Griffin Ranch's New Homes Aren't Priced Higher Per Square Foot. They're Just Bigger.

Ask why the newest homes in Griffin Ranch start at $2.27 million while a resale two streets over lists for $1.6 million, and most buyers reach for the obvious explanation. New construction costs more. It always does.

Run the actual square footage against the actual price, and that explanation stops holding up. The premium isn't in the price. It's in the plan.

One Gate, One Clubhouse, Two Very Different Listings

Griffin Ranch has operated as a single gated community since it opened in 2007, and every home inside it, whether it closed escrow in 2015 or will close in 2027, shares the same entry gate and the same Griffin Club: a roughly 10,000-square-foot clubhouse with a resort-style pool and spa, tennis and pickleball courts, a fitness center, and bocce courts. That part hasn't changed with the new construction.

What has changed is the math a buyer does at the gate. For a decade, everyone touring Griffin Ranch was comparing resale homes to other resale homes. As of 2026, they're also comparing resale to a small, final batch of new construction from Toll Brothers, and the two price tags don't behave the way most people expect.

One detail worth confirming before anyone writes an offer: published HOA figures for Griffin Ranch have shown up in recent listing materials as both roughly $575 and roughly $610 a month. That's a modest spread, but it's exactly the kind of number that should come from the HOA's current budget documents rather than from whichever listing sheet a buyer happens to pull first.

How a 2007 Community Ended Up With a 2026 Punch List

Griffin Ranch was always planned as a 221-home community. It opened in 2007 with a first wave of residents, then construction stalled for years afterward. Lennar picked the project back up and, in a March 2014 announcement, described its work there as a renaissance for the community, building out most of the remaining home sites over the following decade. A 2016 feature in Palm Springs Life on the community's indoor-outdoor design noted that at the time, there were 221 home sites planned and approximately 50 residents whose homes had been built by a prior developer, which gives a sense of how much of the build-out still lay ahead at that point.

The last piece of that plan is what Toll Brothers is finishing now. The builder first announced the project in June 2025, describing it as bringing new luxury homes to a community it called special, and its own marketing has been direct about what these lots represent: the final opportunity to own a new construction home within Griffin Ranch. The model home and sales center opened for tours on May 2, 2026, with just 37 estate-sized home sites total. Once those 37 close, Griffin Ranch's new-construction chapter is over. Everything built after that is resale.

What $2.27 Million Actually Buys

The Toll Brothers homes come in three single-story floor plans ranging from about 4,100 to over 4,300 square feet, with four to five bedrooms, four and a half to six bathrooms, and three- or four-car garages. Select plans add cabanas or multigenerational living suites, and buyers work through Toll Brothers' own design studio to personalize finishes before closing.

Pricing is quoted starting at $2.27 million, and the builder's own site gives a clearer picture of what that looks like in practice. As of this summer, two of the community's quick move-in homes were listed at $2,324,000 for a 4,208-square-foot plan and $2,428,000 for a 4,182-square-foot plan, putting both in the $550 to $580 per square foot range.

What the Resale Floor Actually Buys

Across the original Lennar-era section of Griffin Ranch, recent resale listings have spanned roughly $1.6 million to $2.8 million, for homes ranging from about 3,100 to 4,700 square feet. Do the same per-square-foot math on that range and it lands between roughly $489 and $596, depending on lot, floor plan, and finish level.

That range isn't dramatically different from what the new Toll Brothers homes are commanding. The upper end of the resale market actually overlaps with new construction pricing per square foot. What's genuinely different is the floor.

The Real Math: A Size Floor, Not a Price Premium

Here's the part worth sitting with. A buyer who wanted the least expensive way into Griffin Ranch used to have a real option: a smaller resale home, somewhere around 3,100 square feet, priced near $1.6 million. That option still exists on the resale side. It does not exist on the new-construction side, because none of the three remaining Toll Brothers floor plans come in under roughly 4,100 square feet.

So the $2.27 million entry point to new construction isn't Toll Brothers charging a premium for the privilege of being new. It's the natural result of every remaining lot being sized for an estate-scale home. Buyers aren't paying more per square foot to buy new in Griffin Ranch. They're being asked to buy more square feet than the smallest resale option offers, whether or not that's the home they actually wanted.

That distinction matters for anyone budgeting against a target price rather than a target size. If $1.8 million is the ceiling, the new-construction side of Griffin Ranch isn't a stretch. It's simply off the table, regardless of what the per-square-foot math says.

Four Questions Worth Asking Before You Choose a Side

1. What is the current, board-confirmed HOA due, not the figure printed on a listing sheet that may not reflect this year's budget?
2. How many of the 37 Toll Brothers lots remain unsold right now, and does the builder expect any future release of a smaller floor plan, or is 4,100 square feet the practical floor going forward?
3. When comparing a specific new listing to a specific resale listing, what is each one's actual price per square foot, rather than a rough sense of "new costs more"?
4. If buying resale, does the home's age, layout, or finish level match what a 2026 buyer expects, or does it carry a discount for exactly that reason?

What Happens When Lot 37 Sells

Once the last of the 37 new-construction homes closes, Griffin Ranch becomes a resale-only market for good. There is no more land inside the gate to build on. For owners of the original Lennar-era homes, that has a practical upside: the newest comparable sales in the neighborhood will, for the foreseeable future, be priced well above $2 million, which gives appraisers and buyers a higher recent reference point than the community has had in years. For future buyers, it means the choice this post lays out won't exist much longer. Once the last lot sells, "new in Griffin Ranch" simply stops being an option.

A Few Common Questions

Do new-construction buyers pay the same HOA as resale owners? Both segments draw on the same Griffin Club and gate, so dues should be structured the same way across the community. Confirm the current figure directly with the HOA rather than relying on a listing sheet, since published numbers have varied in recent months.

Will Toll Brothers release a smaller, less expensive floor plan later in the build-out? Nothing in the builder's public materials points to that. All three current plans start above 4,100 square feet, and with only 37 total lots, there isn't much room left to introduce a fourth, smaller design.

Is Griffin Ranch done growing after these 37 homes? Based on the original 221-home plan and the framing of this phase as the community's final new-construction opportunity, yes. This appears to be the last inventory event Griffin Ranch will see.

If you're weighing a resale home against one of the last new-construction lots in Griffin Ranch, or trying to figure out what either one means for your budget and your timeline, Donna Ambrose can walk through the current listings, the HOA specifics, and what the math actually looks like for your situation. Let's connect.