Where to live if working at Sky Harbor? Need family friendly suburb with good schools please. (Phoenix: rental, houses)

[Sunny3]

Hi all! We are relocating to Phoenix and will be working near Sky Harbor. Can you please tell me where we should look for housing? We are looking for an upper middle class neighborhood with good schools with a reasonable (30-45 minutes?) commute to work. I've tried scanning the threads, but there's just too much info to sift through. Would sincerely appreciate any information you can offer! Thank you so much!!!

[sandy6879]

Chandler, Tempe or Scottsdale are all pretty close to the airport. Chandler schools continually get ranked very highly, but it'll be the furthest commute. (In all honesty, it's not a bad drive from Chandler unless you hit a really bad traffic day)

[DetroitN8V]

Look no further than Scottsdale! 85258 or 85250 is where I'd be to keep it reasonable to PHX.

[observer53]

I think north Scottsdale is a bit far for a reliable 30-45 minute commute to the airport. Depends on time of day a lot, like any commute. Are you talking "normal" rush hour commute, or other hours? Chandler (the more western part would be closer) is a good suggestion, as is Tempe (the further south in Tempe, the better). With respect to any of these cities, though, specific recommendations depend a lot on your budget range, which you haven't given us. "Upper middle class" is hard to pin down.

[JGMotorsport64]

Tempe or Central Phoenix. You could rail to work! Tempe, generally, has better schools.

[DetroitN8V]

Originally Posted by observer53

I think north Scottsdale is a bit far for a reliable 30-45 minute commute to the airport. Depends on time of day a lot, like any commute. Are you talking "normal" rush hour commute, or other hours? Chandler (the more western part would be closer) is a good suggestion, as is Tempe (the further south in Tempe, the better). With respect to any of these cities, though, specific recommendations depend a lot on your budget range, which you haven't given us. "Upper middle class" is hard to pin down.

Who said north Scottsdale?

[Leaving Arizona]

Tempe, within the Kyrene school district. It'd be perfect. ZIP 85284.

[Sunny3]

Thank you so much everyone for your responses so far! I just thought I'd add our budget. We'll be renting at first until we get to know the area better, so we are looking for rent range up to about $1800. I've been searching on Zillow and I have seen a good mix of everything from low to high, but not sure how to judge because everything looks nice. We lived in a neighborhood like that in Orlando. All the houses looked nice, but some areas had more riff-raff than others. We are looking to avoid the riff-raff. Hope that doesn't sound snobbish.

Also... What about Goodyear and Avondale?

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by Sunny3

Thank you so much everyone for your responses so far! I just thought I'd add our budget. We'll be renting at first until we get to know the area better, so we are looking for rent range up to about $1800. I've been searching on Zillow and I have seen a good mix of everything from low to high, but not sure how to judge because everything looks nice. We lived in a neighborhood like that in Orlando. All the houses looked nice, but some areas had more riff-raff than others. We are looking to avoid the riff-raff. Hope that doesn't sound snobbish.

Also... What about Goodyear and Avondale?

No that's a long commute you'd go crazy thinking better areas exists a lot closer.

If your looking for quiet, vanilla, safe, suburban I'd look in Chandler or even Southern Tempe (south of Guadalupe Rd.)

Chandler is pretty similar to Goodyear and Avondale on the whole, but it has more things and is closer. South Tempe can be really nice, but it's patchy in some areas.

For 1800 you could get almost anything reasonable and suburban. One of the easiest ways to judge Phoenix is to look at the landscaping, a lot of the newer buildings look similar, but when an area declines the neighborhoods landscaping either starts looking unkept, or it will be just rocks and a few shrubs. It's not a perfect system, but it will eliminate some of the bad ones.

But if you came across something you just had to have it wouldn't be the end of the world to be over there. You'd be close to Football, and Hockey (for a little while).

[observer53]

Originally Posted by JGMotorsport64

No that's a long commute you'd go crazy thinking better areas exists a lot closer.

If your looking for quiet, vanilla, safe, suburban I'd look in Chandler or even Southern Tempe (south of Guadalupe Rd.)

Chandler is pretty similar to Goodyear and Avondale on the whole, but it has more things and is closer. South Tempe can be really nice, but it's patchy in some areas.

For 1800 you could get almost anything reasonable and suburban. One of the easiest ways to judge Phoenix is to look at the landscaping, a lot of the newer buildings look similar, but when an area declines the neighborhoods landscaping either starts looking unkept, or it will be just rocks and a few shrubs. It's not a perfect system, but it will eliminate some of the bad ones.

But if you came across something you just had to have it wouldn't be the end of the world to be over there. You'd be close to Football, and Hockey (for a little while).

I don't think of south Tempe as "patchy"-- there are older smaller homes in a few areas, but those neighborhoods are pretty solid. For the OP, rental prices may be better in those older areas, or in Chandler. I would not go to the west side cities you mentioned as they are outside that commute range. What hours are you talking about in terms of commute?