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53 weeks ago we made our first Arizona trip with the express purpose of finding a community to live out the rest of our days. There's something final about putting it in those words. "The rest of our days" seems to imply we're looking for a place to die. Not true, we're looking for a place to live .
Arizona has many advantages not least of which is the cost of living. I began receiving my Social Security retirement benefits couple years ago. Those benefits are taxed in Minnesota as regular income. They are NOT taxed in Arizona. Then there's housing costs. The real estate crash hit us hard in Minnesota. The crash of 2008 also hit homeowners in Arizona. According to a source in the financial planning industry home prices fell on average 35%. Immigrants can take advantage of these lower home prices making this state even more affordable.
When we first began looking for an age restricted community it seemed similar to drinking from a fire hose. Good Heavens! There are so many places from which to choose. A criteria was needed to start eliminating some of the choices. A priority list needed to be established. This became a process of getting to know our own wants and needs not just a process of finding a future home. What do we really need in a community? What do we really want?
The list of priorities was an ever changing list. I fear putting that down on "paper" now because the same list would likely look different tomorrow. Housing costs, HOA financial stability, house design, neighborhood design, size of property lots, landscaping, convenience to shopping, medical care access and this list goes on and on. There are so many communities that satisfy our wants and needs. But where in the state is the best of the best?
Arizona is a diverse state with diverse weather. When you're viewing from Minnesota the thought of living in a place where summer temperatures routinely hover at 110+ degrees is a frightening prospect. We started thinking perhaps the cooler climes around Tucson may be better than the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix). After our first summer visit we decided this may not make that much difference. We didn't really notice the difference between 106 and 110. Maybe you can. We eliminated communities in southern Arizona for reasons stated elsewhere in this thread. No need to belabor the points here.
Northern Arizona from Prescott to Flagstaff and everything in between is also a very nice place. Our economic reality made this choice impossible. We found age-restricted communities in these locations to be too pricey for our pocketbook. Plus I'm not sure I wanted to experience any snow in the winter and the Flagstaff area does get snow. I recall a Thanksgiving weekend in Sedona many years ago when the red rocks were covered with a heavy wet snow. We have chosen the Phoenix area as our future home.
Even in this one area there are so many community choices. For reasons stated elsewhere in this thread we eliminated some very, very good communities. I still think the very first retirement community in the nation, Sun City and it's neighbor, Sun City West are fabulous, affordable, well run communities. They just weren't a good fit for us. We narrowed our list down to two.
Sun City Grand, Del Webb's third development in this region and Sun City Festival (his newest as of this writing) are our final choices. We've spent the last 8 days taking a very good look at these two "towns". We've been staying in Festival which is located about a dozen miles west of Sun City Grand. It's our second stay here. 3 days ago we were sure Festival would be our home. Now it has moved to second place. We prefer the floor plans of Festival. The houses just seem to live better for our lifestyle. But we're not really buying a house.
A few years ago I held a real estate broker's license. I represented only buyers. I kept telling my clients what I myself practice. "Don't buy a house, buy a location. Buy the community or the neighborhood." For that reason we now think Sun City Grand is our best choice.
There's no denying Sun City Grand is gorgeous. Every time we visited the area (this is our third visit in a year) we would drive by on Bell Road and say with excitement in our voices "there's Sun City Grand". It is a grand entrance to the community with it's water falls and golf courses surrounded by very nice looking houses. We spent a Sunday afternoon sitting by the stream in the Sonoran Plaza a year ago drinking coffee, watching birds and enjoying the peaceful sound of the abundant water features. Otherwise we would just drive on by and seemed to think the housing was beyond our conservative price point. This time it was different.
On this visit we started realizing that if we got the house we needed to fit our lifestyle we'd probably have to spend more money (damn!). We got whip-sawed in the real estate crash and we're not going to let it happen again. Then again, we can't let what happened half a decade ago dictate the life we have now. Our budget increased from below $200,000 to the upper $200-thousands. That covers a lot of housing opportunities here and in many communities. Then there are the amenities.
Sun City Festival is a gorgeous community on the grow. It's fairly new and in it's early stages of growing to over 7.000 homes. Festival has a gorgeous recreation center, a woodworking and craft shop a swimming pool (how is it the 'trendy' folks describe it? Oh yes, "to die for"). But in these early stages of development it lacks a lot. It does not have dedicated rooms for many of the activities. Various groups might use the same room in the rec center for a weekly meeting. Sun City Grand does it differently.
You can find dedicated facilities in SC Grand for lapidary, stitching, art, music, etc. My wife is a quilter. I don't mean she knows how and once in a while sits down to her machine and works on a project. I mean my wife is a quilter. It's what she does every day. Sun City Grand has a room equipped with sewing machines so quilters don't have to lug there own machines back and forth from home (unless they want to). They also have a long-arm machine. Quilters know what I just wrote. I won't detail it here because if you're not a quilter or living with one you'd never understand what that means in the first place. I will say having that piece of equipment available is HUGE.
Festival is physically located in a rather remote spot with only a gas station and market available next door. Sun City Grand is within a few minutes of everything from groceries to medical care. We love the drive from Festival down Bell Road to all the shopping (which is next door to Grand). It's a very scenic drive with cactus and mountains. But how long will it seem scenic if you have to drive it several times a week?
We are about 6 months to a year from making a purchase but after almost 2 years of research I'm very happy to say Sun City Grand will likely be our home by this time next year. But, things change and predicting with certainty what the future holds is a fools game. I could be back on these pages in a week, a month or even tomorrow writing about our change of heart. I doubt it, but never say never.
I've enjoyed writing about our adventure not only because it might be of benefit to others but because it gave me a good record of my own thoughts. I've been able to look back on these visits and remember our impressions of various communities and locations. I've benefited from your responses to these writings. i've had so many good (and bad) suggestions that have increased the value of my own experience. I've had many 'thank you' notes sent or published here. Now it's my turn.
THANK YOU all for making this experience great. THANK YOU for taking the time to read these sometimes rambling posts. THANK YOU for participating in ours and your own search for the very best 55+ community. Most important however is passing on this information so others can make their own wise choice.
Thank YOU, GeneR for the update. (STILL can't rep you... Here's a virtual +10!) The suspense was killing me --- LOL! I will definitely give Sun City Grand a look. I am renting down in Green Valley and have concluded it is not a good match for me -too small and remote for my liking.
Have a safe trip back home. Congrats on a job well done!
Congratulations on getting this far in your search, and THANK YOU for your contributions to this forum. I know a lot of us will be directing people with questions about AZ retirement communities to your threads. What a wealth of information.
Congrats on your pending move Gene! Forgetting all the trade-offs for a moment, Sun City Grand is GRAND! It certainly would be on my short list and I could easily live in that community. If someone didn't like SCG, then I'd consider them "visually challenged" and darn hard to please.
Del Webb is darn good at developing these communities. Those existing developments also seem to reinvent themselves as time marches on.
I greatly appreciate your research. I'm a few years behind you, so your research is extremely helpful. Just a few questions for you or others:
1. Did you come across any greater Phoenix 55+ communities that are not inextricably linked to golf? I have nothing against golf, but. like you, am not a golfer. It seems most of these communities spend a disproportionate amount of revenue relative to golfers in the community. With golf waning among boomers and water costs rapidly rising, I see these proportions getting further out of whack as time passes. As such, the majority is greatly subsidizing the few. This is a concern and something I would like to avoid.
2. Do you find the better home value is coming in after the developer has closed out? That is, are you better off buying from someone that bought from the developer (or successive generations)?
GeneR:
I greatly appreciate your research. I'm a few years behind you, so your research is extremely helpful. Just a few questions for you or others:
1. Did you come across any greater Phoenix 55+ communities that are not inextricably linked to golf? I have nothing against golf, but. like you, am not a golfer. It seems most of these communities spend a disproportionate amount of revenue relative to golfers in the community. With golf waning among boomers and water costs rapidly rising, I see these proportions getting further out of whack as time passes. As such, the majority is greatly subsidizing the few. This is a concern and something I would like to avoid.
2. Do you find the better home value is coming in after the developer has closed out? That is, are you better off buying from someone that bought from the developer (or successive generations)?
In my earliest investigations I was a bit concerned about the operating cost of golf but that concern just melted away. There are communities where the courses are privately operated and are not a burden on a homeowners association. I confess I just didn't look into each community and the golf issue. I do know that Corte Bella is a private course and financed by users (if they're making money, if not, the operator loses, not the hoa).
I personally prefer seeing golf courses in a community and, if the price were right, I'd seriously consider a golf course property. We like the "open space" that comes with the design. However, location along a fairway can be an issue unless you don't mind golf balls landing on your roof or in your yard .
Concerning resale vs. new: my definitive answer is....it depends. We're still torn between Sun City Grand and Sun City Festival. Grand is our favorite today but if a good deal came up on a new construction home in Festival we would be very, very tempted. Trouble with new is the additional cost of landscaping (and waiting for it to mature) and window treatments. These two additional items can run thousands and thousands of dollars so, even if you get a screamin' deal on a new construction, the additional cost may zero out any discount. In addition, newer communities do not have the amenities of the established choices. Grand has dozens of amenities not yet available in Festival. It may be 5, 10, 15 years before Festival has the options now available in Grand.
In my investigation I started paying more attention to the community as a whole, the lot size (older communities tend to have larger lots therefore more space between houses), location, the amenities and the demographics of the residents. If you're looking for the best value only, hands down it would be Sun City or Sun City West. Both have golf courses and amenities up the wazoo. No other communities even come close. But we made our decision giving more weight to other considerations over "best buy".
Your considerations are good ones. It indicates you're thinking about the little things (maybe not so little) in making a choice. Our list of concerns was, no make that IS, constantly changing. I suspect yours might also. I encourage you to continue to think out loud on these pages. Air your thoughts and concerns. You'll get a lot of help from other readers and users. Take advantage of it.
Trouble with new is the additional cost of landscaping (and waiting for it to mature) and window treatments. These two additional items can run thousands and thousands of dollars so, even if you get a screamin' deal on a new construction, the additional cost may zero out any discount.
Gene, You might want to consider a spec home. We just bought one and landscaping and window treatments were included. Also thrown in were a ton of other upgrades at a huge discount that would have cost a buyer buying "new" much more. Food for thought.
We are "boomers" who are very happy in Sun City West. Visited all the same area communities as Gene and SCW made the most sense to us financially. We have friends of all ages in our community as well as new friends that we have met from other 55+ communities in the area. My advice to people has been to do exactly as Gene and I did. Don't choose or refuse any community based on what someone says. Go visit each one and see for yourself. I am sure we would have been just as happy at several other 55+ communities as they are all real nice.
We are "boomers" who are very happy in Sun City West. Visited all the same area communities as Gene and SCW made the most sense to us financially. We have friends of all ages in our community as well as new friends that we have met from other 55+ communities in the area. My advice to people has been to do exactly as Gene and I did. Don't choose or refuse any community based on what someone says. Go visit each one and see for yourself. I am sure we would have been just as happy at several other 55+ communities as they are all real nice.
Goodfellas et al: What are the major differences between SCW and the original Sun City? What made you choose Sun City West?
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