Grayhawk

Grayhawk sits in north Scottsdale, north of the 101 between Scottsdale Road and Pima. There are nearly 3,800 homes in it, running from condominiums and townhomes through single-family homes to golf-course property.

Before you look at anything, understand this: Grayhawk is two neighborhoods, not one. The Park and The Retreat. Almost everything that matters here follows from which of the two a home sits in.

The Retreat is the guard-gated side, wrapped around the Raptor and Talon courses. You pass a staffed gate, the streets inside are private, and several neighborhoods within it have gates of their own on top of that.

The Park has no guard gate at its entrance. Plenty of its single-family homes you simply drive up to, with no gate anywhere in the journey.

The condominiums are their own story. Pretty much every condominium and townhome community in Grayhawk is gated in its own right, on both sides. That is a code at a gate around one community, which is a different thing from a staffed entry to a whole village, and the two cost differently and feel differently. So when someone tells me they want a gated home in Grayhawk, my first question is which kind of gate they actually mean.

That difference changes the feel, the price and, as you will see below, what you pay in dues every year. A search filtered on Grayhawk and a price range will hand you homes from both sides that have very little in common.

This is the most useful thing I can tell you about Grayhawk, and it is the thing buyers most often get wrong.

There is no single Grayhawk HOA figure. Assessments come in four separate categories, and how many of them apply to you depends entirely on the home.

The master assessment. Everybody in Grayhawk pays this one, quarterly, whether they are in a house or a condominium. It covers the greenbelts, the hiking and biking trails, pocket parks, playgrounds, walls and fences, the monument signs, common area utilities, round-the-clock patrol, on-site management and reserves.

The Retreat Village assessment. This one applies only to homes inside the gate, and it sits on top of the master. It pays for the gate staff and the gate itself, the private streets, sidewalks, street sweeping, the landscaping specific to The Retreat, and its tennis courts.

A sub-association assessment. For the eight condominium and townhome neighborhoods, paid monthly to a separate management company rather than quarterly with the rest.

A neighborhood assessment. Some neighborhoods have their own pool, spa or tennis court, and the people who use them pay for them.

Stack those up and you can see how it adds. Avian and Cachet sit inside the gate and are condominiums, so those owners pay the master, the Retreat Village assessment and their own sub-association. Three bills, for one home.

The question to ask is never what the Grayhawk HOA costs. It is what the total annual assessment is on that specific address, and what each part of it buys. The figures change, so I pull the current ones before you write an offer rather than after.

One of the quieter advantages here is that you are not driving fifteen minutes for milk.

Hayden Peak Crossing, at Thompson Peak Parkway and Hayden, is anchored by a Fry's and has restaurants, shops and everyday services around it. Grayhawk Plaza, at Grayhawk Drive and Scottsdale Road, is a second cluster of dining and retail.

The golf club itself has three places to eat, and you do not need to be playing to use them: Quill Creek Restaurant and Grill, which looks over the Raptor course and the McDowells, Isabella's Kitchen for American Italian, and the Morning Joint for coffee from six in the morning. Pure Sushi and Chula Seafood are close by as well.

Then there is the position. Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter are both a short drive south on Scottsdale Road, and each carries more than seventy shops, restaurants and places to spend an evening. Market Street at DC Ranch is close to the east. Few north Scottsdale communities have that much within ten minutes.