More than 200 golf courses closed in 2017, according to the National Golf Foundation, and the total number of golf courses in the nation has fallen from 16,000 in 2005 to under 15,000 in 2017. A number of these closures stem from a lack of participation, especially among young Americans, according to The Wall Street Journal.
As the sport’s popularity drops, many golf course communities are either shuttering their courses or taking extraordinary measures to survive, such as raising dues or requiring mandatory memberships. According to Blake Plumley, a Florida-based development consultant, home prices can fall by about 25% when a nearby course closes, or up to 40% or 50% if a legal battle ensues between the club and its residents over mandatory dues.
Designed as a way to guarantee more cash flow for clubs, so-called mandatory membership can end up harming home values by narrowing the pool of potential buyers. “What we are consistently seeing is that those properties, all else being equal, are selling way below what they should be selling for,” says Ken Johnson, a real-estate economist at Florida Atlantic University.
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