Old Town Scottsdale is not one neighborhood. It is six small districts packed into roughly a square mile, and they behave completely differently depending on which block you are standing on, what day it is, and whether the sun is up.
Get the map straight and everything else about Old Town makes sense: where to eat, where to stay, where the noise is, and, if you are buying here, why two condos four blocks apart can finance completely differently.
The six districts
Historic Old Town. The original core, and the reason the place is called Old Town at all. Western wear shops, Native American jewelry, old storefronts, and the Wild West flavor Scottsdale built its identity on. Quiet, walkable, tourist-facing during the day.
The Arts District, along Main Street and Marshall Way. Fine art galleries, wine tasting rooms, the Scottsdale Artists' School, and Western Spirit: Scottsdale's Museum of the West. This is where the Thursday night ArtWalk happens, 7pm to 9pm, every week. It has been running for more than 45 years, dating back to 1975, which makes it the oldest weekly art walk in the country.
The Fifth Avenue Shopping District. Dozens of independent shops, the Bob Parks horse fountain, the bronze horses and covered wagon sculptures that show up on every postcard. Leans Western and local rather than national retail.
The Entertainment District, anchored around Camelback Road and Saddlebag Trail just east of Scottsdale Road. More than 100 bars, clubs and restaurants in a tight footprint. Sleepy at lunch. Very much not sleepy at midnight on a Saturday.
The Waterfront, along the Arizona Canal. High rise and mid rise residential, restaurants with canal patios, and a walking path that connects the whole district. Scottsdale Fashion Square sits at the north end with more than 250 retailers including Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus.
Civic Center and Brown & Stetson. Scottsdale Civic Center, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the civic green space that hosts events through the season.
How to actually spend a day here
Morning. Coffee in Historic Old Town, then walk the galleries on Main Street before the heat. Museum of the West is worth two hours if you like the subject and one if you do not.
Afternoon. Fifth Avenue for shops, then the canal path down to the Waterfront. Fashion Square if you want air conditioning and real retail.
Thursday evening. ArtWalk, without question. Galleries open late, the Arts District fills up, and it is the single best free thing Old Town does.
Evening. Dinner in the Arts District or along the canal, then decide whether you want the Entertainment District or not. That decision is the entire difference between a quiet night and a loud one.
If you only have one day, do the ArtWalk on a Thursday. It puts you in the best district at the best hour.
The one thing visitors get wrong
They book a hotel without checking which district it sits in.
Old Town is compact enough that everything is walkable, which sounds like it makes location irrelevant. It does the opposite. Being four blocks from the Entertainment District on a Saturday is a completely different experience from being four blocks the other way. Neither is better. They are just very different nights, and people book the wrong one constantly.
The same mistake, with more money attached, is made by buyers.
What this map means if you are buying here
Every district above has a different property profile, and that profile decides how a lender treats the purchase.
The Entertainment District and the Waterfront are where the attached inventory concentrates: condominiums, mid rise, high rise, and mixed use buildings with retail or restaurants at street level. That matters because a condominium loan underwrites the building as well as the borrower. Owner-occupancy ratios, the share of the project's square footage that is commercial, reserve funding, litigation and delinquencies can all fail a project regardless of how strong you are. A building with a full ground floor restaurant row can exceed the commercial square footage limits that agency financing allows. See Scottsdale Luxury Condo Financing for the whole review and what documents answer it.
Short-term rental plans live or die on two separate rulebooks. The City of Scottsdale regulates short-term rentals with its own registration, licensing, notification and insurance requirements. The association can restrict or prohibit rentals independently, and commonly sets a minimum lease term. When the two disagree, the stricter one governs your property. Confirm both in writing before you remove contingencies. How much of that income a lender will actually count is a different question again, covered in Spring Training, the Open, and Your Loan.
Occupancy classification is not a label you choose for convenience. A property you rent nightly for most of the year is not a second home, whatever you call it on the application, and the classification changes your down payment and your pricing. See Second Home or Investment Property in Scottsdale.
Historic Old Town and parts of the Arts District carry older stock, and older buildings bring their own questions about condition and systems.
The practical instruction, and it is the same one I give every Old Town buyer: pick the district first, then the building, then the loan. Doing it in the other order is how people spend an appraisal fee learning that a project is not financeable.
The full lending walkthrough is in Buying in Old Town Scottsdale: Nightlife, Licensing, and What Lenders Actually Check.
The rest of this series
- Where to eat in Old Town Scottsdale
- Old Town Scottsdale nightlife
- Where to stay: walkable Old Town hotels
- Golf near Old Town Scottsdale
- Things to do in Old Town Scottsdale
Why a mortgage lender wrote a neighborhood guide
Because I finance property here, and the questions that decide an Old Town purchase are not really mortgage questions. They are questions about which block, which building, and what you actually plan to do with the place. A lender who has never walked the Arts District on a Thursday night cannot tell you why one condo appraises differently than another six streets away.
Ricky Khamis, 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.
Send me the building before you write an offer in Old Town and I will tell you whether the project clears.
Venues, hours and businesses in Old Town change. This guide reflects what was accurate as of September 2026; confirm before you plan around anything specific. Short-term rental regulations vary by municipality and association and change over time; confirm current requirements with the City of Scottsdale and the applicable association.
Equal Housing Opportunity. This is general information, not a commitment to lend or an offer to extend credit. Rates, terms, and program guidelines change and depend on credit approval, property appraisal, and other qualifying factors. Not all applicants will qualify.
