Chicago to Arizona (typical, I know), some questions (Phoenix, Glendale: sales, new home)

[mprzybylski]

Apologize for the length of this post, my mind went crazy and I just kept writing and writing.

Hey everyone,
Long time lurker but first time poster after I finally registered on the forum. My wife, 2 kids (4.5 and 1.5) and myself have been talking about moving out of Chicago and into a warm climate for some time now. We nailed it down to Arizona and more specifically the Gilbert area (possibly Chandler?) for multiple reasons. We want good schools (as good as AZ has to offer), relatively new construction (or new altogether), and we're home bodies that don't really go out much unless its to do something with the kiddos.

We're both in our early 30s and my wife is a stay at home mom while I work as a web developer for a Chicago late stage startup and am going to be working remotely after the move (working from home while flying back to Chicago here and there for work). We like calm, quiet neighborhoods and are not into religion or politics (I've seen a lot of posts head down this road, please refrain from that here, we just don't have strong opinions about this stuff at all). Our budget is roughly $350-$400K max.

When we visited we looked at a ton of new construction sites. We really like Adora Trails and one of the floor plans from Taylor Morrison in the Encore collection (the Topaz) but we were not going on our trip this past week in hopes of finding a new home, just to scope the area out. We ended up falling in love with the community there and the floor plan but the issue remains the sale of our house. I'm planning on this falling through as I'm not sure what kind of time frame everything would need to go down in and I am feeling a little pressured to prepare and move our house to the market. Right now is not the best time to sell here so I don't want to take a big hit if we chose to do so but I'm not closing the door on that idea.

Regardless, it seems like the master planned communities of Gilbert are what we're after. We liked the aforementioned Adora Trails, The Bridges (mostly sold out), Marbella Vineyards, and others similar to them. We understand those are what people there consider "far out" but I live about 45 minutes away from downtown Chicago and commuting to work (if I drive) takes me roughly 1.5 hours so the commute for me is not really an issue (plus, as mentioned, I'll now work from home so it's actually not an issue at all).

What communities like these are there which I may be missing? I've seen Morrison Ranch, Val Vista lakes, the Islands, etc and they're all very nice. We may be priced out of some of them, however. What we like about Adora Trails is also the amenities (community pool and gym, we don't plan on owning/maintaining our own pool unless a house came with it already). We're looking at roughly 2,500-3,000 sq ft and preferable a two story (unless a single story did NOT have bedrooms in the front, an office/den would be great in front but not the young kids' bedrooms). We obviously need good schools for the kiddos.

I think that just about covers all our needs but let me know if any other information is necessary to help get some guidance. We really appreciate any help anyone can give us. We love the area, now it's just a matter of figuring out exactly where and when we're going to make it down.

- Matt

[goolsbyjazz]

Did you look at Agritopia?

[mprzybylski]

Originally Posted by goolsbyjazz

Did you look at Agritopia?

We passed by it a bunch of times but did not look at it. I'll add it to our list, thanks.

[mprzybylski]

I just did a quick search on Zillow for Agritopia which actually reminded me of an important criteria I forgot to mention in my original post. I do woodworking as a hobby and I'm planning on using our garage as my new shop. Our current home is a 2 car garage and it's too small for all my machines so I'm wanting a 3+ car garage (3 realistically). I don't mind it being a tandem or a wide bay, it just have to have 3 spaces but the more space the better.

Agritopia sales are a bit out of our range as well it would seem, at least the ones I came across.

[FromEastCoast]

Anthem

[mprzybylski]

Originally Posted by FromEastCoast

Anthem

Not sure what you mean, could you be a bit more specific?

[JGMotorsport64]

Originally Posted by mprzybylski

Not sure what you mean, could you be a bit more specific?

It's a neighborhood in Northern Phoenix along i17.

I'd suggest Surprise while you're at it, lots of new homes for cheap out there. If you're just going to the airport periodically the drive isn't too bad outside of crush hour.

Most of the development is uniform and sporadic in this Metro, the fringes in any direction will have large new homes.

In Glendale along Thunderbird you can get acre lots near the middle of town with large areas for your hobbies.

Get on Zillow and just start looking, your lack of commute makes this easy on you and opens the whole area up.

Chandler has good schools, Tempe has good schools, Glendale has generally good schools, Peoria has good schools, Surprise has decent schools depending on the school itself. Gilbert has decent charter schools, their public system has some issues.

[mprzybylski]

Thanks for the clarification JGMotorsport64, I'll take a look at the west valley a bit more. My fear is that every time I've looked at those areas in the past, according to GreatSchools, the schools in those areas are sub par.

What criteria do you all usually use the "grade" schools by?

[BIG CATS]

Originally Posted by mprzybylski

have been talking about moving out of Chicago and into a warm climate (
- Matt

Look at San Jose or San Diego if you want a "warm" climate.

[mprzybylski]

Originally Posted by BIG CATS

Look at San Jose or San Diego if you want a "warm" climate.

Haha, we were originally looking at San Diego but its just too expensive (California in general).