In Avila, The Club Membership Doesn't Sell With The House

Sellers in Avila make one assumption more often than any other, and it costs them time on the market: they assume their Avila Golf & Country Club membership is part of what they're selling. It isn't. Per the club's own by-laws, memberships are explicitly non-transferable and initiation fees are non-refundable. The house changes hands. The membership does not follow it.

That single fact reshapes almost everything about how an Avila listing should be priced, marketed, and negotiated, and it helps explain a pricing pattern in the neighborhood right now that looks confusing until you see the mechanism behind it.

The By-Law Nobody Reads Before Listing

Avila Golf & Country Club is owned outright by SICO, Inc., a corporation held by J. Robert Sierra and his immediate family, the same family that developed the Avila community starting in 1978. Members hold no equity or ownership stake in the club itself. That structure matters because it means membership is a personal, revocable privilege granted by the club, not an asset attached to the deed.

The club's by-laws spell this out in plain terms: membership fees are not refundable, and memberships are not transferable. A new owner moving into a home whose previous owner held a membership does not inherit that standing. To join, they need sponsorship from two current members and an invitation from the club, the same process any outside applicant goes through. Reported figures put the initiation fee at roughly $65,000 with annual dues around $6,500, though the club does not publish a full fee schedule and figures should be confirmed directly with the membership office before anyone plans around them.

This is worth sitting with for a moment. A seller who has belonged to the club for fifteen years, hosted galas in the Main Dining Room, and built friendships through the tennis league is not transferring any of that to the buyer at closing. The buyer starts from zero, with the same sponsorship requirement as a stranger who has never set foot in Avila.

What This Means When You List

Once that mechanism is clear, three habits sellers fall into stop making sense.

• Marketing "club membership included" or implying continuity of privileges. It isn't included, and stating otherwise creates an expectation the club has no obligation to honor.
• Waiting on a buyer's club application before moving toward closing. Sponsorship and admission run on the club's own timeline, not the transaction's, so tying a closing date to membership approval adds risk that has nothing to do with financing or inspection.
• Treating HOA dues and club dues as one line item. They aren't. Avila's homeowners association is mandatory for every owner and funds the guarded entry, the eight-foot perimeter wall, private roads, and the old-growth landscaping that gives the neighborhood its character. Current HOA dues run from roughly $5,000 to more than $10,000 annually depending on the specific section of the community. The country club is a separate, optional membership on top of that, open to anyone the club chooses to admit, resident or not.

A listing that keeps those two costs distinct, and is honest that club standing resets at closing, gives a buyer's agent and lender fewer surprises to untangle mid-contract. That clarity is worth more in a market this thin than an extra line of aspirational copy.

The Price Gap This Explains

Here's where the membership mechanism connects to something buyers and sellers can both see in the numbers.

Active Avila listings this year have carried a median asking price in the neighborhood of $3.3 million, with current listings ranging from a $2.65 million four-bedroom on Villarreal de Avila to a $7 million eight-bedroom estate on Avila Boulevard. But homes that actually closed over the trailing twelve months carried a median sale price closer to $2.425 million, even after a 20 percent year-over-year increase in that closed figure. Asking prices are running well ahead of what's actually changing hands.

Part of that gap is the membership question. A buyer touring a home with an appealing golf course view has to price in, separately, what it will cost and how long it will take to establish their own standing with the club, if they want that standing at all. Sellers who list as though club access is baked into the sale price are asking buyers to pay for something they aren't actually receiving, and buyers who know the by-laws will negotiate accordingly.

The other part of the gap comes from something almost as easy to miss: how thin this market actually is. Trackers that measure days on market in Avila don't agree with each other, and the disagreement itself is informative. One recent look at active listings put the typical marketing period at 53 days. A separate look at a longer trailing window put the average closer to 100 days, nearly double, against a national average in the mid-50s. Both can be true at once. When a neighborhood sells a small handful of homes in a given month, one estate that lingers for six months because it's priced ahead of the market, or waiting on a buyer's financing for a size and price point few lenders see often, can single-handedly drag the average toward triple digits. A market this size doesn't behave like a normal subdivision average. A single outlier changes the story.

The Practical Timeline

For a seller who currently holds a membership and wants to leave the door open for the buyer to eventually join, the honest answer is that there's no way to guarantee it. Sponsorship by two existing members, an application to the membership director, and the club's own discretion all sit outside the closing timeline. A listing agent who understands this will frame the club as a lifestyle amenity available to whoever the club later chooses to admit, not as a benefit that transfers with the keys. That framing protects both parties from a misunderstanding that surfaces after the ink is dry, when it's much harder to fix.

FAQ

Does buying a home in Avila include club membership? No. The club is a separate, invitation-only membership, and owning a home inside the gates does not grant access. A prospective member needs sponsorship from two current members and an invitation from the club, the same requirement whether or not they live in Avila.

Do HOA dues cover the golf course and tennis courts? No. The mandatory HOA dues fund the community's security infrastructure, private roads, and shared landscaping. The country club operates as a separate private entity with its own dues and initiation structure, and its facilities are open only to members in good standing.

If I sell my Avila home, does my membership carry over to the buyer? No. Per the club's by-laws, memberships are not transferable and fees already paid are not refunded. The buyer would need to apply as a new member through the same sponsorship process as anyone else.

If you're weighing a sale in Avila and want a pricing strategy that accounts for what actually transfers with the home and what doesn't, Onyx Collective can walk through the numbers with you. Get your free home valuation and let's talk through what your listing should say, and what it shouldn't.