Moving to Az. places NOT to live? (Phoenix, Mesa: new home, university)

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by goose7

my advice: Stay where you are! I cant wait to get out of this armpit they call Phoenix!

For the record: on the 'armpit' scale; I can think of many worse places to live than Phoenix.

Needless to say: I referring to metro areas of 1 million people or greater.

[esselcue]

You are moving from the green to the brown, unless you are looking at the mountains, where all four seasons are the norm. I live up near Prescott and it is beautiful here, although growing way too fast. The valley cities are way too hot for me, I would not touch Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma or any other desert town, but that's just me. For others they are Paradise. Lots of crime in the bigger cities, though, so choose carefully.

[Callygirl]

Honestly......stay away from Eloy, AZ unless you want high crime and bars on all your windows to feel safe at night. Sure, real cheap property.....but unless you want to travel a LONG way to work....look elsewhere. Try Casa Grande. Hotter than Hades in the summer but a growing town. You can still find some work there. Queen Creek is going down hill fast. Foreclosures left and right. Well......that can be said for most of Pinal County. Good if you are retiring. Buy cheap. If you need to work than you are stuck with the Phoenix area and high crime and heavy traffic and high heat and humidity. Tucson is better....at least by 10 degrees in the summer. Prettier place to live. If you want cooler temps than you need to look up north more, like Payson, ShowLow, Prescott, Flagstaff, etc. Lots of places....BUT the housing is high. Some places as much as California prices. I lived in Arizona 25 years. Had enough. Don't want to see the hot desert anymore. You all are welcome to it.

[BillyBaroo]

Originally Posted by Callygirl

Honestly......stay away from Eloy, AZ unless you want high crime and bars on all your windows to feel safe at night. Sure, real cheap property.....but unless you want to travel a LONG way to work....look elsewhere.

I like Eloy's potential, not much right now, but I think it has an interesting future over the next ten years.

[Tourist beware]

Don't move to Lake Havasu. google lake havasu corrupt police.

[UKFSChick]

Originally Posted by Callygirl

... Try Casa Grande. Hotter than Hades in the summer but a growing town. You can still find some work there. ...

Yes Casa Grande is an increasingly popular place for relocators and commuters to Phoenix. The demographic changes almost daily as more people move to the town for a higher standard of living and more bang for your buck. The new mall is great, and is attracting more stores, restaurants. etc. You will find a range of homes to suit any pocket and taste in CG...from older character homes to 55+ to luxury apartments to value family homes to golf homes to lakeside property to gated luxury communities to $1m+ mountainside acreage properties and so on...

It is also the 13th most popular place to retire to in the whole of the USA.

Casa Grande is a great place to invest right now. It will be crazy here in a few years.

Emma

[IMoveU]

I would look at a map of the area around Phoenix and then check out the City-Data stats available on this website. Why 50 miles? Retirement, affordability, other?

[outtachicago]

New here and I just started reading this thread and it scared the heck out of me! My husband and I just got back from AZ this past week for a vacation. We tossed around the idea of moving there and decided that we are making Arizona part of our "five year plan". Most of his family is there, so we do have some reasons to move there. We just fell in love. I didn't see many run down homes, or bad areas. I guess we weren't looking! We're in Chicago where it is extremely overpriced and the weather is awful.
We're looking for homes around 300K-350K. Are homes priced in that price range nice? We've only done some searching on realtor.com, so I'm not really sure what the neighborhoods are like.
There was a post comparing Chicago traffic to Phoenix traffic-I'll gladly take the Phoenix traffic any day

[Clint_Noname]

Originally Posted by Callygirl

Honestly......stay away from Eloy, AZ unless you want high crime and bars on all your windows to feel safe at night. Sure, real cheap property.....but unless you want to travel a LONG way to work....look elsewhere. Try Casa Grande. Hotter than Hades in the summer but a growing town. You can still find some work there. Queen Creek is going down hill fast. Foreclosures left and right. Well......that can be said for most of Pinal County. Good if you are retiring. Buy cheap. If you need to work than you are stuck with the Phoenix area and high crime and heavy traffic and high heat and humidity. Tucson is better....at least by 10 degrees in the summer. Prettier place to live. If you want cooler temps than you need to look up north more, like Payson, ShowLow, Prescott, Flagstaff, etc. Lots of places....BUT the housing is high. Some places as much as California prices. I lived in Arizona 25 years. Had enough. Don't want to see the hot desert anymore. You all are welcome to it.

Tucson actually has a higher crime rate than Phoenix. Why do you say that it's a better place to live, yet don't mention how bad the crime is?

Anyways, judging by crime and population statistics...Phoenix and Tucson are probably the places to avoid in Arizona. High crime, too much growth and sprawl, and I didn't need to look at people's comments to know that Phoenix definitely has a lot of traffic. There are probably little towns in Arizona I don't even know about that should be avoided.

[caterwaulin]

I moved out of the valley to Globe. I had to take a pay cut, but considering environment and all for my kids, I took the plunge. No matter where you live, there are pros & cons. You just have to decide what is right for you.