Category: golf course

When W.G. Tarrant purchased nearly 1,000 acres outside London in 1911, he changed real estate history. His invention? What claims to be the first golf community, St. George’s Hill, with a course by designer Harry Colt. It was immediately successful — and still is, with houses running about $5 million. By using golf to sell residences, Tarrant let a genie out of the bottle.
A century later, there are thousands of residential courses. In China, they can’t be built fast enough. Mission Hills near Hong Kong has 12 courses and thousands of members. Second-home golf communities are around the globe, but the majority of North American buyers looking beyond the Caribbean and Mexico choose Western Europe.

The biggest appeal is high-quality golf.

“For decades, the U.S. residential golf market has followed a model of name-brand designers commanding higher prices, and now that model is being marketed abroad,” says Michael Patrick Shiels, author of Secrets of the Great Golf Course Architects.

Read the rest here.

Waterfront Greens