Ask a dozen people shopping the 55+ market around Gainesville and Haymarket which community is the smarter buy, Heritage Hunt or Regency at Dominion Valley, and you'll get a dozen answers built on the same comparison: HOA dues here, a club fee there, maybe a price per square foot. Line those numbers up and it feels like due diligence. It isn't the question that actually decides how you'll live.
The difference that matters isn't which number is smaller. It's who owns the golf course, how many boards sit between you and a decision about your dues, and whether the gate you drive through protects one community or sits nested inside a much larger one. Those structural facts shape your ownership experience for the next fifteen years, long after the day-one fee comparison stops mattering.
The Gate Behind the Gate
Heritage Hunt sits behind a single perimeter gate in Gainesville, with one staffed entry point controlling access to the entire community. What's inside that gate is what you're buying: an Arthur Hills golf course, two clubhouses, pools, tennis courts, and just over 1,800 homes, all under one homeowners association.
Regency works differently. Its gate sits inside the boundary of Dominion Valley, the much larger master-planned development that surrounds it. Drive to Regency and you pass through Dominion Valley's own streets first, then through Regency's separate gate. You end up buying into two layers of governance at once, not one. Regency and the surrounding Dominion Valley community are managed by separate companies, which means separate assessments show up on separate statements. A Regency owner's monthly housing cost isn't one number. It's the Regency line plus whatever the broader Dominion Valley structure requires, a distinction that's easy to miss when a listing simply says "gated 55+ community" without specifying which gate you're actually behind.
Whose Name Is on the Golf Course
Heritage Hunt's country club, including the golf course and clubhouse operations, is owned by the residents themselves and run by a homeowner board rather than a developer or outside management company. That ownership status has a direct financial consequence: because residents control the club, Heritage Hunt has kept golf fully optional, priced and billed separately from the base HOA assessment every homeowner pays whether or not they play. A resident with zero interest in golf isn't quietly funding the course through monthly dues.
Regency's course, an Arnold Palmer design, sits closer to the center of the community's identity. Community materials describe two on-site dining venues built around the golf experience, and the Dominion Valley golf shop lists a social membership starting around $67 a month, with full playing membership priced higher. Confirm current tiers directly with the golf shop before writing an offer, since these numbers move. But the pattern holds regardless of the exact figure: golf and dining at Regency read less like an add-on you can decline and more like part of what the address is already selling you.
Neither approach is better on its face. But treating a "club fee" at Heritage Hunt the same way you'd treat one at Regency is where the comparison breaks down. One buys you the option to golf. The other describes something closer to what living there already includes.
Three Doors In at Regency, One Flat Door at Heritage Hunt
Regency's roughly 950 homes break into three ownership tiers, each carrying its own HOA fee level:
- Greenbrier condominiums (226 units): the most affordable entry point, built in elevator buildings with a security gate and fire sprinklers, HOA-covered exterior maintenance, and a lock-and-leave lifestyle.
- Georgetown attached homes (199 units): patio-style living with an attached garage and HOA-covered exterior upkeep, popular with buyers moving down from a larger house.
- Detached single-family homes (533 units): the largest floor plans, built by Toll Brothers, some backing to the golf course or wooded lots.
Real listing examples show how sharply the fee stack changes by tier. One detached-home listing carried a $380 monthly HOA fee plus a $66 recreation fee and a capital contribution. One condo listing carried $490 in HOA fees, a $505 condo fee, a $100 elevator-use fee, and the same $66 recreation fee. Those are examples pulled from individual listings, not a fixed schedule, but they illustrate the point: at Regency, your tier determines your fee stack almost as much as your square footage does.
Heritage Hunt runs differently. Home prices stretch from condos starting near $300,000 through attached homes averaging around $500,000 to detached homes averaging roughly $770,000, with premium lots pushing past $1 million. But the base HOA assessment is the same flat number for every homeowner regardless of which tier they bought into. That means the amenity cost is spread thinnest, as a share of home value, for the buyer on the priciest lot, and thickest for the buyer in the entry-level condo. There's no tiered fee ladder to climb. There's one number, applied uniformly, with golf sitting entirely outside it.
A quoted "club fee" tells you almost nothing until you know whether it's optional at one address and closer to mandatory at the other.
What This Means When You Write the Offer
If predictability matters more than golf-course prestige, Heritage Hunt's flat assessment and optional golf membership give you a cost structure that doesn't change based on whether you play eighteen holes or never touch a club. You know your number, and it isn't tied to your handicap.
If an established clubhouse culture with golf and dining built into the address matters more than fee simplicity, Regency may be the better fit, with two caveats worth building into your offer timeline. First, ask for the resale disclosure packet from both the Regency association and the broader Dominion Valley association. Two organizations mean two sets of governing documents, and potentially two separate disclosure packets under Virginia's HOA resale law, which can extend how long you need before you can close cleanly. Second, if you're looking at a Greenbrier condo, confirm which sub-association, Greenbrier I or Greenbrier II, governs that specific building. Each runs its own board and its own reserve fund, and the two aren't identical.
Buyers who compare only the sticker price end up choosing a governance model by accident. Buyers who ask who owns the course and how many boards stand between them and a future special assessment end up choosing a lifestyle on purpose.
We've written in more depth about the settlement-day numbers at each community. If you want the full ledger of 2026 assessment figures and special-assessment history at Heritage Hunt, we broke that down in our Heritage Hunt buyer ledger. If Regency's fee stack and governance structure is the piece you need next, our Regency fit guide walks through it home type by home type.
A Short FAQ
Are both communities technically in Haymarket? Regency sits in Haymarket. Heritage Hunt sits nearby in Gainesville, close enough that the two are routinely cross-shopped by the same buyers, though they fall in different parts of Prince William County.
Can a Heritage Hunt homeowner skip golf entirely and pay nothing extra? Yes. Golf membership is optional and billed separately from the base HOA assessment, which covers the community's non-golf amenities regardless of whether you join the club.
Does a Regency condo owner pay into more than one association? Yes. Condo owners in the Greenbrier buildings pay into their specific sub-association, either Greenbrier I or Greenbrier II, in addition to the overall Regency Owners Association, and separately from any Dominion Valley-wide assessment.
Which community has more total homes? Heritage Hunt has just over 1,800 homes under one association. Regency's three tiers combine for roughly 950 homes, a smaller footprint spread across condos, attached homes, and detached single-family lots.
Comparing two 55+ communities on price alone will tell you which one costs less this year. It won't tell you which board you're trusting with your reserve fund, or whether you're paying for a golf course you'll never use. If you're ready to walk both properties with someone who can read the governing documents before you write an offer, Washington Street Realty is glad to schedule a consultation and help you compare the two on the terms that actually matter.
