If club membership is mandatory where you are buying, your monthly dues are counted against your debt-to-income ratio like a car payment, and the initiation deposit you wrote a large check for usually does not count toward your required reserves. That combination is the single most common reason a strong Scottsdale golf community buyer gets a smaller approval than they expected.
It is also the item almost no lender raises until underwriting, which is the worst possible time to find out.
The one question that changes everything: mandatory or optional
Every other answer flows from this.
Mandatory membership. Some Scottsdale golf communities tie club membership to ownership. Buy the home, you join the club, and the dues are not a lifestyle choice. An underwriter treats an obligation you cannot decline as a recurring monthly liability, the same way they treat an HOA assessment. It goes into the ratio.
Optional membership. You can own the home and never join. If you have not joined and are not obligated to, there is generally nothing to count. If you have already joined, or the purchase contract obligates you to, that changes.
So before anything else, get the community's governing documents and the club's membership plan and find out which one you are in. Ask the listing agent in writing. "Is club membership mandatory for owners at this address, and is there a membership obligation that transfers with the property?" That sentence is worth more than any rate quote.
How each piece of a membership is treated
A private club membership is not one number. It is four, and lenders treat them differently.
1. Monthly dues. If mandatory, counted as a recurring monthly obligation in your debt-to-income calculation. In Scottsdale's private clubs, dues plus mandatory food and beverage minimums can reach a four figure monthly number on their own. Layer that on top of a community HOA and a jumbo mortgage payment and you can move several hundred thousand dollars of purchasing power without touching your income.
2. The initiation deposit or membership fee. This is the one that trips people. At many Scottsdale equity clubs the initiation is a large deposit, sometimes partially or fully refundable on resignation, sometimes payable only when a new member fills your place on the list.
For underwriting purposes:
- It is cash out of your account at closing or shortly after, so it reduces the assets you have left.
- Because it is generally illiquid and not accessible on demand, it usually does not count toward the reserve requirement on a jumbo loan.
- A refundable deposit is not a bank balance. Do not plan reserves around getting it back.
Jumbo programs commonly require months of full housing payments held in verifiable, accessible assets after closing. A buyer who spends their reserve cushion on an initiation deposit can be perfectly solvent and still fail the reserve test.
3. Capital assessments and transfer fees. Clubs and communities levy capital assessments for course renovations, clubhouse projects and infrastructure. Some are one time, some are recurring, some are levied per member on a schedule. Recurring assessments behave like dues. One time assessments are cash to close if they land before closing. Ask for the current schedule and any assessments already approved but not yet billed.
4. Membership approval itself. Some clubs require an application and approval process, and some are invitation driven. If your purchase is contingent on obtaining a membership, that is a contingency with its own timeline running alongside your loan contingency. They do not automatically line up.
The arithmetic that decides your approval
Work the obligation stack in this order. This is what an underwriter sees:
- Principal and interest on the mortgage
- Property taxes
- Homeowners insurance
- Community or master HOA
- Sub-association or village dues, if the community has layers
- Mandatory club dues and minimums
- Recurring capital assessments
- Every other monthly obligation on your credit report
Items four through seven are where Scottsdale differs from almost anywhere else in the Valley. A buyer in a master-planned golf community can carry a substantial monthly obligation before the mortgage payment enters the calculation.
Two consequences worth stating plainly:
Your purchase price and your club choice are the same decision. Choosing a full golf membership over a social or sports membership can move what you qualify for. That is not a reason to buy less club. It is a reason to decide both at the same time, with the numbers in front of you.
Self-employed buyers feel this hardest. If your qualifying income is already reduced by two years of legitimate deductions, adding a four figure mandatory obligation compresses the ratio from both ends. See Self-Employed and Buying in DC Ranch for how the income side of that gets built.
Which Scottsdale communities this actually applies to
Scottsdale and its immediate surroundings hold an unusual concentration of private club communities: Troon North and Troon Country Club, Silverleaf, the Country Club at DC Ranch, Desert Mountain, Estancia, Whisper Rock, Mirabel, Desert Highlands, Terravita, Ancala, Legend Trail, Gainey Ranch, McCormick Ranch and Grayhawk, among others.
They are not interchangeable. Membership structures vary between equity and non-equity, mandatory and optional, refundable and non-refundable, and clubs revise their plans. Do not rely on what a neighbor told you or what was true three years ago. Get the current membership plan document from the club and the current governing documents from the association, and get them before you remove your inspection contingency.
When the ratio does not work
If the obligation stack pushes your debt-to-income past program limits, you have real options, and none of them is a shortcut around qualifying. Each proves repayment capacity a different way, and each prices differently than agency financing.
Asset depletion. Qualifying income calculated from verified liquid assets rather than earnings. Well suited to the golf community buyer whose wealth is in accounts rather than a paycheck. Retirement accounts are typically discounted and pledged assets generally excluded.
Bank statement. Twelve or twenty four months of deposits with an expense factor applied, for the business owner whose returns are deducted down.
No-ratio. No debt-to-income test at all. The file rests on credit, assets, reserves and the property. This is the structure for the buyer whose finances are genuinely complex and whose reportable income does not describe their position.
If your income and the obligation stack both clear on a conventional jumbo, take the jumbo. It is nearly always the cheapest money available. These exist for when it does not.
What to do before you write the offer
- Ask in writing whether membership is mandatory and whether an obligation transfers with the property.
- Get the club's current membership plan: initiation amount, refundability terms, dues, minimums, and the categories available.
- Get the association's budget, reserve study and any approved assessments.
- Add the full monthly stack and give it to your lender before you are under contract, not after.
- Confirm your reserves separately from your initiation deposit. They are not the same money.
- Get fully underwritten, not pre-qualified. A pre-qualification is a calculator that has never seen your club dues. An underwritten pre-approval means someone read the whole picture.
Why bring this to us
- We ask about the club on the first call. Most lenders discover it in underwriting. That is the difference between a structure chosen deliberately and a file that gets repriced late.
- We read the returns ourselves and build the obligation stack with you before you are committed to a price.
- Broker model. Multiple investors rather than one bank's shelf, which is what a jumbo file carrying a mandatory club obligation actually needs.
- The full toolkit, agency jumbo through asset depletion, bank statement and no-ratio non-QM, chosen on the file rather than on inventory.
- You talk to the principal. Ricky Khamis is President of EPiQ Lending, NMLS #173141, lending in Arizona since 1999 and a 2025 Presidents Club Winner at CMG Home Loans. Direct line: (480) 999-9842.
EPiQ Lending is NMLS #1936984, at 7975 N. Hayden Road, Suite A-101 in Scottsdale. Verify all of it before you trust any of it: Ricky's EPiQ Lending profile, the Scottsdale branch, and the license itself at NMLS Consumer Access. Hold every lender to that standard, including us.
Send me the club's membership plan and the association budget before you write in a Scottsdale golf community, and I will tell you what the obligation stack does to your approval.
Equal Housing Opportunity. This is general information, not a commitment to lend or an offer to extend credit. Club membership structures, dues, assessments and refundability terms vary by club and change over time; confirm current terms directly with the club and the association. Rates, terms, and program guidelines change and depend on credit approval, property appraisal, and other qualifying factors. Not all applicants will qualify. Non-QM and no-ratio financing carries different pricing and terms than agency financing.
