AZ
McCormick Ranch
Established central Scottsdale, built around lakes and golf, with mature landscaping and a wide range of home types.
Scottsdale's original master-planned community
McCormick Ranch was a working cattle and Arabian horse ranch before it was a neighborhood. It belonged to Anne and Fowler McCormick, it ran to thousands of acres, and it was sold in 1970. Development started in the early 1970s.
That history is the reason this place does not feel like anywhere else in Scottsdale. It was planned as a whole: houses, lakes, golf, greenbelts, parks, shops and services designed together rather than a subdivision dropped into raw desert. Scottsdale's own history of the period credits McCormick Ranch with bringing master-planned development to the city.
Fifty years on, the thing it has that newer communities cannot buy is mature landscaping. Full-grown trees, water, and green that has had half a century to establish. A community built last year can copy the floor plans. It cannot copy a forty-year-old tree.
It is also in central Scottsdale rather than north, which changes what is within ten minutes of your door.
What is my McCormick Ranch home worth?
Five kinds of home under one name
McCormick Ranch is large and it is old enough to have changed several times. There are more than forty individual neighborhood associations inside it. Listing every subdivision would help nobody, so here is the way I actually think about it.
Traditional single-family neighborhoods. These are most of the Ranch, built largely through the 1970s and 1980s, on lots that are generally larger than what a builder would give you now, with mature trees and a wider mix of architecture than any newer community.
Lake and greenbelt homes. Some homes back straight onto water or open green. This is one of the largest single differences in value here, and two houses on the same street can be far apart because of it.
Golf-course homes. McCormick Ranch Golf Club has two eighteen-hole courses, and you can buy a home looking at them without buying into a private country club arrangement.
Patio homes and townhomes. These make up a substantial part of the Ranch, and they are frequently overlooked by people who think McCormick Ranch means one thing.
Condominiums. The lowest-maintenance way into the community and into this part of Scottsdale.
Those five are genuinely different products at genuinely different prices. The name they share tells you the setting, not the house.
Renovation is the story here
If you take one thing from this page, take this one.
Because these homes are decades old, condition varies more than anywhere else I work. On one street you can find a house that is largely original, one that has been sensibly updated, and one that has been taken back to the studs and rebuilt into something contemporary behind the original roofline.
All three will show up in a search as McCormick Ranch. They are not the same purchase and they are nowhere near the same price.
For a buyer, that is opportunity. If you want to renovate, the raw material is here and the lots are better than what the money buys further north. If you do not, finished homes exist too, and you pay for somebody else having done it.
For a seller, it is the whole pricing conversation. A remodeled lakefront home and an original interior-lot home are not competing with each other, whatever the search results suggest. Working out which homes are genuinely comparable matters more in McCormick Ranch than in any newer neighborhood.
Gates, and how the dues actually work
McCormick Ranch as a whole is not gated. The traditional single-family neighborhoods are open, connected by city streets, greenbelts and pathways. Some of the patio home, townhome and condominium enclaves inside it do have gates or controlled access. So if a gate matters to you, we narrow the search to those rather than looking at the Ranch as a whole.
On dues, McCormick Ranch is the opposite of somewhere like Grayhawk, and it surprises people.
Every property is part of the McCormick Ranch master association, and that assessment is a couple of hundred dollars a year. Not a month. For a master-planned community of this size that is remarkably little.
The catch is that plenty of homes have a second one. Most of the patio home, townhome and condominium neighborhoods carry their own association on top, and those can cover a pool, common landscaping, private streets or gates, exterior and roof maintenance, and insurance on shared structures. What they include varies a great deal from one neighborhood to the next.
The question is the same one I ask everywhere: not what the McCormick Ranch HOA costs, but what the total is on that specific home and what it buys. I pull the current figures before you write an offer.
The lakes, the paths and the parks
The lakes are man-made and they were part of the original plan rather than an afterthought. They are also working infrastructure, built into the drainage and flood control for the area, which is why they are not going anywhere.
Connecting everything is a network of walking and biking paths running for miles through the greenbelts, linking neighborhoods to parks and to the shops. For anybody who walks a dog or rides a bike, this is the amenity that gets used daily, and it is the reason people who move within McCormick Ranch tend to stay inside it.
City of Scottsdale parks are woven through as well, including Comanche Park, Mountain View Park and Shoshone Park. And on the edge of it all is McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, which exists because the McCormick family gave the city a hundred acres in 1967.
Let me be clear about what this is and is not, because the word community center does a lot of work elsewhere. McCormick Ranch has no single resident clubhouse the way a newer community does. The amenities are spread through it instead, which is a different thing and, for most people who live here, a better one.
Where you shop and eat
Commercial space was designed into the plan, so everyday errands do not involve a drive.
Hayden and Via de Ventura has become a genuinely good eating corridor. Around The Village at Hayden and Mercado del Lago you have Grassroots Kitchen and Tap, Campo Italian Bistro, Amelia's by EAT, Crust, PHX Beer Co., Press Coffee, Z'Tejas and Sweet Provisions. Parts of Mercado del Lago sit on the water, which is unusual for Scottsdale and pleasant on an evening.
Hayden and McCormick Parkway covers Paseo Village and The Grove, with Luci's at the Grove, Obon Sushi Bar Ramen, Fratelli La Bufala, Crumbl, LA Fitness and a Starbucks.
Mountain View Plaza and, at Scottsdale Road and Indian Bend, Seville add more, and Seville sits directly across from the Railroad Park.
Then there is the position, which is the part north Scottsdale cannot match. Old Town Scottsdale and Fashion Square are minutes south. Gainey Ranch, Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter are minutes north. Living centrally in Scottsdale means most of Scottsdale is close.
Buying or selling in McCormick Ranch
If you are buying, the first conversation is which of the five kinds of home you actually want, and then whether water, green or golf is behind it. Those two answers do most of the narrowing. How buying works in Arizona is here.
If you are selling, the work is establishing what your home genuinely competes with, because condition varies so widely that the wrong comparables will mislead you in either direction. This is what runs on a listing.
People looking at McCormick Ranch are usually weighing central Scottsdale against north, so Grayhawk and DC Ranch are worth reading alongside this.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is McCormick Ranch gated?
Not as a whole. The traditional single-family neighborhoods are open, connected by city streets and greenbelts. Some of the patio home, townhome and condominium enclaves within it do have gates or controlled access, so if a gate matters we narrow the search to those specifically.
What are the HOA dues in McCormick Ranch?
Every property pays the McCormick Ranch master assessment, which is a couple of hundred dollars a year rather than a month, and is low for a community of this size. Many patio home, townhome and condominium neighborhoods also carry their own association on top, and what that covers varies a lot. Ask for the total on the specific home.
How old are the homes in McCormick Ranch?
Most were built through the 1970s and 1980s. That is exactly why condition matters so much here: on one street you can find an original home, a sensibly updated one, and one rebuilt to the studs. They search as the same neighborhood and are nowhere near the same purchase.
Are the lakes real, and can I buy a home on one?
They are man-made, part of the original 1970s plan, and they double as drainage and flood control for the area, so they are permanent. Some homes back directly onto them, and that is one of the largest single differences in value in the community.
Why choose McCormick Ranch over north Scottsdale?
Two things, mostly. Mature landscaping, which a newer community cannot manufacture at any price, and location. Old Town and Fashion Square are minutes south, Kierland and Scottsdale Quarter minutes north. You give up the newest construction and gain trees, water and a central address.
Buying in McCormick Ranch
The method
How we do it in McCormick Ranch
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