Golf Inc. Monthly - May/June 2016

8 Golf Inc. May/June 2016

If the golf course market were a tournament, sellers and brokers would be posting nothing but red numbers. Indeed, more than seven years after the Great Recession began, average U.S. sale prices topped $5 million for the first time, according to a recently published report by Marcus & Millichap’s Leisure Investment Properties Group.

The average golf course sale price increased 7. 5 percent in 2015, following a 10 percent gain in 2014. The median price also increased, jumping 7. 33 percent during 2015 and more than 20 percent since 2012, said Steven Ekovich, national managing director at Marcus & Millichap.

Ekovich expects the final number of
U.S. sales for 2015 to land somewhere
between the previous two years’ totals:
145 for 2013 and 181 for 2014. To be
sure, the current golf real estate mar-
ket has a ways to go before it exceeds its
pre-recession valuation, but three con-
secutive years of increased figures and
much-improved sales data have con-
vinced Ekovich that it has “entered a
more normalized cycle.”
In other words, the days of finding dis-
tressed, over-leveraged sellers and unbe-
lievable bank-owned trophy assets have
all but vanished. At least until the next
dip.

For now, real estate developer Randall Greene is thrilled that he got in when he did. In July 2012, he and his associates at DCS Investment Holdings acquired one of golf’s all-time deals: Bella Collina, an upscale private resort-style community 20 minutes west of Orlando. The 1,900- acre property was developed by Bobby

The golf industry has finally cycled through its distressed assets,
leading to higher prices for properties.

BY SCOTT KAUFFMAN Prices on the rise

Recent sales greater than $5 million
Course Market Type Sale price
(in millions)
The Club at Carlton Woods The Woodlands, Texas Private $29.1