Pull up two listings in Kierland right now and you will see the same zip code, the same walk to Kierland Commons, and two wildly different homeowners association numbers sitting one below the other. One condo lists at $312 a month. The other, a few blocks away in a glass tower, lists somewhere between $850 and $1,800. Most buyers do the obvious math: divide the difference by twelve, multiply by how many years they plan to own, and conclude the cheaper HOA is the better deal.
That math is wrong, and not because either number is inflated. It is wrong because the two fees are not pricing the same list of things.
Two communities, two different contracts
The $312 figure belongs to Kierland Greens, a gated, 210-unit community built in 1998 by Centex near 64th Street and Greenway Parkway. It sits on the 9th fairway of the Kierland Golf Club, and its townhome-style units come with something almost nobody expects from a condo: a two-car garage, even on the one-bedroom floor plans. The monthly due covers front yard and common area maintenance, water, sewer, trash, a blanket insurance policy, and cable.
The higher figure belongs to Optima Kierland, the pair of 12-story towers that anchor the walkable end of the neighborhood a short distance from Kierland Commons and Scottsdale Quarter. The first tower, 7120, delivered in 2018 with 173 units. The second, 7180, followed in 2021 with 205 units. Both were designed by David Hovey and Associates, and both carry a due that climbs with unit size and floor, generally landing somewhere between $400 and roughly $2,000 a month depending on square footage and tier. That fee is doing far more work than the Kierland Greens number. It covers water, sewer, gas, garbage, cable, high-speed wifi, a blanket insurance policy, exterior and roof maintenance, and access to the building's amenity package: rooftop pools, a fitness center, a golf simulator, pickleball and basketball courts, concierge service, and secured underground parking.
Lay the two side by side and the pattern becomes obvious.
| What the fee covers | Kierland Greens (~$312/mo) | Optima Kierland (~$400 to $2,000+/mo) |
|---|---|---|
| Water, sewer, trash | Included | Included |
| Gas | Paid separately by owner | Included |
| Cable | Included | Included |
| High-speed internet | Paid separately by owner | Included |
| Building insurance | Included (blanket policy) | Included (blanket policy) |
| Exterior/roof maintenance | Common areas only | Full building envelope |
| Amenities (pools, gym, concierge) | Community pool, spa, fitness center | Rooftop pools, spa, concierge, golf simulator, business center |
| Parking | Private 2-car garage | Underground, secured |
A Kierland Greens owner is still writing a separate check for gas and internet every month. An Optima owner is not writing either check, because both are already folded into the number on the settlement statement. So the real gap between $312 and, say, $850 for an entry-level Optima one-bedroom is not $538 a month. It is $538 minus whatever that owner would otherwise spend on gas and internet on their own. The sticker gap and the lived gap are two different numbers, and only one of them matters for your budget.
The rule of thumb worth carrying into any Kierland showing: ask what the HOA fee replaces, not just what it costs.
Why the location difference is the bigger story anyway
Money aside, these two products are solving for different daily lives, and that matters more than the fee schedule.
Kierland Greens sits adjacent to Kierland Village Center, where a Safeway and a Walgreens handle the errands and Perk Cafe or Zipps Sports Grill handle a casual meal. It is a quieter, golf-course-facing pocket of the neighborhood, a short drive rather than a short walk from the retail energy of Kierland Commons.
Optima Kierland sits inside that energy. Postino WineCafe and The Buzz Eatery & Treats are a walk away, not a drive. Scottsdale Quarter is close enough to reach on foot. That proximity is the entire premise of the tower product, and it is why a unit there commands a premium that has nothing to do with square footage.
North Scottsdale's condo submarket overall listed a median around $685,000 across 142 active units as of August 2026. Kierland Greens units have recently listed in the $540,000 to $825,000 range, generally below that submarket median. Optima's range runs from the high-$600,000s for a smaller floor plan up to just under $3,000,000 for the largest penthouse layouts, comfortably above it. These are not two price points on the same product. They are two different products that happen to share a neighborhood name.
Buyers who also want a golf-adjacent, quieter alternative without the tower HOA structure can look at Kierland Landmark or Plaza Lofts at Kierland Commons, both of which sit in the same corridor with their own fee and amenity mixes worth asking about directly.
Where this catches people off guard
The unbundling logic runs both directions, and it is where most confusion actually shows up during a transaction.
Buyers moving into Optima from a traditional single-family home sometimes see the monthly HOA number and assume it is pure overhead stacked on top of their existing bills. It is not. Part of what looks like a steep fee is simply their gas and internet bill, previously paid to a separate provider, now consolidated into one line item.
Buyers moving the other direction, from Optima into Kierland Greens or a similar low-rise community, sometimes assume they are "saving" the full fee difference. They are not, until they've priced out their own gas and internet plan and subtracted that from the apparent savings.
Neither error is dishonest. It is just what happens when a number gets compared without first checking what it includes.
A word on long-term risk
A lower monthly HOA does not automatically mean lower long-term cost. Every condo community, regardless of its fee size, eventually faces roof replacement, pool resurfacing, or exterior repainting. The real question for a buyer comparing Kierland Greens to Optima is not which fee is smaller today, but which community has already priced those future costs into its monthly due through reserves, and which is more likely to need a special assessment down the road to catch up. That is a conversation for the HOA's budget and reserve study, not the listing sheet, and it is worth having before you write an offer on either type of building.
Frequently asked questions
Why does the HOA fee vary so much within Optima Kierland itself? Because the due scales with unit size, floor level, and view. A smaller lower-floor one-bedroom and a large penthouse are paying for very different amounts of covered square footage, insurance exposure, and amenity access, even inside the same building.
Does a lower HOA at an older community like Kierland Greens mean less financial risk? Not on its own. It means a smaller monthly number today. Ask to see the association's reserve study before assuming that translates into lower cost over a ten-year hold, since major building components come due on their own schedule regardless of what the monthly fee happens to be.
If you are weighing a golf-adjacent low-rise against a walkable tower in Kierland and want the fee schedules and reserve details laid out side by side before you write an offer, Angela Covey has spent two decades reading these communities line by line and can walk you through exactly what each number is actually buying.
