A report from the Wall Street Journal. "More than 200 golf courses closed in 2017 across the country, while only about 15 new ones opened, according to the National Golf Foundation. When a course closes, prices for nearby homes typically fall about 25%, development consultant Blake Plumley said. Prices can plummet 40% or 50% if a contentious legal battle arises, as potential home buyers balk at the uncertainty accompanying litigation."

"When Mitch Steller first moved into his house on a lush 117-acre golf course in Southern California, 'this was like the Garden of Eden, having a golf course in my backyard,' he said. Today, his Poway, Calif., home overlooks dry, dead grass in place of a once-verdant fairway. The golf club closed in 2017. 'The fairways are brown, the greens are gone, the buildings are being vandalized,' says Mr. Steller."

"In Lake Worth, Fla., the Fountains of Palm Beach community in the early 2000s made it mandatory for all of its homeowners to become members of the Fountains Country Club, located within its gates. As the original owners of homes in the Fountains started dying or moving out, mandatory membership made it difficult to sell their homes, says Fountains homeowner Sharon Harrington, who also works as a real-estate agent in the area."

"The younger people are not interested in golf,' Ms. Harrington says. 'They avoid these communities altogether.' Values started going 'in the toilet,' Ms. Harrington said. 'People just needed to get out.' Homes that had previously sold for around $400,000 traded for than less than $200,000, she said."

"Meanwhile club fees were rising; Ms. Harrington said by 2016 her dues had climbed to around $24,000, up from less than $5,000 when she first joined. Feeling that the costs were unjustified, she stopped paying her dues. A number of other residents also stopped paying, and the club filed lawsuits to get them to pay."

"For some, it is paradise lost. Lou Altieri, a 68-year-old who paid more than $1 million for a house at Kensington Golf & Country Club in Naples, Fla., in 2005, likened his initial experience of living in a golf community to being 'on a cruise ship all the time.' When he joined the club, he said he was told he’d get a partial refund of his $45,000 initiation fee if he left. But when he decided to resign from the club several years later, he was told there were about 60 people ahead of him on the 'resign list,' each with a membership that had to be sold to a newcomer before Mr. Altieri could receive his refund."

"Unwilling to accept this, Mr. Altieri stopped paying his dues, and the club sued. The two parties eventually settled in arbitration and Mr. Altieri left the club, selling his house at a loss in 2011."