Need info on Lake Havasu City please (Phoenix, Prescott: day care, home)

[DORA01]

Hi,

We live in the Bay Area in CA. We have been to Havasu twice and I really loved it, I do have some questions, we are thinking of buying a house there but we are not sure if it will be for vacation or to move there... from what I can see, jobs are not very easy to find, my husband works for a car dealership here as Service Manager and I don't know if he will be able to find a similar position in Havasu and he MUST work... as right now I am unemployed... what kind of businesses are there where he could get employment? Or is there a closer town with similar jobs?

We are going to Havasu this weekend to look at homes and also at jobs. Are we crazy? Would you move from CA to Havasu? What it is fun to me is that if you want to go to Vegas you are only 3 hours away so that is fun. Thank you for any input

[petlover8]

Originally Posted by xray chick

We are looking to move and LHC is one of our options. Would like some info on the stuff that's harder to find.

Taxes: state rate, property rate, cars, etc. Is there city or county tax?

Crime: any areas to watch out for?

Utilities: I asume AC runs year round. What is avg. electricity cost for 1200 sq ft home? Do you even have heat in your houses?

Weather: Do you have humidity or is it a dry heat? Do you get used to not having grass in your lawn and gravel instead? I worry about that, but in Oregon, we have like 6 months of drizzly rain, depressing, cold weather and I hope the sunny skies will be a picker upper!

Critters: Is there a rattlesnake, scorpion, etc. problem? Anything to worry about in the lake?

Attitude: Is the area more Repub or Democrat? Is there a high or low welfare population? I just want to be around people who take more responsibility for themselves instead of letting the government take care of them so they can suck off the system! All it does is ruin the area. Oregon will be a state of retirees and welfare before you know it, and they are running people out because of lack of funding for cops, libraries, road maintenence, etc just so meth heads, lazy (not the truly disabled deserving people-there is a HUGE difference) welfare sucking slugs can live better than hard working people! Please don't defend them. I live here, I see it happening. I don't want to hear about any of it any more.

We see that there are lots of things to do in the area. That is a plus. I am an X-ray tech so work should be easy for me. My husband is an herbicde sprayer for the county public works with a CDL license, so we are looking to see what kind of job he can find.

Anything else would be appreciated!!! Thank you.

Make sure you bring your own money!

[petlover8]

Originally Posted by Sage113

My wife and I are thinking of moving to Lake Havasu City and one of my criteria is music and art. Since you mentioned something along those lines, would you go into more detail please? I live in central Florida and my passion is playing in bands. Do you know if there are any community bands or orchestras in the area? A semi-professional group like maybe a Big Band, jazz band or anything? Is the Symphony a professional group or community and is it based in town? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Sage

My husband and I lived there for 6 years. It is hard to make a living there. The pay is worse than you can amagin. So if you do move there make sure your house is paid for and bring your own money.

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by petlover8

My husband and I lived there for 6 years. It is hard to make a living there. The pay is worse than you can amagin. So if you do move there make sure your house is paid for and bring your own money.

Back in 2001-02 one could buy a new 1,200 SF home with a river view lot for about $75K.

As of a couple of years ago; just that bare lot would go for the above money.

Although with the imploding housing market prices may crash--------it is already imploding in the Bullhead City/Mohave Valley/Needles, Ca. area which avg's 50 miles N of LHC.

[Iakom928]

I moved to Havasu a little over a year ago after coming here since I was 5. My Grandparents lived in the area for 20 years and I was always enchanted by the lake. After about 2 months of living here you get the feeling like something is very wrong as jobs are hard to find and very, very low pay, the way the schools teach the kids were quite a shock to us. We came here with enough money to live on for at least 2 to 3 years, or so we thought! Even though we live quite within our means, I feel like our wallets were vacuumed clean in less than a year due to very low paying jobs and a high cost of living. I must say that I still love the beauty of the lake and the dessert area, but lately we have began to loath the city and many who live in it. (lots of people doing stupid things and drunks, but hey it IS A PARTY TOWN)
If you have kids, this is not a friendly city to them and there is very little for them to do.
Very soon, We are moving back with family to try to get our lives back on track. If you have your heart set on AZ, look towards Phoenix or the central mountain areas, you should like it much better than Havasu.

[arizona_girl]

I am only a French tourist but I have a 2 days experience of LHC: we stayed in an hôtel on the Lake river and I was impressionned by the number of big boats at the back of the cars in the hotel parking !
Another thing I remember: I feld good in this city because it was not to big, like european cities, and very quiet even by night when we were walking ith ours kids under the famous London Bridge.

[nanjosbrand]

I lived in Havasu for two years ago just before the surge in real estate. I absolutely loved it and would be back there in a heartbeat if someone would buy a couple of my houses here in SoDak! The weather is great. Sure, it gets hot in the summertime, but seriously, it is DRY heat!!! The horrible heat only lasts a couple months...July-Sept. Then the rest of the year is gorgeous. I am missing it right now knowing that during the day the temp is 70+ and here in SoDak it's going to be -5 degrees for a high!!! Anyone who knocks Havasu better live a winter in South Dakota!!

[Havasu]

Havasu is a good place to live if you love the outdoors and boating.The job market is not good but a new mall is being built and might help. You MUST like the heat to live here, do not bother moving here if you cant stand heat 115 is very common during the summer.
If you want to see some pictures you can click here----> Home and look around.

[nanjosbrand]

I also want to add that as far as utilities go---electric bills could be as high as $300 in the summer. We had a 1300 square foot home and a pool. In the winter, electric can be high because, yes, we did have to heat our homes. It does get cool at night. I remember being cold for two weeks in January, but get past that, and you won't need the heater anymore.

Oh yeah, and not having grass was great. It keeps the humidity lower and saves water. The only thing you had to do was rake your rocks!

I only saw one rattlesnake in the two years I lived there. We had a scorpion in the house once and the crickets are like albino (much different than midwest crickets)

There were a lot of meth heads in the area, but just stay away from that--stay away from Crystal Beach and Desperate, er um, Desert Hills.

[Dangerous Dave]

Originally Posted by xray chick

We are looking to move and LHC is one of our options. Would like some info on the stuff that's harder to find.

Taxes: state rate, property rate, cars, etc. Is there city or county tax?

Crime: any areas to watch out for?

Utilities: I asume AC runs year round. What is avg. electricity cost for 1200 sq ft home? Do you even have heat in your houses?

Weather: Do you have humidity or is it a dry heat? Do you get used to not having grass in your lawn and gravel instead? I worry about that, but in Oregon, we have like 6 months of drizzly rain, depressing, cold weather and I hope the sunny skies will be a picker upper!

Critters: Is there a rattlesnake, scorpion, etc. problem? Anything to worry about in the lake?

Attitude: Is the area more Repub or Democrat? Is there a high or low welfare population? I just want to be around people who take more responsibility for themselves instead of letting the government take care of them so they can suck off the system! All it does is ruin the area. Oregon will be a state of retirees and welfare before you know it, and they are running people out because of lack of funding for cops, libraries, road maintenence, etc just so meth heads, lazy (not the truly disabled deserving people-there is a HUGE difference) welfare sucking slugs can live better than hard working people! Please don't defend them. I live here, I see it happening. I don't want to hear about any of it any more.

We see that there are lots of things to do in the area. That is a plus. I am an X-ray tech so work should be easy for me. My husband is an herbicde sprayer for the county public works with a CDL license, so we are looking to see what kind of job he can find.

Anything else would be appreciated!!! Thank you.

I live in Oregon as well (for the next week) so I know what you mean about the welfare cases and tweekers.

It's not as prevelant in LHC because it is mostly populated by retirees. Holiday weekends can get hectic with the drunk, high, tweeked out boaters from Kalifornia, but the rest of the time it's nice.

It's very hot. However, you're already in Northern AZ so Flag, Hualapai Mtn. and other places aren't too far off.

You shouldn't have trouble finding a job with the aging population, but I have heard that the hospital sucks.

There's no real crime that I've heard of.

Cars are a hidden cost. Plate taxes are high in AZ compared to OR. Also, maintenence costs are high, since the heat wreaks havoc on batteries and anything on the car that isn't metal. Front wheel drive cars have trouble in the extreme heat since they're closer to the hot pavement and the CV boots get worn quickly and, if you don't watch out, the axles will get full of sand and wear out. Trucks are popular and for good reason, after you get done replacing the transmission in your compact car due to the heat, that $$ you saved on gas won't seem so worth it. Besides, you'll want a boat and you can't pull it with a little japanese car.

Property tax is much lower than what you're used to in Oregon. Gas is cheaper in the LHC area also... about the cheapest in the state.

My aunt and uncle live in LHC. I'm not an expert, but I can tell you what I do know. I did live 2 hours south for over ten years.

LHC is a nice town. Had I lived there instead of Yuma, I probably would have stayed.

PM me if you need more info. I spent a lot of time up there, and I lived in the desert nearby anyway.