Time to Score

If you’ve always longed to live in a golf community but thought you couldn’t quite swing it financially, now’s the time to make your move. Whether you aspire to a vacation home or year-round residence, realtors report that bargains can be found in the most coveted communities, all boasting topnotch golf courses and comfortably close to Sarasota’s award-winning beaches and cultural riches.

But inventories of country club homes are tightening since their peak levels in early 2009. Prices of resales have been adjusted to market conditions, and communities have modified amenities and membership fees to appeal to a growing number of homebuyers more interested in social and fitness programs than golf. New homes are also more attractively priced now that builders have responded to consumer demand for smaller dwellings.

Those adjustments now bring nationally recognized golf communities like The Founders Club into the realm of budget possibility for golfers who could only dream of playing its 18-hole course (designed by Robert Trent Jones Jr.) before the housing market tanked. Though The Founders Club was listed in 2007, 2008, and 2009 by Travel + Leisure Magazine as one of America’s Top 100 Golf Communities, sales of multimillion-dollar homes had been waning when prestige builder London Bay Homes bought the remaining 86 home sites and took over management of the community in July 2010. Within weeks, the company adjusted lot pricing and designed new homes priced from the $500,000s including home site.  

“Builders today need to respond to the market. We can’t dictate it,” explains Mark Wilson, president of London Bay, noting that the economic downturn has caused homebuyers at every price point to reassess their needs. “The size of higher-end country club homes is diminishing as are the fee structures at just about every club.”

The Founders Golf and Social Club has expanded membership programs and significantly reduced fees to
entice non-golfing families as well as golf enthusiasts.

The strategy seems to be working. London Bay introduced three new models in March 2011 and sold two homes within weeks. One, the 2,879-square-foot Isabella Fairway home (which starts in the $600,000s), was purchased fully furnished at $1,084,214. The 2,438-square-foot Laurel (priced from the $500,000s) in the maintenance-free Cottage neighborhood would be considered a value even in a non-golf community.

Sales have also picked up at The Concession Golf Club, where the 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course was named “Best New Private Course of 2006” by Golf Digest magazine and distinguished in the January 2011 “Lists Issue” of LINKS magazine as one of its top 10 choices to hold a future U.S. Open Championship. Undisputedly the most challenging course in the Sarasota area, the Concession was designed by Nicklaus in association with Tony Jacklin, both U.S. Open champions.

“Inventory has been diminishing quickly within the last six months, and we’ve seen membership increasing for the past nine months,” says Linda Harrington, director of sales at the Concession. Harrington has noticed other changes in buying patterns as well. “People are involving the whole family in the buying process, and they are looking for new homes that have already been built,” she explains.

Among the best values in that category is the 5,647-square-foot Grand Cypress model by high-end Anchor Builders. Originally offered at $3,967,500, the four-bedroom, 4 ½-bath luxury home is now an incredible buy at $1,995,000—and in fact could not be reproduced at that price today, according to Anchor president Roy Dupuis.

Lakewood Ranch Golf and Country Club offers 54 holes of championship golf on three courses, two designed by Arnold Palmer and the third by Rick Robbins.“Demand is high and supply is low: Everyone loves living in Lakewood Ranch,” says Pat Warren of Signature Sotheby’s International Realty. “Inventory is half what it was during the peak of the recession, maybe even less.” Nonetheless, Warren’s listing for a 4,203-square-foot, five-bedroom, five-bath home on Ashland Glen in the Country Club section is priced at $880,000, a deal compared with market rates typically 40 percent higher in 2005.