Moving to Prescott April 2015 (Phoenix: real estate, apartments, mortgage)

[Southwesthiker]

Everyone has an opinion and that what this forum is about as well as sharing. Anyway We live in Williamson Valley. We have three speeds of service available depending what you want to spend. I run a business online and speed is critical. I have no internet issues. Our service provider is MTE. I have the 6 Mbps downstream bundle. As for utilities. I lived in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and now Arizona. The cost per Kilowatt hour is higher here than in the other places I have lived (I have detailed data I am into statistics and mathematics as a hobby). But the heating and cooling degrees from the mean are less here. Basically if the desired constant norm is say 68 degrees and you take each day of the year in each community and then take the variance from the mean and divide by the days the variance is less in Prescott. So you end up with fewer heating and cooling hours or minutes in a day, month and year. So it takes fewer kilowatt hours per year than in a climate like northern Indiana. So we have seen our average utility bills be a tad lower than other places we have lived but not much. But we did not move here to save money on utilities. We moved here because the area is just beautiful, the people we meet were wonderful and we are not far from allot of wonderful places and finally we love the moderate, Dry climate (I hate humidity) without having to pay the kind of money it takes to live in CA.

[NC Transplants]

Originally Posted by Southwesthiker

Everyone has an opinion and that what this forum is about as well as sharing. Anyway We live in Williamson Valley. We have three speeds of service available depending what you want to spend. I run a business online and speed is critical. I have no internet issues. Our service provider is MTE. I have the 6 Mbps downstream bundle. As for utilities. I lived in New York, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and now Arizona. The cost per Kilowatt hour is higher here than in the other places I have lived (I have detailed data I am into statistics and mathematics as a hobby). But the heating and cooling degrees from the mean are less here. Basically if the desired constant norm is say 68 degrees and you take each day of the year in each community and then take the variance from the mean and divide by the days the variance is less in Prescott. So you end up with fewer heating and cooling hours or minutes in a day, month and year. So it takes fewer kilowatt hours per year than in a climate like northern Indiana. So we have seen our average utility bills be a tad lower than other places we have lived but not much. But we did not move here to save money on utilities. We moved here because the area is just beautiful, the people we meet were wonderful and we are not far from allot of wonderful places and finally we love the moderate, Dry climate (I hate humidity) without having to pay the kind of money it takes to live in CA.

Thank you for the assurances....regarding internet, --however you seem to basically simply type/text your internet activity while my daughter who is a sign language interpreter needs very high speed video in order to avoid pixelization of the screen due to full "movements" within the entire screen. The upload/download must be reasonably quick in order to avoid a lag in time of the hand movements for the deaf.

This is where none of whether CableOne; Verizon; Hughes, etc could met her requirements in the Williamson area. They admitted it could not be met at such a distance from downTown Prescott. They claim that the distance tapers off the actual 3 speeds given. Might give MTE a try .

She found a great home with 5 acres...great 6 car garage for her husbands business but lacked internet savvy!

cheers....

[Southwesthiker]

We use the internet and wireless setup to watch movies. I am no expert on Steaming Video but the fact that we can with a laptop - pick up a wireless signal then send it to a TV and watch the Video programming (movies)- makes me think that the download speed is not half bad. We also Skype using the laptop and a wireless connection. My first thought was that the strength of the signal would decline without being connected on a CAT6 cable (desktop) but we have found the connection speed is fine. I will admit we pay allot for the MTE service but we want the service so . . . .

Williamson valley is great!

[smilinpretty]

I have Cableone internet, the highest tier and I live on the north side of Chino Valley, up in the hills. It is okay.

[fluffythewondercat]

Originally Posted by MercedesMarie

And lastly what is the current employment situation in Prescott? My husband will be going to school so we will have his GI Bill money and Reserve pay plus a part time job, but I am worried about myself.

If you have any interest in selling online (eBay, Amazon) Prescott would make a great base of operations.

I have been an online entrepreneur for the last 15 years. The great thing about it is you can do it from practically anywhere there's Internet. If your husband gets transferred to another place, you just take your business with you.

How to sell is beyond the scope of this thread but there are plenty of people online making better than minimum wage.

[keninaz]

Prescott Valley which is right next door to Prescott has some houses for your price.
My daughter has a 3 bedroom, a little older but a nice home in a good area here for $750 per month. And it has a full sized double car garage too.
Water/Sewer is via the city and depending on how much water you use it's $55-70 a month.
Trash is every 3 months and I pay $52 for the 3 months. Shop this as there are many trash services and it depends on the area.
Electric is APS. We are home all the time as retirees and keep the temp where we like it when it's hot and our bill for a 1600 sq. ft. home has never exceeded $225 and I think that was only one month.
We do also have natural gas in our home and in the winter it can run us some $150 with the fireplace going if you like that but the electric lowers to some $55 a month then too so it averages out.

[infocyde]

Yeah I think housing is doable on $850 a month. Craigslist is a good place to look as well, even though it at times can be a little more sketchy but so far I've had excellent luck with Craigslist both as a landlord and a renter. The key would be to be constantly looking and sweeping in on something that looks good as it comes up. It does seem like over the last two years since I've been looking rentals go quicker and cost a little bit more than they used to, but if you can spend a little time looking sometimes deals still come up. Good luck

[Southwesthiker]

Prescott is Great!

We moved here from Indiana 3 years ago. Our utility bills are lower. Our taxes are Lower. The weather is great, the natural beauty is amazing and if you want to work, there are jobs. My income is up 25% since we moved. I lived in Western New York, Pennsylvania, and Indiana before living here. I know there may be nicer places but I am very pleased to have found this area to live and work in.

[LexiPrice]

Another pro for Prescott/PV. Not sure if you're still considering it but I think you'd both enjoy living here. The "hiring season" starts in April and lots of places are hiring. Just to give you an idea - we returned to PV on April 3, 2015 from New Mexico. I sent out a bunch of resumes to places advertising on craigslist on the 17th. I'd been out of the job market for a decade (married)...I had more than a dozen responses (a few were skeevy nutters, just ignore them) but most of them wanted an interview. I found a full time 40hr position with benefits and was hired on the 23rd. I also do infotech and make money online.

There are plenty of places hiring around here and while it may slow down later in the year, I doubt seriously you'd not be able to find something somewhere unless you just rub people the wrong way on principle - and even then I bet you'd still be able to find something.

A lot of the people on any of these forums who complain about no jobs are either working in some uber specialized field where there literally are no opportunities or they're suffering from the princess complex and don't actually want to do the "work" part of a job, picky about their requirements.

The housing will be hit/miss but keep looking. Most places will be pet friendly because the whole area is pet friendly. And there are a ton of places to get the pets out to run and play.

You didn't mention where in Louisiana you're from - I'm from there, too, actually, northwest La. and the housing is way different out here than in cajun country. You can usually rent a really nice place in a good part of town in La for 800 and up, same here...but the difference is, the quality of house is way better here than La, the neighborhoods are better too. But again, it's kind of hit and miss. So definitely look deeper than just stuff online. When here, ask people directly, too...for referrals, friend of that one guy, that sort of thing. Here's an example. Now I do NOT live there now, this was in 2010...but check my gallery and the house we lived in, 3 bdrm, awesome location - our rent was 850 a month. I'd imagine it'd be higher now but someone lives there and probably isn't paying much more than that.

I do think it's possible with a hard search to find something, but you'd surely find that if you chose an apartment complex, easy. There is a complex on Glassford Hill (they changed owners, not sure what it's named now) in Prescott Valley though that has garages for the units, with a private passcode and garage door clicker thing and the complex is really sweet. Before we moved to the house mentioned above, we lived there (used to be the Terraces) and rent was just under 900 a month for a 2bd 2 bath, with a little 3rd room/office, private master patio, great pool, lovely living there and they were pet friendly. Not sure now so you'd have to check that.


Being from Louisiana I can tell you exactly what you're going to miss...trees, big grassy yard, swimming at the lake, and mudbugs! What you never ever again need to worry about: tornadoes!

Hope that helped...not sure if you're here already though but if so, welcome to the area

[unlblkrubi]

Thanks for your view on the area LexiPrice. We are also planning to move there also soon and this helps to reassure my decision.