Martis Camp's Real Inflation Isn't in the Home Price

A buyer who has just closed on a $6 million cabin in Martis Camp will eventually sit across from a membership director and hear a number that has nothing to do with the deed they just signed. The home is theirs. The Camp Lodge, the Family Barn, the Tom Fazio golf course and the Beach Shack on Lake Tahoe are not. Those come with a separate application, a separate fee schedule, and a price that has moved a great deal faster than the real estate ever did.

That gap is the story. Everyone comparing Martis Camp against Lahontan or Schaffer's Mill starts with the home price, because that's the number the portals show. But the home price has been the boring part of this market. The club has been the part quietly repricing itself.

The purchase and the club are two different transactions

Every source describing Martis Camp says some version of the same thing: buying real estate here does not include access to the amenities. The Martis Camp Club is a separate legal entity from the Martis Camp Association, which runs the gate, the roads, and snow removal for a quarterly HOA fee that has run around $1,800 in recent years, or roughly $7,200 annually. The Club is where the golf course, the 50,000 square foot Camp Lodge, the Family Barn, and the lakefront Beach Shack live, and none of it transfers with the title.

That also means a membership does not transfer between owners. If the family selling a home has held a Golf membership since 2015, the buyer does not inherit their rate. The buyer applies fresh, gets vetted by the Club, and pays whatever the Club is charging that year. A seller's decade-old membership cost is a piece of trivia, not a discount.

What the Club actually charges right now

There are two membership tiers, and the numbers below are what recent guides to the community have reported. Fees at private clubs like this are notoriously not published anywhere official, so treat these as the range serious buyers are seeing rather than a fixed price list. Confirm the current schedule with the Club directly before writing an offer.

• Social membership: a transfer fee that has been quoted anywhere from $125,000 to roughly $150,000 depending on when the guide was written, plus annual dues around $29,000. Social members get amenity access and a couple of tee times a month, not full golf privileges.
• Golf membership: a 50% equity initiation quoted at roughly $300,000, with annual dues around $45,000. Golf membership is capped at 375 total members, a ceiling that has held for years even as the surrounding home prices climbed.
• HOA dues: separate from both of the above, running about $1,800 per quarter.

Stack those together and a buyer choosing Golf membership is looking at a six-figure initiation before a single round is played, then tens of thousands a year afterward, on top of the mortgage, insurance, and property tax on a multimillion dollar home.

The part that should surprise a buyer comparing prices online

Here is the number that doesn't show up on a listing sheet. As recently as 2023, guides to Martis Camp quoted a Social membership initiation around $100,000 and a Golf membership initiation around $105,000, with dues closer to $10,500 and $17,000 respectively. By 2025, the Social transfer fee had climbed to $125,000 and Golf equity initiation had nearly tripled to $300,000. Dues had climbed alongside it. By early 2026, at least one guide put the Social transfer fee closer to $150,000.

Compare that climb against what homes themselves have done. Over the three months ending in mid-2026, the median sale price for a Martis Camp home ran about $6.3 million, up 5.4% from the same period a year earlier. Price per square foot actually slipped 2.1% over that same year. Home values moved. They did not triple.

That's the mismatch worth sitting with. A buyer who assumes the club is a rounding error on top of the home price is underwriting the wrong risk. The real estate has been comparatively stable. The membership has been the part of this market actually behaving like a scarce asset, which makes sense given the Golf tier has been capped at 375 members for years while demand for those 375 spots has only grown.

Why the club is inflating faster than the real estate

A capped membership with a waitlist behaves differently than a home that any qualified buyer can eventually purchase if they're patient and the price is right. Martis Camp has roughly 653 homesites total, but Golf membership tops out at 375, meaning a meaningful share of homeowners are either on a Social tier, on a waitlist, or have decided golf access isn't worth the additional outlay. When a fixed number of golf spots meets a growing pool of buyers who specifically want the Fazio course and the ski lift to Northstar, the initiation fee is the release valve. It can keep climbing in a way a home price, subject to appraisal and comparable sales, cannot.

Martis Camp against Lahontan: the entry math looks different

For buyers cross-shopping the Martis Valley's two marquee gated communities, the club economics diverge almost as much as the culture does. Lahontan's Social membership has run closer to $70,000 to $87,500 in initiation with annual dues nearer $13,900, and its Golf memberships trade on the open market in a broad $150,000 to $300,000-plus range depending on availability, with HOA dues closer to $5,800 to $6,500 a year. That's a materially lower Social entry point than Martis Camp's current $125,000 to $150,000 range, even though both communities sit within a few miles of each other and both restrict short-term rentals under 30 days.

The takeaway isn't that one club is better. It's that the home price alone tells a buyer almost nothing about which community actually costs less to live in day to day. Two houses priced identically in Martis Camp and Lahontan can carry meaningfully different total costs of ownership once the club bill arrives.

What this means before you write an offer

A buyer underwriting a Martis Camp purchase should budget for the club as its own line item, not a rounding error. Ask the Club directly for the current fee schedule rather than trusting any published figure, since every guide referenced here explicitly notes that fees change frequently. Decide up front whether Social or Golf access matters enough to justify the difference, since the gap between the two tiers has widened. And if rental income is part of the plan, know that Martis Camp's CC&Rs prohibit stays under 30 days, so the membership cost has to pencil against personal use, not against offsetting income.

Frequently asked questions

Does buying a home in Martis Camp include club access? No. Every source describing the community is consistent on this point. Purchasing real estate gives access only to what the Association manages, roads, gate, and snow removal. Access to the Camp Lodge, Family Barn, golf course, and Beach Shack requires a separate application and fee to the Martis Camp Club.

If the seller already has a membership, does it transfer to me? No. Membership is tied to the individual member, not the property. A new owner applies fresh and pays the current fee, regardless of what the previous owner paid years earlier.

Are HOA dues and Club dues the same bill? No. HOA dues, running around $1,800 per quarter, fund the Association and cover shared infrastructure. Club dues are billed separately by the Martis Camp Club and fund the golf course, lodge, and amenity operations.

Is Golf membership something I can just apply for whenever I want? Golf membership has been capped at 375 total memberships. Depending on timing, that can mean a waitlist rather than instant enrollment, which is part of why the initiation fee has behaved the way it has.

If you're weighing Martis Camp against Lahontan or Schaffer's Mill and want the real total cost of entry, not just the number on the listing, Kaili Sanchez can walk through current club figures, HOA structures, and what each community actually costs to live in year over year. Discover Tahoe living and start your personalized search today.