In Leland, the List Price Is the Least Useful Number You'll See

Two buyers put homes under contract in Brunswick Forest within the same month, both in the mid-$500s, both feeling like they'd landed a fair price on a home in one of Leland's best-known communities. Then the resale certificates arrived. One buyer was looking at annual HOA dues under $3,500. The other was staring at a number more than double that. Same community. Same rough price bracket. Completely different monthly math.

That gap is not a fluke or a paperwork error. It's the whole story of buying into a Leland master-planned community, and it's the story most comparison guides skip because it doesn't fit neatly into a "here are the top six neighborhoods" format. The community name on the sign tells you almost nothing about what you'll actually pay each month. The product type you buy inside that community tells you nearly everything.

The Fee Isn't One Fee

Leland's largest communities run on a two-tier structure: a master association that maintains the big shared amenities across the whole development, and a neighborhood-level sub-association that handles what's specific to your section. Brunswick Forest works this way. So does Compass Pointe. Buyers who assume they're writing one check a year are usually wrong, and the gap between what the master covers and what the sub-association bills separately is where the real cost variance lives.

In a large amenity community, the master dues typically fund the trails, the fitness and wellness center, the pools, the common landscaping, and sometimes a security presence at the gate. What the sub-association charges on top of that depends entirely on the product type you bought. That distinction is easy to miss on a builder's brochure and impossible to miss once you're reading a real budget.

Same Community, Very Different Math

Inside Brunswick Forest, a 4,500-acre development with neighborhoods ranging from Collingwood Cottages to Ibis Roost to Trestle Ridge, dues run from around $2,000 a year up toward $8,700 depending entirely on what you bought and what it includes. A detached home in a neighborhood like Hazel Branch or Heron Point tends to sit in the $3,100 to $3,400 range, and owners there are typically cutting their own grass. A townhome in a section like Cypress Point can carry dues closer to $8,700 a year, because that fee is bundling exterior maintenance and building insurance that a detached homeowner is paying for separately, outside the HOA, on their own homeowners policy.

Compass Pointe runs the same logic with an even sharper split. The Master HOA there covers the Grand Lanai resort pool and lazy river, tennis and pickleball courts, the dog park, and the gates. That's the baseline every owner pays into. But buy a villa in a section like Heron Park or Timber Ridge and your dues climb, because that fee is quietly covering lawn maintenance, irrigation, and often exterior insurance. Buy a custom home on a larger lot in Highland Forest and your dues drop, because you're mowing your own yard and insuring your own roof. Across the community, annual dues span roughly $2,500 to over $7,000, and the number has almost nothing to do with prestige and almost everything to do with how much of your maintenance you're outsourcing.

There's a second layer buyers often miss at Compass Pointe specifically: golf. Wanting to play at the Compass Pointe Golf Club or use the amenities tied to that club means a separate membership on top of HOA dues. You can live in the community, use the pool and the trails, and never see a golf bill. But your base HOA dues don't include a tee time, and assuming otherwise is one of the more common surprises buyers report during due diligence.

What the Range Actually Looks Like

These are directional ranges pulled from public listing data and builder materials, not a substitute for the resale certificate on the specific address you're considering. But the pattern holds across every community in this table: the more the HOA is doing for you physically, the higher the number, regardless of what the house itself costs.

Why This Matters More Than the Median

Leland's citywide median home value sat around $373,000 to $419,000 as of early 2026, depending on the data source. Brunswick Forest's median has run considerably higher, in the $577,000 to $624,450 range across late 2025 and early 2026 public market snapshots. Mallory Creek homes have commonly traded in the mid-$300s to mid-$500s over that same window.

Line those numbers up and it looks like a simple story: Brunswick Forest costs more, Mallory Creek costs less, pick your budget tier and move on. But that comparison only holds at the purchase price. Once you add carrying cost, a Mallory Creek home near the top of its range with dues under $1,020 a year can land close to the same monthly number as a Brunswick Forest home near the bottom of its range with dues north of $3,000. The $50,000 to $100,000 gap in sticker price gets partly closed by a $2,000-a-year gap in dues, compounded over however many years you own the home.

For context on the wider spread, a single-family home in a mid-tier amenity community in Leland can run $90 to $200 a month in HOA dues on the low end, while a small townhome community with no pool might run closer to $45 a month. At the other end, the bundled-service townhome and villa products in Brunswick Forest and Compass Pointe can push past $700 a month once every fee is counted. That's a swing of hundreds of dollars a month between two homes that might list within $20,000 of each other.

The Document That Actually Answers the Question

None of this shows up reliably on a listing sheet. It shows up in the resale certificate and the current operating budget, which every seller in a North Carolina community governed under the state's Planned Community Act is required to make available during a sale. That paperwork tells you the current dues, whether any special assessment is pending, and how well funded the association's reserves are for future repairs. A reserve fund that's healthily funded protects you from a surprise bill down the road. One that's thin is a signal a special assessment could be coming, regardless of what the monthly dues look like today.

Ask for three things before you're deep into a contract: the current budget, the most recent reserve study if one exists, and a written answer on what's bundled into dues versus billed separately. In North Carolina, unpaid HOA assessments can lead to a lien and eventually foreclosure, so this isn't paperwork to skim. It's the actual price tag.

The Town Center Factor

Part of why Brunswick Forest carries higher dues in general is that the community is doing more than most. The Villages at Brunswick Forest is a 160-acre, roughly 500,000-square-foot town center built into the front of the development, with residents able to walk or bike to it on the community's own trail network rather than driving out to Highway 17. WilmingtonBiz reported back in 2022 that the town's economic development office considers Brunswick Forest the single largest contributor to Leland's commercial tax base, a footprint that started, as the community's own history tells it, as a name on a site plan in 2007 with one sales trailer on an empty lot. That kind of built-out convenience costs money to maintain, and the dues reflect it.

Compass Pointe takes a narrower version of the same approach, putting its resources into the Grand Lanai and the club amenities rather than a retail town center. Mallory Creek and newer communities like Grayson Park keep their amenity packages smaller, which is a big part of why their dues run a fraction of the cost.

What to Ask Before You Fall for the Model Home

None of this means one community or product type is the right answer. A retiree who wants to travel three months a year and never think about a lawn again may find that a $700-a-month villa fee is the best money they spend. A buyer who wants a bigger lot and doesn't mind mowing it may find the same amenities for a third of the cost two streets over, in the same gated community. The only way to know which buyer you are is to ask for the actual numbers before you get attached to a floor plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does every Leland master-planned community use a two-tier HOA structure? The largest ones do, including Brunswick Forest and Compass Pointe, where a master association covers community-wide amenities and a neighborhood sub-association handles product-specific costs. Smaller or older subdivisions in Leland are more likely to have a single, simpler HOA.

Are golf memberships included in HOA dues? Not typically. At Compass Pointe, for example, the Master HOA fee covers the Grand Lanai pool, tennis and pickleball courts, and the gates, but access to the Compass Pointe Golf Club requires a separate membership.

What happens in North Carolina if HOA dues go unpaid? An association can charge late fees and interest, suspend amenity access, and eventually file a lien against the property, which can lead to foreclosure. Keeping dues current matters regardless of how small the monthly number looks.

If you're weighing a specific address against its actual carrying cost, not just its sticker price, that's exactly the kind of comparison Better Beach Sales walks through with clients before they write an offer. Schedule a consultation and experience Oak Island and the wider Leland market with someone who reads the budget before you fall for the model home.