Where to spend about $300,000 on a house? (Mesa, Glendale: relocating, fsbo)

[military spouse]

We might be relocating to the PHX area and want a 3 car garage and pool within commuting distance to Sky Harbor and our realtor sent a bunch of listings for Avondale. The houses look great, but after perusing this forum, it sounds like Avondale might not be so great. Any opinions? Is our price range unrealistic? Where else should we consider? We have one daughter (9), a dog, and 2 Harley Davidsons and really want everyone to feel good about the move--hubby is particularly concerned with the transition for his Harleys. The garage and pool are more important to us than square footage. We've been to PHX several times and used to live in Sierra Vista, AZ. Thanks for your help!

[sablebaby]

How far of a drive would be acceptable to the airport? Your price range nowadays will be fine. Early last year we found it difficult to find a home for $300k with a 3 car garage. At least in the areas we were looking in (northern parts of phx, glendale). We finally found ONE house for exactly $300k and we bought it! But now you can find them as the prices have fallen. The area we live in you can find them for around $270k, and they may even have a pool. This would be up near I-17 (west of) and Happy Valley in north Glendale.

I would highly suggest looking around in all parts of the valley before settling on an area. I am very favorable of the north parts (probably considered very far north for some), as there are others that prefer the west side or the east side. The phx metro area is just so HUGE, it's a daunting task to find your spot. Good luck!

[Ponderosa]

Avondale is OK north of I-10 in the Rancho Santa Fe area and east of there in Garden Lakes (that might be Glendale or something, not sure). But anyway, north of I-10 is fine. Goodyear is better as it is more "toney" in general than Avondale and it only adds about 5 minutes to the commute and 10% to the prices, but there are deals in Goodyear too. If you say you live in Goodyear, people say, Oh. If you say you live in Avondale it's more like, oohh, if you get my drift. To be honest, it is splitting hairs, but that's the way it is.

[military spouse]

Thanks for the responses!! I looked up the houses in Avondale and it appears that they are South of I-10. When we go out there, will we recognize why it is not considered a nice area? What will we see? We will be there for such a short period of time, I just want to make sure that nice areas appear nice and bad areas appear bad. I sure would hate to make a mistake. I did email our realtor and ask her to include some listings for Chandler and Gilbert. Are there many FSBO or how does one find a good deal. It seems overwhelming with 55,000 houses on the market. Thanks again!

[Ponderosa]

I think you will find it looks really nice S of I-10. Lots of new stores, schools, homes, manicured parks. It is very attractive. And maybe it will stay that way. But the trend around PHX is that lower priced areas go bad over a period of 10 years or so as people move out and rentals take over. There are some differences from the past including HOAs, city ordinances, the cost of moving up these days, the better quality of the neighborhoods and the stores and the growing economic power and wealth of groups that traditionally lived in these areas. So it may be different. Avondale certainly has big plans to be a nice place to live - they have a nice restored downtown area, their city buildings are the Taj Majal of the west Valley, and they have sales tax money coming in by the boat load due to an ambitious commercialization of the freeway corridors. Keep an open mind until you see it.

[military spouse]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

I think you will find it looks really nice S of I-10. Lots of new stores, schools, homes, manicured parks. It is very attractive. And maybe it will stay that way. But the trend around PHX is that lower priced areas go bad over a period of 10 years or so as people move out and rentals take over. There are some differences from the past including HOAs, city ordinances, the cost of moving up these days, the better quality of the neighborhoods and the stores and the growing economic power and wealth of groups that traditionally lived in these areas. So it may be different. Avondale certainly has big plans to be a nice place to live - they have a nice restored downtown area, their city buildings are the Taj Majal of the west Valley, and they have sales tax money coming in by the boat load due to an ambitious commercialization of the freeway corridors. Keep an open mind until you see it.

Thanks again for the email. My concern is that Avondale will look nice to us initially, but maybe it isn't as nice as it appears. Does that make any sense? We will probably be looking for such a short period of time and I don't want to live in a place where people say, "Oh, they live in Avondale." Not that I care to keep up with the Joneses, but I don't want to live somewhere with crime and unemployed/underemployed people or unkept houses. I just don't know that I want to go up in price. I did start looking at some houses with pools, but only a 2 car garage and it appeared we could expand our seach to Surprise, Mesa (seems iffy), and Gilbert. Thanks for any and all your help!

[Boatdrinks]

You can find homes in your price range in Gilbert and also Queen Creek. I'd recommend both those cities over Avondale, though I'm no expert on Avondale so take my feedback for what it's worth. If you only have to go to the airport and won't be commuting downtown, you could chose either Gilbert or QC and do well. You'll get more for your money in Queen Creek, but you're further out and resale will be tough. Gilbert is a great place to live and raise kids and you'll find houses in your price range with a better location and more commercial options then Queen Creek.

I don't know much about the west valley, aside from driving around looking at a few neighborhoods. Avondale didn't seem very nice to me as we drove throught it on our way to Estrella Mountain Ranch, but we definitely didn't see it all - there probably are nice areas. It mostly depends on where you'll be working and your commute.

check www.aznb.com - you can pull up neighborhoods from a map and look at resales to give you a good idea of prices and what you get for your money.

[sablebaby]

There is NO reason to only look at Avondale. As my previous post states, there are numerous areas that you can find what you are looking for. Tell your agent to search other areas. Tell her to put in your price range and 3 car garage for all the phx metro cities and send you what comes up. Too bad I gave up my license last month or else I'd give you more ideas of actual areas.

[military spouse]

Thanks for the responses! I emailed the agent yesterday asking her to expand the search and hopefully she will send some more listings. I would really like to have an area narrowed down by the time we get there, so we just need to look at houses in that one area. I don't want to spend our entire vacation driving across the metro area. When we were out there looking before, I do remember liking Gilbert and Estrella Mtn. Ranch. We did look at Queen Creek about 2 years ago, but it seemed so isolated and perhaps a bit far from the airport. Thanks for all the help. I would have gone out there just looking at Avondale because the listings looked beautiful and I would have had no idea that maybe it isn't the best option.

[military spouse]

Anyone care to compare Surprise to Goodyear? The edge of Surprise is on my map, so maybe it is too far. Hubby doesn't want to deal with a bunch of freeway interchanges--wants more of straight shot. Can you tell we grew up in SoCal?