A buyer agrees on a price for a home in Mirasol. The contract says one number. The purchase also involves a membership contribution that can run anywhere from $175,000 to $300,000, due at closing, non-negotiable, and tied to the deed rather than to the buyer. Three miles south in PGA National, a buyer at a much lower home price can skip the club entirely if they choose. Same city. Same golf-course view from the back patio. Two completely different transactions.
That gap is the real story behind Palm Beach Gardens home prices right now, and it has nothing to do with square footage or finishes. It has to do with whether the community you're looking at treats club membership as optional or as a condition of ownership.
Membership Costs and Ownership
Mirasol is a 2,300-acre gated country club community spread across 23 neighborhoods, and membership to the Country Club at Mirasol is mandatory with home ownership. The unusual part is how that membership attaches. It correlates with the specific home, not the buyer. A home that carries a Golf membership can only be purchased by someone taking on the Golf membership. A home tied to a Social membership works the same way in the other direction. The club recommends reviewing membership categories before you even start touring homes, because the address you fall in love with may have already decided which tier you're buying into.
On top of that membership contribution, recent listing examples in Mirasol show HOA fees running roughly $883 to $1,075 a month, a separate line item from club dues. That means a buyer comparing a $1.7 million Mirasol listing to a $1.7 million listing somewhere without mandatory membership isn't comparing two versions of the same product. One of them has a six-figure membership cost and a second monthly bill baked into ownership. The other doesn't.
BallenIsles works the same way structurally, though at a different scale. It's a mandatory membership equity club with roughly 1,600 residences spread across 33 neighborhoods, multiple golf courses, and multiple membership tiers. The size gives buyers more flexibility in which tier they land in, but the mandatory structure is the same. You don't get to opt out of the club by choosing a different home in the neighborhood.
What Changed at BallenIsles in March 2025
A bylaw detail relevant to resale is the membership's issue date. BallenIsles changed its bylaws so that memberships issued on or after March 1, 2025 are not entitled to any refund upon resignation and reissuance.
That governance change shifts the economics of ownership. Under the old structure, a member who resigned and had their membership reissued to a new buyer could expect some portion of their contribution back. Under the new rule, that refund path is gone for anyone whose membership was issued on or after that date. For a buyer, it means the membership contribution behaves less like a refundable deposit and more like a sunk cost the moment you sign. For a seller, it means the pitch to the next buyer changes too, since the membership they're conveying carries different terms than one issued before March 2025.
The bylaw change is set out in the club's own bylaws. Buyers can confirm the membership's issue date before making an offer.
The Other End of the Spectrum: PGA National
PGA National is built differently. It's a 2,340-acre master association with close to 40 neighborhood associations, and club membership there is private and optional, meaning it may or may not come with a given purchase depending on the property. The club also markets memberships to non-residents, which is unusual among the mandatory-membership communities and gives buyers a real choice: join for access to the five championship courses and the Sports & Racquet Club, or don't, and put that money elsewhere.
That optionality shows up directly in the price data. PGA National's median home price sat around $578,000 in a December 2025 snapshot, with another recent snapshot placing it closer to $648,500. Either way, it reads dramatically lower than Mirasol's roughly $1.7 to $1.75 million range or BallenIsles' roughly $1.61 to $2.25 million range in similar recent windows.
None of that means PGA National homes are simply cheaper versions of the same product. It means the price is doing less work. In a mandatory-membership community, the home price and the membership cost are two halves of one required purchase. In PGA National, the home price is the whole transaction unless you decide otherwise.
Where Old Palm Fits, and Its Additional Costs
Old Palm sits at the far end of this spectrum. It's the smallest and most private of the group, with 294 home sites spread across 650 acres, a course designed by Raymond Floyd, and a 43,000-square-foot clubhouse that went through a renovation in 2024 adding a casual bistro, an outdoor pool bar, and a cold-plunge recovery area. Membership there is mandatory equity membership, required of every buyer at closing, and it carries the highest average price point of the communities discussed here.
Old Palm also has a CDD, a Community Development District fee that adds an annual charge to the property tax bill, separate from HOA dues and club dues. Buyers comparing costs can check the county tax roll along with the MLS sheet and the club's membership brochure.
| Community | Membership Status | Recent Median Home Price | What Comes With It |
|---|---|---|---|
| PGA National | Optional, sold separately to residents and non-residents | Roughly $578K–$648K (late 2025/2026 snapshots) | Home price stands alone unless you choose to join |
| Mirasol | Mandatory, tied to the specific home's category | Roughly $1.7M–$1.75M (early 2026 snapshots) | Membership contribution $175K–$300K, plus HOA fees $883–$1,075/month |
| BallenIsles | Mandatory equity, multiple tiers | Roughly $1.61M–$2.25M (early 2026 snapshots) | Membership contribution, no refund on reissuance for memberships issued on or after March 1, 2025 |
| Old Palm | Mandatory equity, required at closing | Highest average price point among the group | Membership contribution plus a separate CDD fee on the tax bill |
Treat the price figures in that table as illustrative snapshots rather than fixed numbers. They move month to month, and confirming current pricing with the specific club before writing an offer is part of the process, not an extra step.
Why the Citywide Median Doesn't Settle Anything Either
It would be convenient if you could sidestep all of this by just checking Palm Beach Gardens' overall median price. It won't help. In March 2026, one widely used tracker put the citywide median sale price at $810,000, up 11.7 percent year over year, with homes taking an average of 83 days to sell. A different tracker using BeachesMLS listing data put the median house sale at $1,095,000 in August 2026, up 3.1 percent from the same month a year earlier, while listing the median condo or townhouse sale separately at $403,500.
Those aren't contradictory so much as they're measuring different slices. One blends houses and condos into a single citywide figure. The other separates them and only looks at detached houses. Neither one tells you whether the home you're comparing sits in a mandatory-membership community or an optional one, and that's the variable that actually explains why two similarly sized homes can carry totally different real costs.
There's a September 2026 data point worth knowing if you're currently negotiating. Roughly 39.5 percent of Palm Beach Gardens houses for sale had already cut their asking price as of mid-September 2026, with a median cut around 5.5 percent. That gives buyers real room to negotiate on the home price itself. It gives you no leverage at all on the membership contribution, since that number is set by the club, not the seller, and it doesn't move with market conditions the same way a list price does.
What This Means If You're Comparing Two Listings
If you're weighing a home in a mandatory-membership community against one in PGA National or a non-club neighborhood, the list price alone won't tell you which one costs more to own. Before you get attached to a specific address, it's worth confirming a few things in writing: which membership category the home carries, whether that membership is refundable or transferable and under what terms, what the current HOA or POA dues run separately from any club obligation, and whether a CDD or similar assessment applies. A club can usually provide a written first-year cost estimate that includes initiation, dues, taxes, and any transfer fees, and that single document tends to clarify more than a dozen listing photos ever will.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does every home in Mirasol require the same membership tier? No. Membership category is tied to the specific home, not the buyer. A home that currently carries a Golf membership can only convey with a Golf membership, and the same logic applies to Social-tier homes.
Is BallenIsles membership refundable if I resell? It depends on when the membership was issued. Under the bylaw change effective March 1, 2025, memberships issued on or after that date are not entitled to a refund upon resignation and reissuance. Confirming the issue date of the specific membership attached to a home is worth doing before making an offer.
Can I buy in PGA National without joining any club? Yes. Club membership at PGA National is private and optional, and it may or may not accompany a given purchase. The club also sells memberships to non-residents, so joining is a separate decision from buying the home.
If you're comparing homes across Palm Beach Gardens' golf communities and want help reading what a listing actually includes before you write an offer, Sarah Gandrey is glad to walk through the membership details with you, community by community.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
