McCormick Ranch · Downsizing
Downsizing in McCormick Ranch
Selling the long-time family home and finding the next one, handled by the same agent, in that order.
Fifty years in, this is the community where this happens most
McCormick Ranch was built through the 1970s and 1980s, which means there are people here who bought new and never left. If you are one of them, you have watched the trees you planted grow up.
What has usually changed is not the house. It is the amount of it you use, and the amount of lot you are maintaining. The larger original single-family homes here sit on lots generally bigger than a builder would give you today, and fifty-year-old landscaping is beautiful and is also a standing appointment with somebody.
Arriving at that point is entirely reasonable, and it is not the same as wanting to leave.
You almost certainly do not have to leave
This community is unusually good for downsizing in place, and most people living here have never had it put to them that way.
There are patio homes, townhomes and condominiums inside McCormick Ranch, a substantial part of the community rather than a handful. Many of them carry their own association that handles the exterior, the roof and the common landscaping, which is precisely the list you are trying to put down.
So you can keep the greenbelt paths you walk, the lakes, the parks, the golf if you use it, the shops you already know and the people you know, and stop maintaining a house and a lot that are bigger than your life now.
Some of those enclaves are gated as well, which people frequently want at this stage and assume they would have to leave to get.
Plenty of people are ready for somewhere genuinely different, and an active adult community elsewhere suits them better. But the option to stay is real here, and it is worth having in front of you before you assume otherwise.
The dues will go up, and that is usually the right trade
Worth being straight about this so it is not a surprise.
Your current home probably pays the McCormick Ranch master assessment and little else, and that master figure is a couple of hundred dollars a year. A patio home or condominium here will carry its own association on top, and that second one is not a couple of hundred a year.
You are buying something concrete with it: the exterior maintained, the roof looked after, the landscaping done, and in some cases a gate. For somebody who no longer wants to think about any of it, that is the entire point.
But it should be a decision made with both totals in front of you rather than a discovery afterwards. I pull the current figures on both sides before you commit to anything.
Pricing a home you have been in since the eighties
Your lot and your position are probably worth more than your interior. Buyers price in replacing a kitchen from 1994. What they cannot replace is backing onto water or a greenbelt, a mature lot, or the trees. If your position is strong it carries the sale.
Do not half-renovate to sell. A partial update does not read as renovated here, it reads as work somebody started, and the buyer budgets to undo it. Either do it properly or price it as the opportunity it is, which in this community is genuinely attractive to the right person.
Systems are the exception. A roof and an air conditioning unit at this age are numbers a buyer will put on the table, not cosmetics. Knowing their age before we price is better than finding out during the inspection period.
Here is how I work out the real figure, with a list of what is and is not worth doing.
Forty years of belongings, and who actually helps
This is what stops the move happening, far more often than price does.
A senior move company will walk the house with you room by room before it goes on the market. They sort with you, they know what to do with the things nobody in the family wants, they pack, and at the other end they unpack and set up the new place so the first night is livable rather than a stack of boxes. You pay them directly, so there is nothing in it for me.
In a house somebody has been in for forty years there is usually a garage, a shed and a good deal that accumulated outside, and that takes longer than anybody budgets for.
Practical order: garage, linen closet, filing cabinet. Never the photographs. Starting with the photographs is how people stop after one afternoon and do not come back for a year. Leave the sentimental things until last and give them weeks rather than a weekend.
How it runs
We start with where you are going rather than with what the house is worth, because that answer decides what the sale has to achieve.
If the answer is a patio home ten minutes away, this is a shorter and much more pleasant project than you are bracing for. If it is somewhere genuinely different, we go and look at those together, starting the week your listing is signed rather than after it sells.
The whole process is here, and the guide covers the deciding part, before any of it becomes a transaction.
Most people I work with on this are around eighteen months out at the first conversation. There is no such thing as too early. Call me on (480) 203-6605.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I downsize without leaving McCormick Ranch?
Yes, and this community is unusually good for it. The patio homes, townhomes and condominiums here are a substantial part of the place rather than a handful, and many carry an association that handles the exterior, the roof and the landscaping. You keep the greenbelt paths, the lakes, the parks and the people you know. Some of those enclaves are gated too.
Will my monthly costs go down?
Probably not, and it is better to know that now. Your current home likely pays the master assessment and little else, and that is a couple of hundred dollars a year. A patio home or condominium carries its own association on top, and that one is not a couple of hundred a year. You are buying the exterior, the roof and the landscaping being somebody else's problem, which for most people at this stage is the entire point.
Should I renovate before selling?
Either properly or not at all. A partial update does not read as renovated here, it reads as work somebody started, and the buyer budgets to undo it. Systems are the exception: a roof and air conditioning at this age are numbers a buyer will put on the table.
What do I do with forty years of belongings?
Get a senior move company. They walk the house with you room by room before it lists, sort, pack, then unpack and set up the new place. You pay them directly. In a house held this long there is usually a garage and a shed and a good deal outside, which takes longer than anybody budgets for, so start early. Garage first, photographs last.
McCormick Ranch
What downsizing looks like in McCormick Ranch
Established central Scottsdale, built around lakes and golf, with mature landscaping and a wide range of home types.
McCormick Ranch was a working cattle and Arabian horse ranch before it was a neighborhood. It sold in 1970 and development started in the early 1970s, which makes it Scottsdale's original master-planned community.
Fifty years on, the thing it has that no newer community can 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.
- The homes
- Five genuinely different products under one name: traditional single-family from the 1970s and 1980s on larger lots than a builder would give you now, homes backing onto the lakes or greenbelts, golf-course homes, patio homes and townhomes, and condominiums. More than forty individual neighborhood associations sit inside the community.
- Why people choose it
- People choose it for the mature landscaping and the central position rather than for newness. It is in central Scottsdale rather than north, which changes what is within ten minutes of the door, and the paths through the greenbelts are the amenity residents actually use daily.
- Schools people ask about
- Scottsdale Unified. The district is working through a reorganization at the moment, so confirm the current assignment for a specific address rather than relying on a listing or on last year's boundary.
- Getting around
- Central Scottsdale rather than north, so Old Town, the airport and the rest of the valley are all closer than they are from the communities further up. Hayden, Via Linda and Shea are the routes you will use. The greenbelt paths run for miles and connect the neighborhoods to the parks and the shops on foot.
- Nearby
- McCormick Ranch Golf Club with two eighteen-hole courses, the lakes and greenbelt paths, Comanche, Mountain View and Shoshone parks, and McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park, which exists because the McCormick family gave the city a hundred acres in 1967.
- The trade-off
- Against the north Scottsdale communities you are trading newer construction, dramatic terrain and preserve access for fifty years of mature landscaping and a central location. Against DC Ranch or Grayhawk you generally get more established character and a much lower master assessment, and you give up a single resident clubhouse, because the amenities here are spread through the community rather than gathered in one building.
The method
How we do it in McCormick Ranch
Downsizing: keep exploring
Ready to make your move with Jen Keene?