Meadoword article on golf courses

You may have just received the January Meadoword in your mailbox (it is not yet available online). On page 22, it republishes this article “Homeowners Will Pay The Price For A Backyard Golf Course, One Way Or Another”. Interesting coincidence that we published a post on that issue 3 days ago. Here are our notes on that article.

The article is from July 2018. Although it is very standard practice to include the original published date, the MCA chose to not do so. The references to the decline in golf may have been accurate at the time but certainly are not now. Golf is booming, with participation up 30% since 2016. This is even more true of private golf: Of 90 private clubs in Lee County (Fort Myers/Naples), only FIVE have openings for new members (footnote 1). MCA’s problem isn’t demand for golf or even demand for private clubs. It is our particular private club: The Meadows Country Club.

The author makes these points (in addition to declining demand for golf)

1. Builders built golf courses in developments to generate housing sales with golf course views, without regard to operating sustainability of those courses.
2. Closing golf courses will result in declining property values, so they should remain open.
3. It is up to buyers to be aware that they will be responsible for being members and/or subsidizing the golf course operation.
4. “For HOAs struggling with a closed or failing club, be proactive”.

Let’s go down the list:

Builders built golf courses for sales. We agree. The Meadows was burdened with 3 golf courses. On Oct 12 2017 the MCA President passionately told homeowners that 54 holes of golf in The Meadows isn’t viable (footnote 2). Eight (8) days later the MCA began investigating the purchase of TMCC’s assets (per Oct 20 2017 email). Eight months later they completed the purchase, and MCA Homeowners have been subsidizing that enterprise ever since, even though the MCA President explicitly stated it wasn’t viable.

Closing golf courses will negatively affect property values. Please read our full post on this issue. We are not advocating for closing the golf courses. If the MCA was able to operate all the courses at minimal (or at least a transparent, agreed upon amount), it is least disruptive approach for the community. But keeping the golf courses does not require keeping TMCC and its failed private club model. TMCC is a BARRIER to maximizing the golf course operations for MCA Homeowners. Almost no one is advocating building houses where golf holes currently are.

It is worth noting that there are also research articles indicating that park space increases property values by similar amounts. There is even one research article specifically addressing “Is it the golf or the open space?”. Their conclusion: it is the open space. (footnote 3)

Buyers need to be aware of an obligation to join or subsidize the golf course. There may be some sad truth to this. “Buyer beware” (footnote 4). But both TMCC and the MCA have made it exceedingly difficult to understand what is happening in The Meadows and the fact that MCA Homeowners are paying these subsidies. And they continue to hide the true costs to MCA Homeowners. Frankly, without our research and website, MCA Homeowners would still be in the dark as the MCA Board commits us to more and more subsidization. Ultimately, it may be the best choice for MCA Homeowners to pay some amount to keep the golf courses open (not TMCC), but the MCA must make every effort to minimize this amount and be transparent about it.

HOAs need to be proactive in addressing this problem. We couldn’t agree more. MCA: Please follow the advice you publish. Although we’re well past when the MCA should have been considered to be “proactive” on this issue, MCA Homeowners have been clearly asking for action since last spring. Wasting time is wasting our money.

In the upcoming MCA Director election, please vote for candidates who want to address this issue and aren’t conflicted by their TMCC membership.

Please share this information and website with your friends and neighbors (we’re up to 680 subscribers and growing with almost 1,500 website views last week).

Contact us at ForTheMeadows@SarasotaMeadows.com

Footnotes

Footnote 1:  In a Nov 2024 Bloomberg article, Jason Becker, co-founder and chief executive officer of Golf Life Navigators, stated “There’s been an absolute run on private golf. If we use southwest Florida as an example, where there are 158 golf communities, this time last November, only five had memberships available”. Further clarification from Mr. Becker indicated that the quote in the article was not correct, and that it was five of 90 clubs. Mr. Becker did not have similar data for the Sarasota area, but the data provided is indicative of demand for private golf in the general area.

Footnote 2: MCA Townhall meeting Oct 12 2017. MCA President Claire Coyle: “Nobody’s going to buy the club in its position right now with a plan of running it as a 54-hole golf club. It’s a very well-run right now but it’s just running in the red and it’s just it’s not a viable business proposition as it stands now. Something in that business proposition has to change. And the thing that when you look at it what is the club’s most valuable asset? The land upon which it sits. And the most likely purchaser is going to be somebody who wants to build something. Now what we’re trying to get it to be is somebody who built something that includes a whole lot of green space, like a golf course. But I can guarantee you that there will not be 54 holes of golf because that doesn’t work. It doesn’t pay anymore in this in this environment.”

Footnote 3: Golf courses and property prices: Is it the golf or the open space?
(Propheter, G. (2020). Golf courses and property prices: Is it the golf or the open space? Applied Economics Letters, 29(3), 245–248). Here is the Abstract (summary):

“Existing research finds price premiums for homes adjacent to golf courses, but this research fails to empirically examine if the premium is due to the presence of golf or non-golf-related benefits golf courses provide such as large open spaces free of noise and congestion. Using a difference-in-difference design on homes near a golf course that closed in Denver, Colorado, there is no evidence that losing a golf course results in lower sales prices for adjacent homes. Since prices do not fall when golf is taken away, the data support the hypothesis that non-golf benefits of courses command previously observed premiums.”

Footnote 4: If, by publishing this article, the MCA is telling us that it is the responsibility of homebuyers in The Meadows to be aware that they’ll be paying for a failed private golf club, our response is: “WHAT?”.

This is an absurd view, but let’s talk it through. If so, doesn’t the MCA and the MCA Board have a legal obligation to disclose this? We’re not familiar with Florida real estate law but we’d hope it is.

According to recent property tax records, more than 50% of MCA homes were purchased by current owners before the assets of TMCC were purchased on July 30 2018. What about them?

Almost all were purchased prior to our website making information on the situation publicly available (although difficult to find if you aren’t an MCA Homeowner). What about them?