Suggestions for a trip to Verde Valley area?

[desertgardener]

Thanks to everyone for the replies. We should be able to plan a helpful trip now. We will be looking at areas where a little bit of acreage can be found, and we're still very curious about the water issues. I've seen some interesting discussions about it here.

[bongofury]

Nice irrigated large lot real estate in old Cornville and out Camp Verde way along Salt Mine Road and around Quarterhorse. Chino Valley has horse property lots and some prefer being closer to Prescott with all the shopping and food choices, but if I was a horse person looking it would be residential acreage lots in/near Cornville and Camp Verde. Since 2010 I'm seeing a big uptick of retirement/close-to-retirement folks out here from California looking for places to buy. The real estate bargains are being snapped-up and the inventory of all listings is down while demand is stronger than its been in many years.

It takes a real change in mindset/expectations to make the leap from the "buzz" of SoCal, and while escaping the traffic and poor air quality is an easy decision for most, I reckon there's a real turmoil leaving behind friends, and the wide variety of entertainment, restaurant, shopping choices. In my case its taken over six years to adjust to life in Central Arizona after a military life of moving every three or so years most of my life - to settle down was a challenge. I believe much of what determines successful transitions in life comes down to attitude, even trumping the ability to adapt. A winning attitude takes one far.

[desertgardener]

Thanks again for the comments before our trip to Verde Valley. Thought I would post some thoughts here about what we saw. We are horse owners looking for a place to retire with lots of open land, to keep our horses at home and be able to ride out of our property instead of trailering everywhere. In AZ we were looking at the Verde Valley, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley. We stayed in Prescott because the hotels seemed reasonable. I shouldn’t have planned a trip during monsoon month, everything was green; I kinda wanted to see the place at its worst.
There’s certainly horse property to be had in Prescott Valley but almost everything is really flat. Too boring; crossed it off our list.
On the map Jerome looked possible. Hah, that will teach me to look at elevations! Interesting little place but not for horses. Cross that off the list. Cool highway to get there though.
Had interesting conversations with a realtor and a lady at the tourist information booth about Clarkdale and Cottonwood. They sort of contradicted each other about city regs and water availability, which are some of our major concerns. The properties we looked at were big enough but there were a lot of junk cars and trailers scattered about, and we looked at pretty much everything on the list the realtor gave us. Nice people though, they wanted to be helpful.
Camp Verde has some really nice horse properties near the river. Beautiful. Most of them out of our price range tho there’s some we could manage. But there are a LOT of them for sale in the one area – seemed like 20% or more - made us wonder if there was something wrong there. Flooding maybe? Or we saw a big wood lot operation not too far from there and wondered just how far the sounds of their saws travel. Had a nice talk with the ranger at the Forest Service too, there seems to be plenty of volunteer options nearby. I’m afraid we didn’t see much of Cornville; very few properties on our list, it was close to the end of the day and we were getting tired. Probably should have tried to get off the main road there or gone back the next day.
Found a wonderful equestrian neighborhood on the outskirts of Sedona not terribly far from Red Rock State Park. Like Camp Verde most of it out of our price range but there were possibilities. But some roads were so narrow we probably wouldn’t be able to get our big trailer through. Curious how people manage...we only saw the little two-horse trailers in yards. No idea about water there – didn’t see many lawns but there were big trees and some nice landscaping.
Lots of horse property in Chino Valley, looks like enough local hills and valleys to be interesting riding, as long as you weren’t trespassing on private property. Saw some pronghorn antelope! It’s a bit more rural but close enough to Prescott if you need something major. No idea about water either but we saw a lot of cattle, I’m guessing there must be grazing most of the year.
It was definitely an eye-opening trip. Haven’t made up our minds what we’re going to do, we have a few years to go and other places to see.

[azdr0710]

very nice summary....thanks