House Hunting Help - Arcadia, Central Phoenix? (Mesa, Glendale: middle-class, real estate)

[dmackerman]

Hey there,

I've been a lurker for several months now, and it's about time to post! Little about us and what we're looking for.

I'm 28 and and my wife is 27. We've lived in the DC Metro for close to 15 years. We're expecting in October, so we're obviously looking for something "family friendly". This means different things to different people, but to us it means general safety, and others in the area with children. We don't need perfectly paved streets and manicured houses with no character.

We recently got back from a vacation/house search in the Phoenix area and took several days driving around with a realtor and scoped some areas out. The area is MASSIVE. Nothing really stood out to us except for a few areas.

- Our budget is ~$300k. (willing to pay more for better location).
- We can't stand cookie cutter homes. The stucco homes that look like they fell from the sky with no character we'd like to avoid.
- We'd love to be close (within 5-10 mins) drive of stuff. And not just a Target or Walmart - good food, local business, etc.

The areas we loved were Arcadia, and a little bit east of Phoenix. It was hard for us to tell where the heck we were, and it seems like everything blended together. Our realtor showed us a place in North Central Phx that was beautiful, but the area seemed kind of dumpy. Sunnyslope? I haven't heard good things about that are generally.

What other areas give that neighborhood feel, with older, mature looking houses outside of Arcadia? We did a quick stop in southern Scottsdale, but not enough to form an opinion. Scottsdale is also gigantic, so which areas specifically should we be searching in?

Which blocks / subsections should we typically stay away from, even if they look appealing on the outside? As we were driving around the central area of Phx - I believe it was Encanto - it seemed like there were some nice hoods, surrounded by lots with burnt RVs and trashcans. It was really bizarre.

Places we have no interest in, due to commute times and just general feel:

- Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Glendale and anything west of it.

Thanks!

[DetroitN8V]

I think you need to change some expectations or your budget. My buddy is looking for something similar in south Scottsdale, Arcadia Lite (true Arcadia is $1mm+) and central PHX up to $450k and isn't finding anything too appealing. $300k is unlikely to get you green, character, in a hip area that's not spotty,

[dmackerman]

Fair enough. What if we exclude "Arcadia Lite". There's places dotted all over central phoenix in that budget, it's just so hard to tell if the area is half decent or not. When you look at houses during the day, everything appears desolate. Makes sense because everyone is inside, or at work, so it makes it tough to evaluate.

Maybe some advice on patches or blocks to avoid? If we limit our search to central / north central Phoenix?

[JGMotorsport64]

The thing with Phoenix is that there are good and bad areas blended together, it might be advantageous to rent an apartment for 6 months and get a feel, you'll find that one block is nice and the next isn't.

As for generalities, North Central/Midtown is very nice but $$$, East Phoenix is nice in patches and a lot of the homes have some neat character. Avoid West Phoenix, specifically Maryvale like the plague, don't even bother. Sunnyslope has the potential to be gentrified, but it has a bad reputation for Meth and Biker Gangs from a long time ago.

Tempe has a lot of what you're looking for you should check that area out. Scottsdale is nice but expensive and you'd need to get a feel, it's not my speed but many love it.

[ScottsdaleMark]

For better or worse a lot of the metro area was new tract housing at one point or another. Therefore, custom homes tend to be bigger and more expensive. Perhaps an old enough builder home might seem unique enough to you because over time even tract homes will end with different colors, remodels, landscaping, etc., and you don't notice it as much as when they're first built and they all look exactly the same. I'm thinking of a lot of the homes built in south and central Scottsdale, e.g. the many different "Park Scottsdale" builds which are really pretty nice places to live and very well maintained but were master-planned communities when they were built. Basically anything east of Hayden in Scottsdale is going to be pretty quiet and nice and a good family area but maybe you'd enjoy being closer to the traditional downtown with all its many restaurants and shopping and so forth. I think you could find plenty of homes in your budget in that part of town.

I do think renting short-term might be a good idea just so you can do a more thorough search. Even if you just pick a general area stay at an extended-stay for a month, you'd have all the time you needed to explore and wait for the right home to come along versus trying to buy from out of state. Not like you need to sign a six-month or a year-long lease if you don't want to wait that long.

[crystalys]

Originally Posted by dmackerman

- Our budget is ~$300k. (willing to pay more for better location).
- We can't stand cookie cutter homes. The stucco homes that look like they fell from the sky with no character we'd like to avoid.
- We'd love to be close (within 5-10 mins) drive of stuff. And not just a Target or Walmart - good food, local business, etc.

What other areas give that neighborhood feel, with older, mature looking houses outside of Arcadia?

This is more North Phoenix, but you may want to look at Moon Valley. I have lived here for more than 10 years and have been very happy here. You can definitely find something here in your price range that is not cookie cutter. The homes are older but well kept and it is a safe area. The schools are pretty decent and the lot sizes are fairly generous. There is a sense of community and it is an easy commute via several freeways.

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by dmackerman

Fair enough. What if we exclude "Arcadia Lite". There's places dotted all over central phoenix in that budget, it's just so hard to tell if the area is half decent or not. When you look at houses during the day, everything appears desolate. Makes sense because everyone is inside, or at work, so it makes it tough to evaluate.

Maybe some advice on patches or blocks to avoid? If we limit our search to central / north central Phoenix?

Practically anything in the Arcadia area is going to be outside your budget. If you go too far north, you'll likely find something in your budget ... however, it might be more cookie cutter style, and will be further away from the amenities that you'd like to be near. I would suggest looking around in the Camelback East area, which is generally west of Arcadia. Here, you can find something in your budget that is older, somewhat centralized, isn't a slab of stucco, but still in a decent area and close to the things you prefer.

[azriverfan.]

Your expectations are not realistic. You need to quadruple your budget if you expect to get something like that in Arcadia.

Your problem is Phoenix mostly consists of cookie cutters. The non-cookie cutter communities are very expensive particularly in the proximal metropolitan part of phoenix. It's supply and demand so unfortunately the non-cookie cutter homes and neighborhoods have a large premium attached to them and you will pay in upwards of 1 million dollars realistically speaking.

Now, what you can do is get a really nice condo. They sell new condos that are very appealing and these are not located in the boonies. I would look into condos and townhomes. In Phoenix condos and town homes are not like condos and townhomes. They are basically small homes without a yard. They have garages. They have neighborhoods. It's not like living in a high rise in some dumpy part of the city.

[azdr0710]

you don't even have the kid yet, so don't worry about "family friendly" quite yet......

yes, think about renting for six months so you can get a real feel for the various neighborhoods and vibes of areas....

Tempe is a solid middle-class option if you stay away from the ASU area...progressive town, incredibly convenient location within the valley, all the consumer needs.....

Sunnyslope has been threatening (!) to gentrify for years, but it still hasn't quite caught on....I suppose the real estate turndown temporarily slowed that mood, but it still has a rep among long-time locals as a bit mixed (and junky to some)....but it's another area with an unbeatable convenient location for getting around town......

lots of options....yes, very spread out, but land has always been cheap out here, so cheaper to build out than up!

[Valley Native]

Originally Posted by azriverfan.

Now, what you can do is get a really nice condo. They sell new condos that are very appealing and these are not located in the boonies. I would look into condos and townhomes. In Phoenix condos and town homes are not like condos and townhomes. They are basically small homes without a yard. They have garages. They have neighborhoods. It's not like living in a high rise in some dumpy part of the city.

That's good advice. There are many nice condos, townhomes, and duplexes (many of which are older but of good quality) fitting that description in north central Phoenix. The Camelback East area has a good share of them, and I've seen many of the same types of single/double story townhomes along some of the major streets like Bethany, Glendale, and Northern. My girlfriend used to live in a townhouse that really felt more like a regular house, and you could hardly tell that there was a common wall. Highrise condos would be found more along the Central Corridor, downtown, or Tempe ... not exactly "dumpy" areas.