Valuing a golf course or golf resort in Morocco: the leisure asset method

There is no single figure for a golf resort. There are three assets of different natures, and a report that fails to break them out is unusable.

1. Moroccan golf: a tourism product and a property product

Golf occupies a distinctive place in Morocco's tourism offer, from historic urban courses to resort courses designed as the centrepiece of residential and hotel schemes. The clientele mixes international golfers on holiday — the winter climate is the destination's trump card — residents of the adjoining schemes and local members. We have described that same logic at work around Benslimane, where golf structures the residential appeal of the area.

The typical instructions: the sale of a course or of an entire resort, valuation for a developer's accounts, funding, the entry of an international operator, the restructuring of a scheme in which the course is the central burden, or a dispute between resort co-owners and the course operator.

2. Three assets in one: course, clubhouse, property

The founding error behind failed golf valuations is to look for one value where there are three assets of different natures:

• The course and its infrastructure — the grassed land, the irrigation network, machinery, practice facilities: an operating tool with massive fixed costs, to be valued on VPGA 4 trading property logic, with a cost-based cross-check on the infrastructure.
• The clubhouse and reception facilities — catering, pro shop, academy, sometimes a hotel and spa: a hospitality trade, close to the framework we set out for hotel valuation under VPGA 4.
• The adjoining property — villas and flats fronting the course, plots still to be developed: a conventional property asset, valued by comparison and, for future phases, by a residual development appraisal under VPGA 10.

In most resorts it is the third block that carries the economics of the project: the golf is a creator of landscape value whose trade may run at break-even or at a loss without the scheme as a whole being compromised. The report must make that architecture explicit — including the question of who bears the cost of the course over the long run: operator, developer, or residents' association.

3. The revenues of the golfing trade

• Green fees — visitors and golf tourists; a marked seasonality that runs opposite to Europe's, since the Moroccan winter is the high season, with a dependence on air links and on specialist tour operators.
• Members — annual subscriptions and joining fees: the recurring base, deeper at urban courses with a local clientele than at destination courses.
• Academy, practice, hire — buggies, equipment, tuition: ancillary income that builds loyalty.
• Catering and events — the clubhouse as a venue; competitions and corporate events.
• Hotel arrangements — agreements with hotels in the resort or the wider region, stay-and-play packages.

As with any trading property, the valuer works from the operating data supplied by the client, normalised across several accounting periods, and reasons as a reasonably efficient operator would.

4. The costs: course maintenance and the water question

A golf course is a fixed-cost machine: greenkeeping teams, machinery, inputs, renewal of the greens — most of it independent of how busy the course is. Two points deserve explicit treatment in any Moroccan report:

• Irrigation water — against a structural background of water stress, the origin of the resource (conventional water, reuse of treated wastewater, desalination depending on the site), the legal security of the supply rights and the trajectory of their cost are long-term determinants of viability. A course whose supply rests on a fragile or contested resource carries a risk the valuation must name and test in sensitivity.
• The renewal cycle — greens, irrigation systems and machinery are renewed on cycles; an ageing course calls for a capital programme to be deducted from the cash flows.

5. The land: an alternative use test, phase by phase

The land under a golf course is counted in tens of hectares. Its alternative value depends entirely on the zoning, and the analysis has to be run phase by phase:

• Areas designated as green space or sports facility — not convertible: their alternative value is low, and the course is worth what its trade and its landscape role are worth.
• The resort's land bank — phases earmarked for development in the layout plan: these are valued as developable land, through a residual appraisal, according to the rights actually granted.
• Hopes of re-designation — these are not valued: only the applicable planning position founds value, and any prospect of change is handled as a scenario clearly identified as such.

This is the disciplined application of highest and best use— legally permissible, physically possible, financially feasible — to an asset where the temptation of “raw hectares times a price per square metre” is particularly strong and particularly misleading.

6. Common pitfalls

• One value for three assets — course, clubhouse and property call for different methods; an unallocated aggregate is unusable.
• Raw land priced as development land — without a phase-by-phase reading of the zoning, that is a fiction.
• Ignoring the water question — the viability of irrigation is a long-term determinant of value, not a technical detail.
• Capitalising a structurally loss-making course — where the course is a cost knowingly borne in the service of the property, its “operating value” cannot be capitalised as if it were a profit.
• Overlooking governance — the agreements between developer, operator and residents determine who bears the costs: they are part of the valuation file.

7. What the report is for

The sale of a course or a resort, funding, the entry of an operator, the restructuring of a scheme, a disagreement over course costs: the report provides a value allocated by component and set out in scenarios, capable of standing up in an arm's-length negotiation and in documented discussion between the parties. It is a private valuation, produced to inform decisions. Our reports are prepared by RICS-certified experts and comply with Red Book standards.

A golf resort is one of the most complex assets on the market: the instruction is quoted on a case-by-case basis according to scope — course alone, complete resort, residential phases — documentation and timescale. For reference, our valuations start at 3,500 MAD excl. tax for standard assets, with a firm quote within 24 hours and delivery in 5 to 8 days, 48-72 hours on the express service. ReaConsult has been operating since 2019, with more than 5,000 valuations completed, offices in 6 cities and a rating of 4.9/5 across 47 reviews.

Note:this article sets out a valuation methodology compliant with RICS standards (Red Book, VPGA 4 trading property). Zoning, water rights and authorisations are governed by the regulations in force and by contract — confirm your own position with the competent authorities and your advisers. A private valuation informs a decision and an arm's-length negotiation. To instruct us, see our contact page or the property blog.