping areas in the last decade.  With Highway 17 finally widened to accommodate all the traffic in and through the town on the way to Charleston, golf communities like Rivertowne, Charleston National, Snee Farm and Dunes West should be getting even more looks.  Nothing is missing in Mt. Pleasant; a modern hospital, the beautiful recently built Ravenel Bridge to Charleston, the nearby Isle of Palms beaches and the many seafood and other restaurants along the Shem Creek should continue driving traffic toward Mt. Pleasant…We played the Links Course at Wild Dunes Resort recently, and both the golf course and the clubhouse area had been spiffed up considerably since our last visit five years ago (when large white bags of sand were barely holding up the 18th green).  Tom Fazio and his group recently completed a beautiful renovation of the Links Course, including relocation of the 18th green (and changing the par 5 to a par 3).  The occasionally maligned Harbor Course, also by Fazio, was just fine, a bit narrow for spray hitters and with some long cart rides between holes; it gave us the sense that the layout was shoehorned into the community.  But we’re not quibbling about 36 holes of fine golf near and on the ocean. 

Wilmington, NC (New Hanover County)

It isn’t easy to find top quality golf communities within 10 minutes of a good-sized city, but in Wilmington, we know of at least three.  Landfall lies between the city and the sea and offers 45 holes of golf by Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye.  Mostly single-family homes run the gamut of prices from $300,000 into the millions.  Best of all for sun worshippers, Wrightsville Beach is less than 10 minutes out the back gate.  Porters Neck is as close to Wilmington as is Landfall and only a few minutes farther to the beach.  It offers just 18 holes of golf, but they are prime Tom Fazio holes, renovated at the behest of an involved membership group just a few years ago.  The most striking effect of a first look at Porters Neck is the landscaping, a combination of gardeners’ handiwork with sprawling live oak trees.  Brunswick Forest lies just outside New Hanover County, in rapidly growing and very conservative Brunswick County, but this rapidly growing community is as close to the city as is Landfall and Porters Neck.  Thanks to its well-financed owners and an organized approach to development, Brunswick Forest skated through the recession with nary an issue.  It has been one of the fastest selling golf communities on the east coast over the last decade.  And its Tom Cate golf course is one of the best-reviewed courses on the coast in recent years.

Savannah Lakes Village, SC
(McCormick County)

Savannah Lakes Village, beside Lake Thurmond in the upstate western part of the state, certainly won’t fool any visitors into thinking it is centrally located near any of the services many of us take for granted.  This is golf community living at its most remote but residents are more than happy to do their supermarket shopping once a week and entertain themselves on site with friends in their homes, at the community’s bowling alley or on one of the two excellently conditioned golf courses.  Those who play a lot of golf will find that the membership fees make the cost per round a pittance, and the many other on-campus activities will appeal to virtually everyone else. What will appeal most, however, are the ridiculously low-priced, high-value homes, some on offer for less than $100 per square foot, land included.

The “Affordable” $75,000 Golf Membership

Mandatory initiation fees have a lousy reputation in the Southeast.  In many cases, members who provided a “deposit” of tens of thousands of dollars with the club they joined have now been waiting 10 years for the return of their deposit.  In some cases, their children have a better chance of inheriting the deposit after the parents are gone; this is because many reimbursement plans depend on dozens of new members joining before those on the waiting list for refunds rise to the top of the list.

Memberships tied to property, not individual

In other cases, top-drawer golf developments like The Cliffs Communities tied membership to the owner’s property, not to the individual, giving the member the opportunity to pass on the expensive membership to the next owner of their home; at one point, a Cliffs initiation fee reached $125,000.  Those who did not opt for the membership at the time of property purchase were out of luck, as were all future owners of properties without the associated membership.  Many potential Cliffs owners resented having to make the decision to join the club at the time of closing on their property, especially if they bought a lot on which they did not expect to build a home for some years.  I assume that mandatory policy cost The Cliffs a number of sales with folks who opted for upscale communities with more flexible terms.

At the upscale golf communities along Fording Island Road in Bluffton, SC, the only route onto Hilton Head Island, mandatory memberships were not as expensive as at The Cliffs.  Today, the joining costs are $17,000.  But in the happy years before the Great Recession, property owners at Colleton River, Berkeley Hall and Belfair were so taken by the price appreciation on their lots and homes that they bought additional lots, some at prices upwards of $400,000.  After the recession, values plummeted because no one was buying property in golf communities and dues and homeowner fees of up to $20,000 annually were owed on each lot.  Today, a few of those lots are still available, priced down to $1 each, some of them with golf course views, so that their owners can get out from under the annual golf dues and homeowner fee obligations.

$75,000 turned into $10,000

Recently we encountered other types of “mandatory” golf membership on the east coast of Florida whose initiation fees look expensive but are more reasonable than they appear.  Piper’s Landing in Palm City, FL, for example, located between the cities of Port St. Lucie and Jupiter, is similar in its membership structure to other private high-end country clubs up and down the east coast of the Sunshine State.  Between its joining fee of $65,000 and capital contribution of $10,000, Piper’s Landing initiation costs are more than double those at The Landings in Savannah, GA, which offers five more golf courses (six in all), and Landfall in Wilmington, NC, where Jack Nicklaus and Pete Dye contributed a total of 45 holes.

And yet, closer inspection of Piper’s Landing shows that the net outlay to join the club is just the $10,000 non-refundable capital contribution; the other $65,000 is returned to the member within a couple of weeks after they sell their home.  Because membership is tied to the property, and the club is quite upfront about that in its marketing materials, anyone who is considering Piper’s Landing as a place to live is well aware of the requirements of a deposit.  And those who value the lifestyle that comes with a private club membership may compare the guaranteed returns on a bank CD of around 2% over five years with the guaranteed 0% returns on their country club deposit and find the country club outlay the better deal because of the lifestyle considerations it provides.

Of greater concern for some may be the ongoing annual fees that, at many private Florida clubs, exceed $25,000 per year.  Again, Piper’s Landing is indicative of other such private clubs near the mid-coast area of Florida; dues –- labeled as “residential maintenance” -- includes not only golf but also tennis, trail fees (use your own golf cart on the course), round-the-clock security, trash pickup, landscaping, enhanced cable TV and even staff gratuities.  Since you are going to have to pay for most of those services anyway, no matter where you choose to reside, it appears you don’t have to be a member of the millionaire or billionaire class to live in a private Florida coastal golf community.

Ranking Golf Community Areas

I am often asked about my favorite golf communities, and the question is akin to asking me to name my favorite child.  I have no favorite community; each is different and will appeal to different customers.  But I have no such loyalty to the areas that surround the best golf communities in the Southeast.  Therefore, as a service to our subscribers, I am going to join the legions of media sources that just can’t help themselves from assessing cities for their livability.

I’ve chosen 10 categories to assess on a scale of 1 to 10 each; I believe these are the most important characteristics for those looking for a golf community and a happy lifestyle.  Although, over time, you will be able to compare the total scores of the areas we rate to come up with a comparative ranking of the top areas for golf and the other important aspects of a happy life, I encourage you to resist the urge.  Instead, focus on the individual categories that are most important to you and your significant other.  If you need to be near museums and theaters, pay attention to the “Culture” category.  If you dine out a few days a week, focus as well on the “Restaurants” category.  Our first scorecard is below.  If you think I have missed an important category, please contact me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and I will consider adding it for future rankings.  Also, if you have visited an area I assess and have a different opinion overall or on specific categories, please let me know and I will share your opinion with our other readers.

Here’s our initial assessment for the area South of Myrtle Beach (each category rated on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 the highest score).  This area comprises the coastal towns of Pawleys Island, Litchfield Beach and Murrells Inlet:

South of Myrtle Beach

Climate 8 Spring and fall are the best for golf, summer the best for beach.  Golf courses remain open throughout winters, when temperature rarely drops below the 40s and often is in the 60s.
Medical Care 7 Plenty of options under Tidelands Health umbrella, including mid-sized hospitals in Murrells Inlet and Georgetown, cancer centers and a rehab facility; Tidelands also maintains a fitness center.
Restaurants 7 Surprising tasty choices include Frank’s in Pawleys Island, always top rated in SC.  Historic Front St. in Georgetown is home to a reliable group of eateries.  Hog Heaven in PI may have the best fried chicken on the Carolina coast.  Charleston, one of America’s top foodie cities, is just one hour away.
Transportation 6 Myrtle Beach airport just 35 minutes, but most flights from North are expensive. Flights to Charleston, 70 minutes away, are generally half the Myrtle Beach prices.
Continuing Education 6 Small but well-chosen array of courses from Coastal Carolina University offered at many locations on the Grand Strand.  For best choice, the main campus is 40 minutes away in Conway.
Culture  4 One small museum ½ hour away in Myrtle Beach.  Best option is drive to Charleston for museum or historical site followed by an excellent meal.
Shopping (supermarkets) 9 Five supermarkets within five miles, including Publix, Loews and Fresh market (like Whole Foods).  Great choices, competitive prices.
Shopping (malls) 7 30 minutes to Market Common (shops, supermarket, restaurants); 40 minutes to Coastal Grand Mall with regional department stores, Costco, Best Buy, etc.  Sprawling outlet mall in Myrtle Beach.  Loads of resort-type gift stores. 
Entertainment 6 Strolling is the primary form of entertainment -– on beautiful clean beaches, through the spectacular Brookgreen Gardens (flora, sculptures, a zoo) and along Front Street in Georgetown.
Golf Communities 9 This is, after all, the Myrtle Beach area.  Of course there’s plenty of golf -– private, semi-private and public.  Of few private Myrtle area clubs, Pawleys Island area has the most (DeBordieu, The Reserve at Litchfield, Wachesaw Plantation).

 

IMG 1123 580

 

IMG 1138 580

Top photo, the 17th hole at Wild Dunes’ Links course at Isle of Palms, SC.  Bottom photo, the oceanside green at Wild Dunes Links 18th hole was moved away from the beach when the Tom Fazio design group renovated the course last year.  The par 5 was converted to a par 3.  Wild Dunes Resort was host to the annual meeting of the South Carolina Golf Rating Panel, where the group revealed its choices of the Top 50 golf courses in the state.

 

Golf Rating Panel Gives Nod to Golf Community Courses

The South Carolina Golf Rating Panel has published its bi-annual list of the top golf courses in the state, and #1 is the Ocean Course at the Kiawah Island Resort, the panel’s perennial choice over the last few cycles of voting.  The results of the voting by the panel’s 125 members were announced at the group’s annual banquet, this year at Wild Dunes Resort on Isle of Palms.  Wild Dunes’ Links golf course was renovated last year and an executive from the Tom Fazio design group shared with panel members many of the details of the work done there, including restoration of the 18th green, which had collapsed onto the adjacent beach twice in the last five years.    

I was pleased to see how many highly rated golf courses are located inside the gates of South Carolina golf communities that I have visited and reviewed favorably.  For example, Sea Pines Plantation’s Harbour Town Golf Links finished second in the voting, up from #5 in 2014.  Hilton Head Island, inarguably where golf communities were first built, offers a wide range of homes, in style and in prices.  The homes inside Palmetto Bluff Resort, home to the 4th-ranked May River Golf Club in Bluffton, are decidedly upscale, starting in the $1 million range, but the Jack Nicklaus golf course is rich in condition and layout.  One of the best values in private golf club membership, Greenville Country Club is home to #5 Chanticleer, a Robert Trent Jones masterpiece whose layout seems so perfectly suited to the terrain that you forget how close the adjacent estate homes are at some points on the golf course.

Other golf community courses we admire that made the top 25 of the published 50 best are the Colleton River Nicklaus course in Bluffton (#13) and its companion Pete Dye course (#20): Old Tabby Links on Spring Island, between Beaufort and Bluffton (#16); Cliffs at Keowee Vineyards on Lake Keowee (#18); Haig Point on Daufuskie Island (#19); and The Golf Club at Briar’s Creek outside Charleston (#25).  Bulls Bay in Awendaw, the final contribution from the late Mike Strantz, was ranked #22; loosely stated, Bulls Bay is a golf community, with a few choice lots for sale around the golf course and a group of golf cottages just inside the gated entrance.  I’ll be writing more about Bulls Bay and the rest of the top 50 list at GolfCommunityReviews.com and for CarolinaLiving.com.  Click here for the 2016 SC Panel rankings.

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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February 2016

adirondacks chairs
    February 2016

Size Matters: How Much Golf Home You Buy Depends…

Most of us think we are going to downsize our physical space when we retire.  After all, the kids are grown and out of the nest, which cuts a couple of bedrooms out of the equation; we are only going to cook for two people regularly; we plan an “active” retirement, including golf, outside the home for much of the day; and, dirty little secret, we no longer feel the need to keep up with the Joneses or impress the boss.  That aspect of the rat race is over, thank goodness.

Of course, the most important reason to downsize is the preservation of cash once you are on a fixed income.  During our careers, we may have managed a house that we could just about afford, and probably took on some debt to validate our careers and provide a good place for our children to be raised.  Now, we may not need to borrow money to buy our retirement home, especially if our primary homes appreciated over a couple of decades or more (the 2008 recession notwithstanding).  We understand, justifiably, that eliminating square footage from one home to the next is a surefire way to reduce the cost of the new home and sock away some of the proceeds from the sale of our old home.  The fact is that, with rare exception in the South, many can actually afford to buy a home of similar square footage to our current primary home and still save money, often extreme amounts of it.  This is because the cost of real estate in the South is so much less expensive on a per square foot basis than it is in most other parts of the U.S. 

In short, money should not be the driving reason to downsize when you move North to South.  Lifestyle should be.

Here, in no particular order, are a few lifestyle considerations when “right-sizing” your objectives for your golf community home. 

Visits by kids and grandkids

I’ll never forget one customer, a grandmother, telling me that she and her husband purposely bought a two-bedroom golf community home so that when her children and grandchildren came to visit, there would not be enough room for them; they would have to stay in a nearby hotel.  “We don’t want the noise and chaos, even for a few days,” she told me. That may seem a bit harsh to those who crave occasional visits from children and grandchildren, but there are few better examples of matching lifestyle to house size. 

There may be a good financial reason to take this approach as well.  For example, we took a look at two homes currently for sale at Prestancia, a well-established community in the Sarasota, FL, area that features a TPC golf course.  We compared the most expensive two-bedroom home in Prestancia with the least expensive four-bedroom home.  The most expensive two-bedroom home is offered currently for $399,000; the least expensive four-bedroom home is listed for a comparatively whopping $870,000.  This example may seem extreme, though real, but suffice to say that those extra couple of bedrooms to accommodate children and grandchildren could certainly go toward providing the children with a beautiful rental property for their visit and their own privacy.

"I Am the Entertainer, And I’ve Had to Pay My Price"

With apologies to Billy Joel, let’s face it:  There are kitchens and dining areas that are perfectly suitable for a couple, and then there are those “perfect for entertaining,” as many real estate agents will describe some homes with large cooking and eating spaces.  If during your time in your primary home you liked to cook for and entertain your neighbors and friends, chances are you will do the same in retirement (maybe more so, since you will have plenty of time).  New-home builders know this and are designing showplace kitchens with upscale appliances in homes priced as low as the $200s.  But in many 40-year old communities, homes are getting to the point of needing cosmetic and renovation work.  If you can purchase an otherwise fine home in need of updating for $100,000 less than comparable homes down the block, consider spending $75,000 on a kitchen renovation to your specifications and apply the remainder to the master bathroom -- or a trip to some exotic place.

Editor’s Advice:  As any serious cook knows, gas is better than electric.  If you like to cook, make sure that the community you target permits the use of propane for cooking at the least, or has natural gas lines running into its homes at best. 

Space to Do the Bills 

If we had a home office during our careers, a place to pay the bills or do weekend work before returning to our official office on Monday, chances are we will count on one in retirement as well (after all, the bills don’t go away).  My home office in Connecticut is in our guest room, and it is no big deal to abandon it to visiting friends or family for a day or two.  Consider the same setup in your next home, a small third or fourth bedroom with a desk.  As added costs go, this might be the least expensive trapping to retain from your former life.

It is hard to assess precisely the extra cost of a home office versus, say, just using your dining room or kitchen counter to balance the checkbook.  Many buyers simply set up an extra bedroom as an office.  One rule of thumb would be to consider a nice-sized office space to be 10 x 15, or 150 square feet.  With resale homes in high-quality golf communities in the Southeast priced from about $120 per square foot, count on that bedroom cum office costing from about $18,000 (consider also that larger homes generally command more in the way of taxes).  If you don’t have a lot of serious work to do, skipping that extra room and paying your bills from the kitchen table will certainly help you balance the checkbook. 

Have Home, Will Travel

Early in our retirements especially, many of us will look to travel the world, having deferred travel during our careers and saved up for it in retirement.  If you plan on, say, a month of overseas travel each year, and then some weeks traveling to see kids/grandkids and friends, you could find yourself closing up your house for three months or so.  Especially if you have a mortgage as well as taxes and homeowner fees, paying for but not using your home for a quarter of the year could begin to nag at you.  Before committing to a new home, you might want to figure out what your carrying costs will be and then calculate how much you will be “leaving on the table” for the time you are not there.  The results could send you in another direction (renting, perhaps?).

But here is an idea that could pay off in terms of putting those unused weeks to use in your house.  Consider a swap for a couple of weeks or more with another homeowner in a place you have always wanted to visit.  My wife and I did this with a couple from Crail, Scotland, a short drive from St. Andrews, and it worked out great. George and Dorothy stayed in our condo in Pawleys Island, SC, and my son and I stayed in their cottage in Crail, 1 mile from the 7th oldest golf course in the world at the Crail Golfing Society.  We spent seven glorious days of golf at the Old Course in St. Andrews and other wonderful links courses on the coast.  I estimate that we saved nearly $2,000 on lodging alone during our stay.  

If you want to know more about how the house swap works, check out homelink.org. 

States of Confusion:  Retire to Florida…or Wyoming,
One Source Advises

We Americans love lists.  Rankings, of course, have become the lifeblood of magazines and other media.  Without its annual rankings of colleges and universities, for example, U.S. News & World Report might have faded into oblivion years ago.  (As it is, the magazine printed its last regular edition in 2010.) I worked for a university for three years in the early 2000s, and I learned that institutes of higher learning spend months getting ready to report the best numbers they can to USN&WR.  They know that every year, helicopter parents intent on sending their kids to the most highly rated schools in the nation gobble up the U.S. News printed issue.  Every university wants to move up the list because doing so means tuition dollars and prestige.

Just about everything of any importance to a segment of the population gets ranked –- golf courses, hospitals, restaurants, movies, the richest people in the world…you name it.  Most of us love these rankings because it saves us doing the onerous work of research on topics of specific interest.  It is so much easier, for example, to check out the rankings in Forbes or Business Week for the best cities to live in than it is to access ponderous U.S. Census data and other reliable sources to construct our own opinions.  Never mind that the media rankings are typically offered without nuance of explanation, or without much explanation at all.  Plus, the few qualities of a city, a golf course or hospital the media use to make their judgments seem designed more for the expedience of producing the rankings quickly and cheaply rather than producing them well.  For a couple looking to plunk down six figures for a retirement home, the stakes are too high to rely on some magazine’s rush to judgment.

Most surveys that compare cities are granular and fairly helpful in providing a picture of the relative merits of one city compared with another, although there are quality differences between zip codes in and around a metro area.  That said, city rankings are certainly more reliable than state rankings which, to us, are meaningless.

Take, for example, a recent ranking of 2016’s "Best & Worst States to Retire" by the online service Wallethub.com, whose findings and rankings we have referenced in the past.  The state rankings are a head scratcher, largely because the categories that determine the rankings are few in number and defined in what seems to be a rather narrow way.  You can judge for yourself by accessing the rankings at Wallethub.com.  Suffice to say that you might be surprised that, especially if you are a retiree, you hadn’t thought of Wyoming as a place to spend the rest of your days.  But there it is on the Wallethub list at #2 overall, just behind the more predictable Florida and just ahead of the almost as surprising South Dakota.  It appears that the category “Affordability” has much to do with Wyoming’s ranking, because the Cowboy State ranks #1 in that regard.  (Florida ranks #2 in “Affordability.”)  South Dakota, which ranks an unremarkable 14th in Affordability, nails a #1 position in “Healthcare.”  (We wonder how comforting that will be to Dakota farmers four hours from the nearest city.)  The third and final category is “Quality of Life.”  With its #1 ranking in that category, California ranks #15 overall, overcoming its affordability ranking of an unsurprising 41st; if anything, we thought the California affordability ranking would have been worse.  But if the quality of life in California is top ranked in the nation, no one has been telling the soon-to-be-former residents of the Golden State who have been contacting me lately for help in finding a home in the Carolinas.  (For most of them, it is about the cost; they can sell their home at a hyper-inflated price and pocket half or more after buying a similar home in the Carolinas.)

At least South Carolina ranks 4th overall in the Wallethub survey, but how to reconcile that its neighboring state immediately to the north ranks a disappointing 22nd with rather mediocre numbers across all three categories?  Virginia ranks 10th overall, its healthcare number holding it down.  Georgia ranks 20th, healthcare again the retardant against a better ranking.  Delaware ranks 16th but its Quality of Life ranking is a stunning 49th; only the rough and rural state of Alaska trails it.  With a seacoast and good shopping spurred by no state sales tax, can Delaware’s quality of life really be that much worse than Wyoming’s? 

 

Cold Stimulates Warm Thinking About Golf Communities 

You can set your thermometer by it.  Year after year, when temperature plummets finally signal winter, I receive more requests for assistance to find people a home in warmer climates than for any other week of the year.  Granted, some of those potential buyers who fill out our Golf Homes Questionnaire decide not to relocate in the near future despite many good personal and financial reasons to do so.  For them, it is hard to go beyond the dream of a warm winter.  (Our previous issue of our free Home On The Course newsletter makes the case for moving soon; you can access it in our archives by clicking here.) 

Those who are not really ready to move full time have caught the fever.  A friend in Connecticut has asked me to refer him to my real estate professional in Sarasota, even though his retirement is probably five or six years away.  The cold has warmed him to the idea of buying a home now that he can rent or use for vacation weeks in the intervening years and receive the anticipated price appreciation.  Many Florida markets have been improving by as much 5% to 8% annually in the last few years, and the price escalation on the home he might buy now will help retain his buying power in whichever Florida market he chooses later.

The overhang from the recession has kept the costs of joining golf clubs in the South buyer friendly.  Many golfers who contact me are surprised at the relatively low costs to become a member at many high-quality golf community clubs.  On my questionnaire I ask how much the respondent would be willing to pay for golf membership and dues; recent responses have ranged from $5,000 –- for a semi-private membership –- to $50,000 for a private one.  In both cases, that is more than is necessary at all but the most popular (waiting list) or snobbish clubs.  At the vaunted Cliffs Communities, for example, the comprehensive golf membership, which includes all the other world-class amenities The Cliffs is known for, tops out at $50,000.  Those serious golfers with an itinerant nature can avail themselves of all seven Cliffs courses spread a little over an hour from end to end across the upstate area of South Carolina to near Asheville, NC.

Initiation Fees & Dues

Conversely, dues at many clubs tend to be higher than many customers anticipate. One of my customers willing to pay $10,000 for an initiation fee to a semi-private club, for example, set a limit of $300 per month in dues.  That is not unrealistic, say, for a club with an initiation fee under $5,000; but a semi-private club that has the reputation and quality to charge $10,000 is more likely to assess more than $500 in monthly dues, although there are exceptions to the rule, especially in more rural areas where clubs rely on a rather finite local population, and the costs to run the club are comparatively lower.  In general, expect to pay dues of around $300 per month for semi-private clubs asking $2,500 or so for initiation fees.  For private clubs, we see few dues levels under $500 per month, with most in the range of $600 to $1,000.

One Membership, 10 Private Clubs

Consolidation in the golf industry during and since the recession has created opportunities for golfers who want to just go out and play without reaching for their credit cards to pay green fees.  This consolidation has occurred both in the private and public club realms.  In the Carolinas, for example, and as we have written extensively, John McConnell has stitched together 10 private golf clubs into one comprehensive membership.  Initiation fees, which range from $10,000 to $25,000 depending on the “home” club you choose, provide access to all 10 clubs without the payment of anything more than a cart fee.  (Dues are different from home club to home club but are not unreasonable in our experience.)  The clubs in the Raleigh, NC, area are within an hour’s drive of each other, but outliers like Musgrove Mill in rural Clinton, SC, typically require an overnight stay, or a long day in the car, for McConnell members from the other clubs.  But if one is the traveling sort, a McConnell membership is tough to beat.

Arguably, two of the best golf courses on the golf-centric Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach are Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue Plantation, about a drive and 8-iron away from each other in Pawleys Island, SC.  The clubs are under the same management and offer an annual membership –- no initiation fee –- for under $2,000 for a single member, just under $2,600 for a couple.  This buys a year round green fee charge of just $25 per round; since the rack rate for these courses can be upwards of $180 during peak season, this is an especially good deal for those who live most of the year in the area (the courses are open year round).

Homes with Membership Attached

The Pinehurst Resort offers a variety of golf memberships, depending on which of its nine courses you want to play.  The top-of-the-line membership, which includes all courses, carries an initiation fee of $45,000, but if you find a home to purchase that has a membership attached, the fee is discounted by 50%. (The same holds true for other levels of membership.) Monthly dues are reasonable at a high of $445 per month.  Of course, you will be sharing Pinehurst’s popular layouts with visiting golfers, but tee times are set aside for members to make reservations up to two weeks in advance.

The fact is, if you can dream up a type of membership for yourself, it is probably available somewhere.  And if it isn’t, it doesn’t hurt to ask your club of choice if it can design something to suit your needs.  Most clubs are not yet back to full, pre-recession membership rosters, and they might just be willing to be a bit creative. 

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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adirondacks chairs
    February 2016

Size Matters: How Much Golf Home You Buy Depends…

Most of us think we are going to downsize our physical space when we retire.  After all, the kids are grown and out of the nest, which cuts a couple of bedrooms out of the equation; we are only going to cook for two people regularly; we plan an “active” retirement, including golf, outside the home for much of the day; and, dirty little secret, we no longer feel the need to keep up with the Joneses or impress the boss.  That aspect of the rat race is over, thank goodness.

Of course, the most important reason to downsize is the preservation of cash once you are on a fixed income.  During our careers, we may have managed a house that we could just about afford, and probably took on some debt to validate our careers and provide a good place for our children to be raised.  Now, we may not need to borrow money to buy our retirement home, especially if our primary homes appreciated over a couple of decades or more (the 2008 recession notwithstanding).  We understand, justifiably, that eliminating square footage from one home to the next is a surefire way to reduce the cost of the new home and sock away some of the proceeds from the sale of our old home.  The fact is that, with rare exception in the South, many can actually afford to buy a home of similar square footage to our current primary home and still save money, often extreme amounts of it.  This is because the cost of real estate in the South is so much less expensive on a per square foot basis than it is in most other parts of the U.S. 

In short, money should not be the driving reason to downsize when you move North to South.  Lifestyle should be.

Here, in no particular order, are a few lifestyle considerations when “right-sizing” your objectives for your golf community home. 

Visits by kids and grandkids

I’ll never forget one customer, a grandmother, telling me that she and her husband purposely bought a two-bedroom golf community home so that when her children and grandchildren came to visit, there would not be enough room for them; they would have to stay in a nearby hotel.  “We don’t want the noise and chaos, even for a few days,” she told me. That may seem a bit harsh to those who crave occasional visits from children and grandchildren, but there are few better examples of matching lifestyle to house size. 

There may be a good financial reason to take this approach as well.  For example, we took a look at two homes currently for sale at Prestancia, a well-established community in the Sarasota, FL, area that features a TPC golf course.  We compared the most expensive two-bedroom home in Prestancia with the least expensive four-bedroom home.  The most expensive two-bedroom home is offered currently for $399,000; the least expensive four-bedroom home is listed for a comparatively whopping $870,000.  This example may seem extreme, though real, but suffice to say that those extra couple of bedrooms to accommodate children and grandchildren could certainly go toward providing the children with a beautiful rental property for their visit and their own privacy.

"I Am the Entertainer, And I’ve Had to Pay My Price"

With apologies to Billy Joel, let’s face it:  There are kitchens and dining areas that are perfectly suitable for a couple, and then there are those “perfect for entertaining,” as many real estate agents will describe some homes with large cooking and eating spaces.  If during your time in your primary home you liked to cook for and entertain your neighbors and friends, chances are you will do the same in retirement (maybe more so, since you will have plenty of time).  New-home builders know this and are designing showplace kitchens with upscale appliances in homes priced as low as the $200s.  But in many 40-year old communities, homes are getting to the point of needing cosmetic and renovation work.  If you can purchase an otherwise fine home in need of updating for $100,000 less than comparable homes down the block, consider spending $75,000 on a kitchen renovation to your specifications and apply the remainder to the master bathroom -- or a trip to some exotic place.

Editor’s Advice:  As any serious cook knows, gas is better than electric.  If you like to cook, make sure that the community you target permits the use of propane for cooking at the least, or has natural gas lines running into its homes at best. 

Space to Do the Bills 

If we had a home office during our careers, a place to pay the bills or do weekend work before returning to our official office on Monday, chances are we will count on one in retirement as well (after all, the bills don’t go away).  My home office in Connecticut is in our guest room, and it is no big deal to abandon it to visiting friends or family for a day or two.  Consider the same setup in your next home, a small third or fourth bedroom with a desk.  As added costs go, this might be the least expensive trapping to retain from your former life.

It is hard to assess precisely the extra cost of a home office versus, say, just using your dining room or kitchen counter to balance the checkbook.  Many buyers simply set up an extra bedroom as an office.  One rule of thumb would be to consider a nice-sized office space to be 10 x 15, or 150 square feet.  With resale homes in high-quality golf communities in the Southeast priced from about $120 per square foot, count on that bedroom cum office costing from about $18,000 (consider also that larger homes generally command more in the way of taxes).  If you don’t have a lot of serious work to do, skipping that extra room and paying your bills from the kitchen table will certainly help you balance the checkbook. 

Have Home, Will Travel

Early in our retirements especially, many of us will look to travel the world, having deferred travel during our careers and saved up for it in retirement.  If you plan on, say, a month of overseas travel each year, and then some weeks traveling to see kids/grandkids and friends, you could find yourself closing up your house for three months or so.  Especially if you have a mortgage as well as taxes and homeowner fees, paying for but not using your home for a quarter of the year could begin to nag at you.  Before committing to a new home, you might want to figure out what your carrying costs will be and then calculate how much you will be “leaving on the table” for the time you are not there.  The results could send you in another direction (renting, perhaps?).

But here is an idea that could pay off in terms of putting those unused weeks to use in your house.  Consider a swap for a couple of weeks or more with another homeowner in a place you have always wanted to visit.  My wife and I did this with a couple from Crail, Scotland, a short drive from St. Andrews, and it worked out great. George and Dorothy stayed in our condo in Pawleys Island, SC, and my son and I stayed in their cottage in Crail, 1 mile from the 7th oldest golf course in the world at the Crail Golfing Society.  We spent seven glorious days of golf at the Old Course in St. Andrews and other wonderful links courses on the coast.  I estimate that we saved nearly $2,000 on lodging alone during our stay.  

If you want to know more about how the house swap works, check out homelink.org. 

States of Confusion:  Retire to Florida…or Wyoming,
One Source Advises

We Americans love lists.  Rankings, of course, have become the lifeblood of magazines and other media.  Without its annual rankings of colleges and universities, for example, U.S. News & World Report might have faded into oblivion years ago.  (As it is, the magazine printed its last regular edition in 2010.) I worked for a university for three years in the early 2000s, and I learned that institutes of higher learning spend months getting ready to report the best numbers they can to USN&WR.  They know that every year, helicopter parents intent on sending their kids to the most highly rated schools in the nation gobble up the U.S. News printed issue.  Every university wants to move up the list because doing so means tuition dollars and prestige.

Just about everything of any importance to a segment of the population gets ranked –- golf courses, hospitals, restaurants, movies, the richest people in the world…you name it.  Most of us love these rankings because it saves us doing the onerous work of research on topics of specific interest.  It is so much easier, for example, to check out the rankings in Forbes or Business Week for the best cities to live in than it is to access ponderous U.S. Census data and other reliable sources to construct our own opinions.  Never mind that the media rankings are typically offered without nuance of explanation, or without much explanation at all.  Plus, the few qualities of a city, a golf course or hospital the media use to make their judgments seem designed more for the expedience of producing the rankings quickly and cheaply rather than producing them well.  For a couple looking to plunk down six figures for a retirement home, the stakes are too high to rely on some magazine’s rush to judgment.

Most surveys that compare cities are granular and fairly helpful in providing a picture of the relative merits of one city compared with another, although there are quality differences between zip codes in and around a metro area.  That said, city rankings are certainly more reliable than state rankings which, to us, are meaningless.

Take, for example, a recent ranking of 2016’s "Best & Worst States to Retire" by the online service Wallethub.com, whose findings and rankings we have referenced in the past.  The state rankings are a head scratcher, largely because the categories that determine the rankings are few in number and defined in what seems to be a rather narrow way.  You can judge for yourself by accessing the rankings at Wallethub.com.  Suffice to say that you might be surprised that, especially if you are a retiree, you hadn’t thought of Wyoming as a place to spend the rest of your days.  But there it is on the Wallethub list at #2 overall, just behind the more predictable Florida and just ahead of the almost as surprising South Dakota.  It appears that the category “Affordability” has much to do with Wyoming’s ranking, because the Cowboy State ranks #1 in that regard.  (Florida ranks #2 in “Affordability.”)  South Dakota, which ranks an unremarkable 14th in Affordability, nails a #1 position in “Healthcare.”  (We wonder how comforting that will be to Dakota farmers four hours from the nearest city.)  The third and final category is “Quality of Life.”  With its #1 ranking in that category, California ranks #15 overall, overcoming its affordability ranking of an unsurprising 41st; if anything, we thought the California affordability ranking would have been worse.  But if the quality of life in California is top ranked in the nation, no one has been telling the soon-to-be-former residents of the Golden State who have been contacting me lately for help in finding a home in the Carolinas.  (For most of them, it is about the cost; they can sell their home at a hyper-inflated price and pocket half or more after buying a similar home in the Carolinas.)

At least South Carolina ranks 4th overall in the Wallethub survey, but how to reconcile that its neighboring state immediately to the north ranks a disappointing 22nd with rather mediocre numbers across all three categories?  Virginia ranks 10th overall, its healthcare number holding it down.  Georgia ranks 20th, healthcare again the retardant against a better ranking.  Delaware ranks 16th but its Quality of Life ranking is a stunning 49th; only the rough and rural state of Alaska trails it.  With a seacoast and good shopping spurred by no state sales tax, can Delaware’s quality of life really be that much worse than Wyoming’s? 

 

Cold Stimulates Warm Thinking About Golf Communities 

You can set your thermometer by it.  Year after year, when temperature plummets finally signal winter, I receive more requests for assistance to find people a home in warmer climates than for any other week of the year.  Granted, some of those potential buyers who fill out our Golf Homes Questionnaire decide not to relocate in the near future despite many good personal and financial reasons to do so.  For them, it is hard to go beyond the dream of a warm winter.  (Our previous issue of our free Home On The Course newsletter makes the case for moving soon; you can access it in our archives by clicking here.) 

Those who are not really ready to move full time have caught the fever.  A friend in Connecticut has asked me to refer him to my real estate professional in Sarasota, even though his retirement is probably five or six years away.  The cold has warmed him to the idea of buying a home now that he can rent or use for vacation weeks in the intervening years and receive the anticipated price appreciation.  Many Florida markets have been improving by as much 5% to 8% annually in the last few years, and the price escalation on the home he might buy now will help retain his buying power in whichever Florida market he chooses later.

The overhang from the recession has kept the costs of joining golf clubs in the South buyer friendly.  Many golfers who contact me are surprised at the relatively low costs to become a member at many high-quality golf community clubs.  On my questionnaire I ask how much the respondent would be willing to pay for golf membership and dues; recent responses have ranged from $5,000 –- for a semi-private membership –- to $50,000 for a private one.  In both cases, that is more than is necessary at all but the most popular (waiting list) or snobbish clubs.  At the vaunted Cliffs Communities, for example, the comprehensive golf membership, which includes all the other world-class amenities The Cliffs is known for, tops out at $50,000.  Those serious golfers with an itinerant nature can avail themselves of all seven Cliffs courses spread a little over an hour from end to end across the upstate area of South Carolina to near Asheville, NC.

Initiation Fees & Dues

Conversely, dues at many clubs tend to be higher than many customers anticipate. One of my customers willing to pay $10,000 for an initiation fee to a semi-private club, for example, set a limit of $300 per month in dues.  That is not unrealistic, say, for a club with an initiation fee under $5,000; but a semi-private club that has the reputation and quality to charge $10,000 is more likely to assess more than $500 in monthly dues, although there are exceptions to the rule, especially in more rural areas where clubs rely on a rather finite local population, and the costs to run the club are comparatively lower.  In general, expect to pay dues of around $300 per month for semi-private clubs asking $2,500 or so for initiation fees.  For private clubs, we see few dues levels under $500 per month, with most in the range of $600 to $1,000.

One Membership, 10 Private Clubs

Consolidation in the golf industry during and since the recession has created opportunities for golfers who want to just go out and play without reaching for their credit cards to pay green fees.  This consolidation has occurred both in the private and public club realms.  In the Carolinas, for example, and as we have written extensively, John McConnell has stitched together 10 private golf clubs into one comprehensive membership.  Initiation fees, which range from $10,000 to $25,000 depending on the “home” club you choose, provide access to all 10 clubs without the payment of anything more than a cart fee.  (Dues are different from home club to home club but are not unreasonable in our experience.)  The clubs in the Raleigh, NC, area are within an hour’s drive of each other, but outliers like Musgrove Mill in rural Clinton, SC, typically require an overnight stay, or a long day in the car, for McConnell members from the other clubs.  But if one is the traveling sort, a McConnell membership is tough to beat.

Arguably, two of the best golf courses on the golf-centric Grand Strand of Myrtle Beach are Caledonia Golf & Fish Club and True Blue Plantation, about a drive and 8-iron away from each other in Pawleys Island, SC.  The clubs are under the same management and offer an annual membership –- no initiation fee –- for under $2,000 for a single member, just under $2,600 for a couple.  This buys a year round green fee charge of just $25 per round; since the rack rate for these courses can be upwards of $180 during peak season, this is an especially good deal for those who live most of the year in the area (the courses are open year round).

Homes with Membership Attached

The Pinehurst Resort offers a variety of golf memberships, depending on which of its nine courses you want to play.  The top-of-the-line membership, which includes all courses, carries an initiation fee of $45,000, but if you find a home to purchase that has a membership attached, the fee is discounted by 50%. (The same holds true for other levels of membership.) Monthly dues are reasonable at a high of $445 per month.  Of course, you will be sharing Pinehurst’s popular layouts with visiting golfers, but tee times are set aside for members to make reservations up to two weeks in advance.

The fact is, if you can dream up a type of membership for yourself, it is probably available somewhere.  And if it isn’t, it doesn’t hurt to ask your club of choice if it can design something to suit your needs.  Most clubs are not yet back to full, pre-recession membership rosters, and they might just be willing to be a bit creative. 

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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January 2016

jan header
    January 2016

Buy the same size house for a lot less money;
or downsize and save even more in Southeast

There are two big ways to save when moving from a high-cost area in the North or West to a lower cost area in the Southeast.  The one-time way will be to purchase a home of roughly the same size and inherent value as the one you are selling.  If you are coming from a super-expensive area (e.g. San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C..), you might just be able to pocket up to 80% or 90% of the net proceeds of your primary home.  More likely, your savings will be more modest than that, but huge just the same.  The second way to save, as you have heard us preach for years, is in overall cost of living, which includes costs associated with owning a home (taxes, maintenance, utilities, etc.) but also the costs of food, entertainment, healthcare and other activities necessary to a healthy and happy life.  The cost of real estate is a component of most cost of living comparisons.

By way of example, Mike and Debbie Jones decide to move from Ridgefield, CT, a bedroom community of New York City, to Pawleys Island, SC, a coastal resort area which has long been a buddy-trip magnet for golf aficionados from the Northeast U.S.  The Joneses sell their primary home in Ridgefield for $600,000; for the sake of the example, we will say their mortgage is paid off and the net proceeds are all in cash.  They have no interest in managing a home any larger than the one they owned in Ridgefield.  Because Pawleys Island real estate is an average 59% lower than Ridgefield home prices, the Joneses could ostensibly purchase the same size house in similar condition for around $246,000 (59% lower than $600,000).  If they chose to downsize, as many couples do, they would save even more.

Of course, these comparative numbers are based on the entire local area, and homes inside the gates of high-quality golf communities in those areas could very well be priced higher.  But suffice to say that a relocation from North or West to South will result in significant savings in terms of real estate and overall living expenses.  To keep up with the Joneses, we have added a few additional cost comparisons below. Some of these cost comparisons represent customers we have worked with and who moved from and to the towns indicated.  A few others are customers we are working with currently.

Moving from… Housing costs lower by Overall costs lower by
Alameda, CA to Columbia, SC 76% 53%
Miami Beach, FL  to Wilmington, NC 52 25
Simsbury, CT  to Savannah, GA 43 25
Dix Hills, NY  to Bradenton, FL 76 52
Edina, MN to New Bern, NC 70 37
Burlington, VT  to
Vero Beach, FL		 51 24
Evanston, IL to Mooresville, NC 41 21
Seattle, WA to Asheville, NC 59 34
Ridgefield, CT to Pawleys Island, SC 59 43
Katonah, NY to Bluffton, SC 72 49
Lexington, MA to McCormick, SC 83 61
Newburgh, NY to Aiken, SC 53 26

 

Florida research trip planned in February

I have a love hate relationship with Florida.  My parents maintained a modest winter home in Lauderdale Lakes for most of the last two decades of their lives, and my lasting impressions of visits to see them were of waiting in stop and go traffic and of watching them, and the people in their high-density condo neighborhood, appearing to bide their time by the pool and in their homes, waiting for something to happen.  Maybe it was the thought of the traffic that kept them on site; maybe not.  But the notion of “God’s Waiting Room” did not seem too farfetched.

But then a few years ago I spent a day at Lakewood Ranch in Bradenton, a sprawling community with a few nice golf courses and a town center that is a magnet for local residents, some of whom can walk from their homes to the district’s restaurants and shops.  And I drove through downtown Sarasota one evening and was impressed with the vibrant crowds spilling out of bars and restaurants.  I already knew about the world-class museums in Sarasota and the highly rated Gulf of Mexico beaches just a few miles away…and of Longboat Key, with its own golf courses on a thin strip of land that stretches along the Gulf.  I had a great meal at an outdoor Colombian café in St. Armand’s, where locals go for boutique shopping and people watching. No one seemed to be “waiting” for anything in the Sarasota area.

I will be spending five days in February researching golf communities in one general area of Florida (and looking in on a Spring Training baseball camp or two.)  I haven’t chosen the area but would be happy to take recommendations.  My only stipulation is that the area be within about two hours of Orlando or Tampa, because I will be starting my journey in Clermont, FL, just outside Orlando, and ending it in Tampa.  The less driving the better.

If you have been contemplating a move to Florida and want a second opinion about a specific golf community or area of the Sunshine State, please let me know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

The Case for Buying Your Golf Home NOW

There are no safe investments, except maybe a certificate of deposit (CD).  The latest yield on a one-year CD is barely above 1% according to Bankrate.com.  Want to take the longer view and generate a greater interest rate with a five-year CD?  That will get you a tick above 2% annually –- yet you won’t be able to touch your money without penalty for the five years.

As I write this, those paltry returns actually look pretty good against the latest stock market performance.  The Dow Jones Industrials average, which looked solid in the high 17,000s before the new year, has now dropped hundreds of points in two weeks. China's financial woes and low world oil prices are the major culprits.  The uncertainties in the Middle East don't help either, although when in our lifetimes has the Middle East been anything but uncertain?  Many business experts are predicting a mediocre stock market at best in 2016.

The stock market is about as predictable as world affairs; in other words, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty what the market will do.  And yet, our savings plans (IRAs, 401Ks, etc.) and other personal portfolios, many of them loaded with stocks, are where we go for financial security.  Lately, they look anything but secure.  But one decent alternate investment for the longer term could be real estate, especially the kind you will actually use; even if the home you buy in a high-quality golf community doesn’t eventually pay off in appreciation, at least you will have enjoyed a nice roof over your head and a nice golf course nearby.

There may be no better time to buy a golf community home than in the next couple of years; conversely, there may be no worse time to wait.  That's because from all reports, prices are rising in high-quality, stable golf communities of the South; inventories are shrinking as developers are slow to build new communities and new homes; and the migration to the South is in full swing again -- from international locations as well as from the cold North.  Demand is outstripping supply, at least for the moment, and that reality is predictive of higher prices in 2016 and beyond, barring any general economic catastrophe.  (And if that happens, wouldn't you rather be traipsing through warm weather bunkers outside than hunkered down in indoor cold ones?)

In most markets in the North, prices are not expected to appreciate in the coming few years as fast as prices will rise below the Mason-Dixon line.  The reasons are clear and simple:  More people moving North to South than in the opposite direction could lead to softer prices up north and higher prices down south; that is just simple supply and demand economics.  If that contention about migration seems overstated, check out census data and such specific indicators as the United Van Lines annual report on migration, which tracks where people are moving from and to.  With the exception of Oregon’s anomalous popularity, the migration patterns are clearly toward the Sun Belt (The Carolinas and Florida especially) and the Northwest.  [You can view the United Van Lines report for 2015 by clicking here.]

Closing in on July 2006 peak prices

The latest Standard & Poor/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index confirms that home prices are up in most areas of the nation.  The well-respected index rose 5.2% in October, the most recent report available.  The modest but steady price increases in most cities of the North and West mean people who have been waiting to be made “whole” in the value of their primary homes can now fetch the price they want and relocate to the lower cost South for their retirements.  Mortgage rates are still low, employment rates are up and signs point to further price increases that will eventually bring the Shiller Index even with its all-time peak in July 2006, when it was just 11.5% higher than it is today.

In fact, many northerners didn’t wait for this latest price bump in the value of their homes.  Between 2014 and 2015, a half million people moved from the "Snow Belt" to the "Sun Belt."  That is almost as many as the 600,000 in the record-breaking period of 2004 to 2005.  International migration has also increased significantly since the end of the recession, with inflows to the U.S. of more than one million people in 2014, more than 60 percent of them choosing the Sun Belt.  With house inventories at normal to below-normal levels in the most popular southern golf communities, prices have steadily inched up as demand has increased.

Florida:  It’s baaaaaack

Among the southern states, Florida has shown most of the biggest gains.  Recall the headlines during the recession about Naples and Miami, for example, where prices dropped 50 percent and more.  The Naples market is almost all the way back, and the rest of the state is showing the same sort of rebound.  John Burns Real Estate Consulting, which follows the Florida market especially closely, published a recent report that indicated "Retirees and second-home buyers will strengthen the sales velocity in age-restricted and age-targeted communities" in places like Sarasota, Ft. Myers, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa.  Burns' researchers also see large parcels of land in Florida becoming "hot" retirement destinations in future years.  If developers and their investors are willing to start building on those big parcels, that means they have done the research and determined that the mass migration has legs.  The “smart” money should not be ignored.  In the meantime, prices, given a shrinking inventory, could rise significantly.

People tend to move to places with which they have become familiar.  Florida has the good fortune of being a tourist destination, and many of those tourists, assuming a positive vacation experience, often return on a full-time basis.  More than one million people visited Sarasota County alone in the fiscal year that ended last July, according to a recent article in Sarasota’s Herald-Tribune; of that number, it is reasonable to assume that a fair percentage later looked at and bought homes in Sarasota, Bradenton, Venice and nearby towns. 

The most popular markets are showing the biggest rebounds.  Naples, for example, has almost completely returned to its lofty pre-recession price levels, enough so that the national builder Taylor Morrison, for example, has developed and opened Esplanade, a luxury golf community in Naples about 20 minutes from the Gulf.  In the 12 months ending November 31, the average price for Naples homes that were sold increased 15%, and pending sales increased 20% in the popular $300,000 to $500,000 price range.

Prices in another, less pricey Florida market, Vero Beach, were up 12% year over year.  Vero has not quite achieved the popularity of the Palm Beaches and other east coast ocean communities further South, and relative bargains in nicely appointed communities like Grand Harbor and Pointe West, which we now feature in our Golf Homes for Sale section at GolfCommunityReviews.com, are still available.  For those looking either for a second-home location or a permanent home that features hot summers and warm temperatures the rest of the year, ignore Vero Beach at your own detriment.

Golf community homes at less than $100 per foot, land included

Florida may get the headlines for its comeback and price appreciations, but communities north of the Sunshine State have seen similar increases.  In the notoriously slow sales month of November at Savannah Lakes Village in rural McCormick, SC, for example, only four homes were sold, but it brought the total for the year to 64 compared with 51 sales in 2014 and against just nine homes sold in all of 2010.  More significantly, the average sale price for homes on Lake Thurmond increased from $338,000 in 2014 to $374,000, a 10% jump, and those with "interior" views, mostly wooded, increased almost 6% from $140,000 to $148,000.  (Oddly, golf view homes dropped in price by 10% to an average $211,000, but given the statistically modest number of homes sold in the golf-view category, that could be an anomaly.)  As overall demand increases in southern golf communities, those looking for more house at sharper prices are taking more notice of bargain-priced communities like Savannah Lakes, where home prices average barely above $100 per square foot, land included, and homeowner fees are ridiculously inexpensive ($100 per month dues for access to all amenities).  The two golf courses, one a classic layout and the other featuring dramatic changes in elevation, are quite fine as well.

Water view homes at surprising prices

Remotely located golf communities are not for every couple’s taste, but those who crave a water view home at prices below $500,000 will find them only at some remove from towns with an ample range of services.  Besides Savannah Lakes, where a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home of 1,700 square feet at lake front is currently listed for just $189,900, other communities in the Carolinas feature water view homes at surprising prices as long as the buyer is willing to drive a few extra minutes to a supermarket and other conveniences (in some cases, more than “a few” extra minutes).  At Keowee Key, 20 minutes from Clemson, SC, a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, lake-facing condo of 2,000 square feet is priced at $140,000, or just $70 per square foot.  In the community of Cypress Landing, a bit more “connected” to civilization near Greenville, NC, a few homes on the expansive Chocowinity Bay are available, including a 4 bed, 3 bath beauty with 20 x 20 deck to maximize the views; the 2,683 square foot house is listed for $389,900.  In the upstate area of South Carolina, at the unique golf community of Grand Harbor, the Canoe Bay section offers a selection of 3-bedroom townhomes up to 2,700 square feet and priced from $324,000.  The “unique” part is the golf course, where designer Davis Love III has placed replicas of the ruins of a destroyed Revolutionary War fortress reminiscent of the one at a nearby historic site. 

Even a few upscale communities are offering water view homes at prices we don’t think will last.  For example, the owners of Reynolds Lake Oconee (formerly Reynolds Plantation), Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, have not gone overboard with marketing the community they rescued from bankruptcy five years ago; that may be the reason for some bargain-priced homes remaining available. We noted one single-family waterfront home recently went under contract; it had been listed at $439,000 with 5 bedrooms and 2 ½ baths at 2,432 square feet and a walkway down the wharf dock at lakeside.  That might not seem like a bargain if you haven’t visited Reynolds, but its six golf courses and other amenities, and lake-adjacent setting, are decidedly upscale.

Bottom Line is the Bottom Line

With prices rising steadily in many southeast golf communities, and the financial pundits predicting a rocky 2016 for the stock market, this just might be a good time to realize your dream of a golf home in a warm climate –- or, conversely, a bad time to wait.  For those who need a little extra convincing, please see the adjacent sidebar for some comparisons of average real estate costs and overall annual expenses (cost of living) in some southern towns compared with towns in the North and West.  For additional comparisons, contact me or use the cost comparison calculator at BestPlaces.net.  For more information on any golf communities in the Southeast, please contact me.

 

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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© 2015 Golf Community Reviews
jan header
    January 2016

Buy the same size house for a lot less money;
or downsize and save even more in Southeast

There are two big ways to save when moving from a high-cost area in the North or West to a lower cost area in the Southeast.  The one-time way will be to purchase a home of roughly the same size and inherent value as the one you are selling.  If you are coming from a super-expensive area (e.g. San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C..), you might just be able to pocket up to 80% or 90% of the net proceeds of your primary home.  More likely, your savings will be more modest than that, but huge just the same.  The second way to save, as you have heard us preach for years, is in overall cost of living, which includes costs associated with owning a home (taxes, maintenance, utilities, etc.) but also the costs of food, entertainment, healthcare and other activities necessary to a healthy and happy life.  The cost of real estate is a component of most cost of living comparisons.

By way of example, Mike and Debbie Jones decide to move from Ridgefield, CT, a bedroom community of New York City, to Pawleys Island, SC, a coastal resort area which has long been a buddy-trip magnet for golf aficionados from the Northeast U.S.  The Joneses sell their primary home in Ridgefield for $600,000; for the sake of the example, we will say their mortgage is paid off and the net proceeds are all in cash.  They have no interest in managing a home any larger than the one they owned in Ridgefield.  Because Pawleys Island real estate is an average 59% lower than Ridgefield home prices, the Joneses could ostensibly purchase the same size house in similar condition for around $246,000 (59% lower than $600,000).  If they chose to downsize, as many couples do, they would save even more.

Of course, these comparative numbers are based on the entire local area, and homes inside the gates of high-quality golf communities in those areas could very well be priced higher.  But suffice to say that a relocation from North or West to South will result in significant savings in terms of real estate and overall living expenses.  To keep up with the Joneses, we have added a few additional cost comparisons below. Some of these cost comparisons represent customers we have worked with and who moved from and to the towns indicated.  A few others are customers we are working with currently.

Moving from… Housing costs lower by Overall costs lower by
Alameda, CA to Columbia, SC 76% 53%
Miami Beach, FL  to Wilmington, NC 52 25
Simsbury, CT  to Savannah, GA 43 25
Dix Hills, NY  to Bradenton, FL 76 52
Edina, MN to New Bern, NC 70 37
Burlington, VT  to
Vero Beach, FL		 51 24
Evanston, IL to Mooresville, NC 41 21
Seattle, WA to Asheville, NC 59 34
Ridgefield, CT to Pawleys Island, SC 59 43
Katonah, NY to Bluffton, SC 72 49
Lexington, MA to McCormick, SC 83 61
Newburgh, NY to Aiken, SC 53 26

 

Florida research trip planned in February

I have a love hate relationship with Florida.  My parents maintained a modest winter home in Lauderdale Lakes for most of the last two decades of their lives, and my lasting impressions of visits to see them were of waiting in stop and go traffic and of watching them, and the people in their high-density condo neighborhood, appearing to bide their time by the pool and in their homes, waiting for something to happen.  Maybe it was the thought of the traffic that kept them on site; maybe not.  But the notion of “God’s Waiting Room” did not seem too farfetched.

But then a few years ago I spent a day at Lakewood Ranch in Bradenton, a sprawling community with a few nice golf courses and a town center that is a magnet for local residents, some of whom can walk from their homes to the district’s restaurants and shops.  And I drove through downtown Sarasota one evening and was impressed with the vibrant crowds spilling out of bars and restaurants.  I already knew about the world-class museums in Sarasota and the highly rated Gulf of Mexico beaches just a few miles away…and of Longboat Key, with its own golf courses on a thin strip of land that stretches along the Gulf.  I had a great meal at an outdoor Colombian café in St. Armand’s, where locals go for boutique shopping and people watching. No one seemed to be “waiting” for anything in the Sarasota area.

I will be spending five days in February researching golf communities in one general area of Florida (and looking in on a Spring Training baseball camp or two.)  I haven’t chosen the area but would be happy to take recommendations.  My only stipulation is that the area be within about two hours of Orlando or Tampa, because I will be starting my journey in Clermont, FL, just outside Orlando, and ending it in Tampa.  The less driving the better.

If you have been contemplating a move to Florida and want a second opinion about a specific golf community or area of the Sunshine State, please let me know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

The Case for Buying Your Golf Home NOW

There are no safe investments, except maybe a certificate of deposit (CD).  The latest yield on a one-year CD is barely above 1% according to Bankrate.com.  Want to take the longer view and generate a greater interest rate with a five-year CD?  That will get you a tick above 2% annually –- yet you won’t be able to touch your money without penalty for the five years.

As I write this, those paltry returns actually look pretty good against the latest stock market performance.  The Dow Jones Industrials average, which looked solid in the high 17,000s before the new year, has now dropped hundreds of points in two weeks. China's financial woes and low world oil prices are the major culprits.  The uncertainties in the Middle East don't help either, although when in our lifetimes has the Middle East been anything but uncertain?  Many business experts are predicting a mediocre stock market at best in 2016.

The stock market is about as predictable as world affairs; in other words, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty what the market will do.  And yet, our savings plans (IRAs, 401Ks, etc.) and other personal portfolios, many of them loaded with stocks, are where we go for financial security.  Lately, they look anything but secure.  But one decent alternate investment for the longer term could be real estate, especially the kind you will actually use; even if the home you buy in a high-quality golf community doesn’t eventually pay off in appreciation, at least you will have enjoyed a nice roof over your head and a nice golf course nearby.

There may be no better time to buy a golf community home than in the next couple of years; conversely, there may be no worse time to wait.  That's because from all reports, prices are rising in high-quality, stable golf communities of the South; inventories are shrinking as developers are slow to build new communities and new homes; and the migration to the South is in full swing again -- from international locations as well as from the cold North.  Demand is outstripping supply, at least for the moment, and that reality is predictive of higher prices in 2016 and beyond, barring any general economic catastrophe.  (And if that happens, wouldn't you rather be traipsing through warm weather bunkers outside than hunkered down in indoor cold ones?)

In most markets in the North, prices are not expected to appreciate in the coming few years as fast as prices will rise below the Mason-Dixon line.  The reasons are clear and simple:  More people moving North to South than in the opposite direction could lead to softer prices up north and higher prices down south; that is just simple supply and demand economics.  If that contention about migration seems overstated, check out census data and such specific indicators as the United Van Lines annual report on migration, which tracks where people are moving from and to.  With the exception of Oregon’s anomalous popularity, the migration patterns are clearly toward the Sun Belt (The Carolinas and Florida especially) and the Northwest.  [You can view the United Van Lines report for 2015 by clicking here.]

Closing in on July 2006 peak prices

The latest Standard & Poor/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index confirms that home prices are up in most areas of the nation.  The well-respected index rose 5.2% in October, the most recent report available.  The modest but steady price increases in most cities of the North and West mean people who have been waiting to be made “whole” in the value of their primary homes can now fetch the price they want and relocate to the lower cost South for their retirements.  Mortgage rates are still low, employment rates are up and signs point to further price increases that will eventually bring the Shiller Index even with its all-time peak in July 2006, when it was just 11.5% higher than it is today.

In fact, many northerners didn’t wait for this latest price bump in the value of their homes.  Between 2014 and 2015, a half million people moved from the "Snow Belt" to the "Sun Belt."  That is almost as many as the 600,000 in the record-breaking period of 2004 to 2005.  International migration has also increased significantly since the end of the recession, with inflows to the U.S. of more than one million people in 2014, more than 60 percent of them choosing the Sun Belt.  With house inventories at normal to below-normal levels in the most popular southern golf communities, prices have steadily inched up as demand has increased.

Florida:  It’s baaaaaack

Among the southern states, Florida has shown most of the biggest gains.  Recall the headlines during the recession about Naples and Miami, for example, where prices dropped 50 percent and more.  The Naples market is almost all the way back, and the rest of the state is showing the same sort of rebound.  John Burns Real Estate Consulting, which follows the Florida market especially closely, published a recent report that indicated "Retirees and second-home buyers will strengthen the sales velocity in age-restricted and age-targeted communities" in places like Sarasota, Ft. Myers, Orlando, Ft. Lauderdale and Tampa.  Burns' researchers also see large parcels of land in Florida becoming "hot" retirement destinations in future years.  If developers and their investors are willing to start building on those big parcels, that means they have done the research and determined that the mass migration has legs.  The “smart” money should not be ignored.  In the meantime, prices, given a shrinking inventory, could rise significantly.

People tend to move to places with which they have become familiar.  Florida has the good fortune of being a tourist destination, and many of those tourists, assuming a positive vacation experience, often return on a full-time basis.  More than one million people visited Sarasota County alone in the fiscal year that ended last July, according to a recent article in Sarasota’s Herald-Tribune; of that number, it is reasonable to assume that a fair percentage later looked at and bought homes in Sarasota, Bradenton, Venice and nearby towns. 

The most popular markets are showing the biggest rebounds.  Naples, for example, has almost completely returned to its lofty pre-recession price levels, enough so that the national builder Taylor Morrison, for example, has developed and opened Esplanade, a luxury golf community in Naples about 20 minutes from the Gulf.  In the 12 months ending November 31, the average price for Naples homes that were sold increased 15%, and pending sales increased 20% in the popular $300,000 to $500,000 price range.

Prices in another, less pricey Florida market, Vero Beach, were up 12% year over year.  Vero has not quite achieved the popularity of the Palm Beaches and other east coast ocean communities further South, and relative bargains in nicely appointed communities like Grand Harbor and Pointe West, which we now feature in our Golf Homes for Sale section at GolfCommunityReviews.com, are still available.  For those looking either for a second-home location or a permanent home that features hot summers and warm temperatures the rest of the year, ignore Vero Beach at your own detriment.

Golf community homes at less than $100 per foot, land included

Florida may get the headlines for its comeback and price appreciations, but communities north of the Sunshine State have seen similar increases.  In the notoriously slow sales month of November at Savannah Lakes Village in rural McCormick, SC, for example, only four homes were sold, but it brought the total for the year to 64 compared with 51 sales in 2014 and against just nine homes sold in all of 2010.  More significantly, the average sale price for homes on Lake Thurmond increased from $338,000 in 2014 to $374,000, a 10% jump, and those with "interior" views, mostly wooded, increased almost 6% from $140,000 to $148,000.  (Oddly, golf view homes dropped in price by 10% to an average $211,000, but given the statistically modest number of homes sold in the golf-view category, that could be an anomaly.)  As overall demand increases in southern golf communities, those looking for more house at sharper prices are taking more notice of bargain-priced communities like Savannah Lakes, where home prices average barely above $100 per square foot, land included, and homeowner fees are ridiculously inexpensive ($100 per month dues for access to all amenities).  The two golf courses, one a classic layout and the other featuring dramatic changes in elevation, are quite fine as well.

Water view homes at surprising prices

Remotely located golf communities are not for every couple’s taste, but those who crave a water view home at prices below $500,000 will find them only at some remove from towns with an ample range of services.  Besides Savannah Lakes, where a 3 bedroom, 2 bath home of 1,700 square feet at lake front is currently listed for just $189,900, other communities in the Carolinas feature water view homes at surprising prices as long as the buyer is willing to drive a few extra minutes to a supermarket and other conveniences (in some cases, more than “a few” extra minutes).  At Keowee Key, 20 minutes from Clemson, SC, a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, lake-facing condo of 2,000 square feet is priced at $140,000, or just $70 per square foot.  In the community of Cypress Landing, a bit more “connected” to civilization near Greenville, NC, a few homes on the expansive Chocowinity Bay are available, including a 4 bed, 3 bath beauty with 20 x 20 deck to maximize the views; the 2,683 square foot house is listed for $389,900.  In the upstate area of South Carolina, at the unique golf community of Grand Harbor, the Canoe Bay section offers a selection of 3-bedroom townhomes up to 2,700 square feet and priced from $324,000.  The “unique” part is the golf course, where designer Davis Love III has placed replicas of the ruins of a destroyed Revolutionary War fortress reminiscent of the one at a nearby historic site. 

Even a few upscale communities are offering water view homes at prices we don’t think will last.  For example, the owners of Reynolds Lake Oconee (formerly Reynolds Plantation), Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, have not gone overboard with marketing the community they rescued from bankruptcy five years ago; that may be the reason for some bargain-priced homes remaining available. We noted one single-family waterfront home recently went under contract; it had been listed at $439,000 with 5 bedrooms and 2 ½ baths at 2,432 square feet and a walkway down the wharf dock at lakeside.  That might not seem like a bargain if you haven’t visited Reynolds, but its six golf courses and other amenities, and lake-adjacent setting, are decidedly upscale.

Bottom Line is the Bottom Line

With prices rising steadily in many southeast golf communities, and the financial pundits predicting a rocky 2016 for the stock market, this just might be a good time to realize your dream of a golf home in a warm climate –- or, conversely, a bad time to wait.  For those who need a little extra convincing, please see the adjacent sidebar for some comparisons of average real estate costs and overall annual expenses (cost of living) in some southern towns compared with towns in the North and West.  For additional comparisons, contact me or use the cost comparison calculator at BestPlaces.net.  For more information on any golf communities in the Southeast, please contact me.

 

 

Larry Gavrich

Founder & Editor
Home On The Course, LLC

 

 
 

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