For those who live in Anthem!! (Phoenix, Parks: hoa fees, luxury, gated)

[CA_Dreaming]

My family plans to move to Anthem in late Summer and it appears to be a super cool neighborhood. A couple of questions.

1. What are the differences in "Parkside" vs. "Country Club"?
2. Is Anthem a "golf cart" community meaning a lot of residents have golf carts to travel around the neighborhood in?
3. What is the vibe of the Country Club? ARe the courses nice? Pools?
4. Do a lot of kids play golf and tennis?
5. How popular in the community center?
6. Is it primarily white collar, upper middle class?

I appreciate any feedback. We are excited!!

[asugraduate]

Check out Redirect for more information. It might give you some answers and some things you didn't really care to know.

[JoePAz]

Originally Posted by CA_Dreaming

1. What are the differences in "Parkside" vs. "Country Club"?

Parkside = Designed for Kids and families, Open community with local parks in every neighborhood probably less than a 5 mintue walk. We have great one 3 mintues (700-1000ft) away with swings, slides and a large grassy area. Price & Size 1200 sqft (160k) to 5000 sqft(600-800k) single & 2 story homes.

Country Club = Gated (2 guard houses and 2 code/pass entry gates). HOA fees are double those in parkside due to cost to maintan guards and private roads. 2 Clubhoues and golf courses line the community. No parks at all and generally fewer kids. Many more retires or winter vistors. Generally more affluent, but also many people in the club just THINK they are more affluent. Nice if you big into golf, but other wise just more money. The houses and landscaping is generally classier in the Club, but there is really nice stuff in parkside too. Size & Price 1200(200k) to 5500 sqft(1.1-1.5M) all single story.

2. Is Anthem a "golf cart" community meaning a lot of residents have golf carts to travel around the neighborhood in?

Some do both in park side and CC. More than most areas maybe, but the place is not crawing with them.

3. What is the vibe of the Country Club? ARe the courses nice? Pools?

Course are nice, but expensive for residents and non-members. There are 2 pools in CC, but also a very nice waterpark and pool in parkside for all them residents. The CC pools are more like resort pools, but a little stuffy for kids.

4. Do a lot of kids play golf and tennis?

Some, but not more than most areas

5. How popular in the community center?

It is a nice feature to have and gets busy at times, but is still good. It is the hub of many activities and also contains the parkside pools and fitness center. It is also next to the 5-6 baseball fields, soccer fields and train park. However all of those are open so you don't need to go into the Com. Center very often to enjoy the ammenties.

6. Is it primarily white collar, upper middle class?

Predominatly white, but mixed class. The home sold were desigend to run the mix of small lower cost home to also very nice expensive homes. In both Parkside and CC there were 3-5 "levels or series" of homes being built at one time. Each series got bigger and nicer and once build all formed individual neighboorhoods and each has a name. So as you look now you will see groups of similar houses (3-6 models) with in each series. Clearly a series were the houses were 1200sqft to 2200 sqft will be different from the series were they were 2500 sqft to 5000 sqft. Also as the years went on there were sort of 3 phases of construction and the lowered end series in each of these has very different feels to them.

So in the end Anthem is mix of economic backgrounds with some people more in the lower working class group, with lower middle class, upper middle class and so upper class as well all in neighboorhoods right near each other. The Country club is made up much the same way with 3-5 "series",but with 15% premium. Even so the floorplans are all different in he club and may club homes have unique features. Couple exaples are diffrent stucco and smooth garage doors. Some CC home also have 14 ceilings where as most of park side has 9foot ceilings.

My take is you like more luxury and more a "resort" feel CC is nice, but you will pay for it both in intial cost and HOA fees. A certain percent of people in the club think they are special since they are in the club, in general people are still nice. You can however end up on dead street in the summer were only 2 out 5 homes are occupied year-round.

Parkside is better if you want a little bigger place with that 20-50k more r have kids where going to the park daily is key concern. You can find really nice homes here or also some "affordable" ones too. Each neighboorhood has it own feel that can be tough to pick out at first, but once you have lived there a while it becomes apparent.

As for the area as a whole I like it alot. We have all conviences of the city, but since are somewhat isolated from the rest of Phoenix it feels much more like a small town. Running into people you know at the store or out at the park is quite common place. It is not so small that everyone know everyone else, but we don't feel like masses in crowd either. Nobody is "from" Anthem so most are open to meeting new people and creating new friendships.

[CA_Dreaming]

[quote=JoePAz;3813231]Parkside = Designed for Kids and families, Open community with local parks in every neighborhood probably less than a 5 mintue walk. We have great one 3 mintues (700-1000ft) away with swings, slides and a large grassy area. Price & Size 1200 sqft (160k) to 5000 sqft(600-800k) single & 2 story homes.


Thanks for taking the time to post. Very good info and we appreciate it!! We are renting for the first year so we can figure out where we fit best. Rents appear to be much cheaper than they were 2 years ago.

[JoePAz]

Renting for a year is great as it gives you a chance to find what places you like. There are lots of rentals in Anthem right now the best is probably in Parkside. Then spend the next few months looking around. It may not take a year to find a good area, so maybe you need to work that into your rental agreement.

One of the best ways to find out what Anthem is like is to walk around the street and see what kind of home and what kind of people are in the area. If you have kids looking into mom's clubs can be nice to more quickly get to know the area.

[hts]

we rented in parkside for the first year before buying in the club. i can't disagree with much that joe wrote, although i do think he's exagerating somewhat with respect to the number of empty club houses in the summer. and even though there are clearly more families in parkside (our boys are 5 & 6), we find that there are a number of sections in the club that are teaming with kids (including mountain cove, where our house is). regardless of which part of anthem you choose, you absolutely can't go wrong!

[JoePAz]

Originally Posted by hts

...although i do think he's exagerating somewhat with respect to the number of empty club houses in the summer. ..

Yeah it can depend on the street. Some places in the club are fully occupied. In other I have heard stories about it being a ghost town in summer. Still it very street dependant and that is one reason renting is great to give you time to learn about about nuiances of Anthem. It seems very homogenious on surface, the neighborhoods are actually alot more diverse than they seem. One of things that I have seen alot in Anthem over years is what I call the "Anthem Shuffle". It was much easier with a booming housing market, but there was alot of movement inside of Anthem. Family moving from one home to another as many who got in during the boom times bought what they could instead of what they may have wanted. As such over time they learned what they wanted better and waited for that home to pop up for sale and moved.

We infact did that as well. Bought in September 2004 in nice area, but not quite 100% of what we wanted. However given the price and selection at the time we were quite happy with what we got. However over the years we learn that our home was not quite right for staying in for the next 20 years. It was missing a couple things (3rd garage, extra room). Nothing major, but we eventually waited and found what we felt would be perfect and moved. Still quite happy we did.

So renting is a nice way to figure out what you really want before you commit to buying.