In Parkland Golf & Country Club, the HOA Fee Isn't the Whole Bill. Next Door in Heron Bay, It Basically Is.

Two buyers stand at open houses eleven minutes apart. One is touring a five-bedroom Toll Brothers build in Parkland Golf & Country Club, admiring a kitchen with a waterfall quartz island. The other is walking through a similarly sized home in Heron Bay, three miles east. Both listing sheets show an HOA line. Both numbers look, at a glance, like the kind of thing you budget for and move on.

They are not the same kind of number. One of them is close to the full monthly cost of belonging to that community. The other is a fraction of it, with a second, much larger bill waiting just out of frame.

This matters more than most comparison guides let on, because Parkland Golf & Country Club (PGCC) and Heron Bay get cross-shopped constantly. They sit close together, both carry the gated, golf-adjacent, family-friendly identity that draws move-up buyers into North Broward, and both show up in the same searches. But the way each community turns amenities into a monthly obligation is structured so differently that comparing the HOA figures side by side, without asking what's mandatory and what's optional, is comparing two different kinds of promises.

What "HOA" Actually Buys at PGCC

At Parkland Golf & Country Club, homeowners pay HOA dues, and then they pay a second, mandatory Resident Sports Membership on top of it. This isn't a club you can opt out of because you'd rather skip the tennis courts. It's baked into ownership. Combined, HOA dues and the Sports Club membership run close to $1,200 a month, and that figure covers the resort-style pool complex, fitness center and spa, tennis and pickleball courts, a Kids Center, and two dining venues inside the 43,000-square-foot clubhouse.

Golf is a separate decision entirely. The course, designed by Greg Norman and managed by Troon, requires its own membership, and recent listings show initiation contributions ranging from roughly $65,000 to $80,000, with monthly dues in the neighborhood of $1,700. Some subassociations layer on additional one-time capital contributions at closing. None of this is hidden. It's disclosed in HOA and club documents. But it rarely shows up as a clean single number on a listing sheet, which means a buyer scanning "HOA: $X/month" is looking at roughly a third of what the community actually requires them to spend before they've swung a single club.

What "HOA" Actually Buys at Heron Bay

Heron Bay runs on a different model. The HOA covers landscaping, common-area maintenance, and the community's three manned gates, and it typically lands between $300 and $400 a month. There is no mandatory club membership layered on top. The 18-hole course, originally designed by Tom Fazio and notable for once hosting The Honda Classic, operates as a non-equity, pay-as-you-play facility. Residents who want to golf can buy an annual membership, including a family option, at rates set independently of homeownership. Residents who never touch a driver simply don't pay for one.

The two clubhouses, the pools, the fitness facilities, the walking and biking trails around Heron Bay's lakes and waterways: these come with the HOA dues, not stacked on top of them the way PGCC's Sports Club is. In Heron Bay, the number on the listing sheet is close to the real number. In PGCC, it's the opening bid.

The Numbers Behind the Structure

Recent market snapshots make the divergence concrete. As of August 2026, Parkland Golf & Country Club had 25 active listings with a median list price of $2,042,000 and an average asking price of roughly $626 per square foot. Trailing-year sales data through that same month showed 37 closed transactions, an average selling price of about $1.92 million, a 95 percent list-to-sale ratio, and homes taking an average of 75 days to sell.

Heron Bay, in an early-July 2026 snapshot, showed 39 active listings with a median list price of $964,000 and an average asking price near $414 per square foot, with homes averaging 52 days on the active market.

Two things jump out. First, the per-square-foot gap, about 51 percent, is wider than the raw price difference alone would suggest, which tells you PGCC's premium isn't just bigger lots and newer construction. Some of that spread is the market pricing in a clubhouse and Sports Club infrastructure that Heron Bay simply doesn't require every owner to fund.

Second, and more counterintuitive: the community with the mandatory country club amenities takes longer to sell, not less. A gated golf community with a Greg Norman course and a full-service clubhouse would seem like the easier sell. But a mandatory $1,200-a-month floor, before golf, narrows the pool of buyers who can comfortably absorb it. Heron Bay's lower guaranteed floor keeps more buyers in play, which may be part of why homes there are moving faster even without the same command of dollar-per-square-foot.

The question worth asking isn't "what's the HOA fee." It's "what happens to my monthly number if I never once use the golf course."

Why This Matters Beyond the Spreadsheet

For a family weighing both communities, the practical version of this shows up at financing. Lenders calculating debt-to-income ratios often want the mandatory HOA and club figure, not just the base HOA line, and at PGCC that means underwriting closer to $1,200 a month before a mortgage payment is even factored in. At Heron Bay, the underwriting floor is meaningfully lower, and the golf decision stays entirely optional, which matters if your household includes people who will use the course heavily and others who never will.

It also changes how you should read a listing. If a PGCC listing mentions "optional golf membership," that's accurate, but it can create the impression that everything else is optional too. It isn't. The Sports Club is not a marketing add-on. It's baked into what the HOA covers, structurally, the same way it would be at a resort. Heron Bay's listings, by contrast, genuinely mean it when they describe the golf course as available rather than required.

Neither structure is better in the abstract. A buyer who wants built-in tennis leagues, a Kids Center, and daily access to the clubhouse dining rooms is paying for something real at PGCC, and getting a course from one of the sport's best-known designers as an option on top of it. A buyer who wants lower fixed costs and the freedom to golf occasionally without committing five figures to an initiation fee gets exactly that at Heron Bay, on a course with its own competitive pedigree.

FAQ

Is golf membership required to buy a home in Parkland Golf & Country Club? No. The Resident Sports Membership, which covers the pool, fitness center, tennis, pickleball, and dining venues, is mandatory for residents. Golf membership on the Greg Norman course is a separate, optional decision with its own initiation fee and monthly dues.

Can you golf at Heron Bay without paying a club initiation fee? Yes. The Tom Fazio-designed course operates on a non-equity, pay-as-you-play basis, with annual and family membership options available independently of homeownership.

Are these two communities really comparable in price? Not directly. PGCC's 2026 median list price sits above $2 million, roughly double Heron Bay's median in the same window, so the fee structure is only one piece of the comparison. Buyers should weigh lot size, home vintage, and section-specific comps alongside the membership math, not instead of it.

The Real Comparison Question

If you're cross-shopping North Broward's gated golf communities, the sticker HOA number is the least useful figure on the page. What matters is which costs are guaranteed the day you close and which ones you choose. Parkland Golf & Country Club and Heron Bay both deliver a genuine country club lifestyle. They just decide, structurally, how much of that lifestyle you pay for whether you use it or not.

If you want a side-by-side read on what a specific listing in either community actually commits you to before you write an offer, reach out to Portia Voss. You can also start with a closer look at Parkland Golf & Country Club or Heron Bay, or head straight to the buyers page to talk through financing a home where the club dues are part of the underwriting conversation from day one.