Question- Why are so many people telling me to NOT to move to Arizona (Phoenix: appointed, crime rate)
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Thanks. But that's often said on this forum, without specifying where exactly.
Based on the crime maps, which only show crime in Tucson proper, it appears that only the extreme east and perhaps some tiny pockets elsewhere are actually low in crime. Perhaps most notable of these is the Sam Hughes neighborhood east of the University & areas near the community college in the northwest.
Then there are the suburbs in the north which have low crime rates.
The entire city of Tucson appears dangerous based on the past 30 days crime map of assaults.
Is it really a good idea to move to a city where the only safe places require sitting in traffic 1.5 hours a day in the heat if you work downtown ?
There are plenty of cities in this nation that have lower crime areas within the inner city. I don't see Tucson as one of these, based on these oft recommended crime maps.
Davros, I live very close to I-10 between Ina and Cortaro. The Marana police have a substation on Ina just west of I-10.
There's a library and park very close by and it's a newer part of the city. Our home was built ~2002. Our zip code is 85743.
My wife commutes to Davis Monthan every day. It's ~24 miles and takes her a bit more than 30 minutes to get there. I-10 moves fairly well and she gets off at Broadway (downtown) and picks up Aviation Highway.
If we want to go east, we either take Cortero or go one exit south of Ina to Orange Grove and then turn onto River Road. River's a great east-west road because it doesn't have much commercial construction and not too many lights.
It is very easy to get to any part of town from where we live.
My wife and I feel very safe here. We moved from San Antonio and the crime rate here seems to be much less than San Antonio. We haven't noticed any crime here at all and none of the neighbors have mentioned it.
Wages will be lower in Tucson, but that's likely offset by a lower cost of living than Denver. The cost of living is not high here.
I haven't noticed crime here but I don't live in a high crime part of the city. It's pretty easy to figure out where to live based on crime maps.
Don't buy a house yet. The prices have been in a 1- 1.5% monthly slide for the last 4 years. I rent a nice house with a pool and spa for $1395/month. We moved in last October. We've paid about $7000 in rent. The home's value has declined by about $15000 in that time.
We plan on renting for the next several years, as we do not expect housing to bottom in Tucson or nationally until ~2017. I know that sounds bizarre but I'm an economist and have analyzed housing extensively. Absent high inflation, the numbers simply don't support stabilization of housing prices in the US for several years.
Now is a GREAT time to buy a house! And by "house" I mean a foreclosed, bank-owned house. There are some great bargains out there. No way would I pay $1,395 a month to rent something.
I just bought a duplex in one of those iffy areas of town, and guess what? I'm still alive!! I forgot to lock my door the other day, and guess what?? No one broke in and stole my stuff!
I'm not the only one who sees opportunity where others see disaster. A couple of friends who have some money to invest are buying rental homes in the UA area - and every one gets rented out quickly. Another friend just bought a dirt cheap older home near my neighborhood. After all, even if average home prices are still sliding, everyone needs a place to live.
Now is a GREAT time to buy a house! And by "house" I mean a foreclosed, bank-owned house. There are some great bargains out there. No way would I pay $1,395 a month to rent something.
Well, the house that we rent is very nice. It would cost us more than $1395/mo in PITI if we were to buy something similar. And we pay $0 in home maintenance costs - most homeowners have no idea how large that can be.
As far as being a GREAT time to buy a house, I vehemently disagree. Let me walk you through the reality.
1) When housing prices bottom, they traditionally remain flat for a couple of years after the bottom is reached. There is no U-shaped bounce.
2) Tucson is currently seeing >50% of all home sales as REOs and short sales. And the odds are that most of the other sales are for a loss.
3) Currently, 14.1% off all housing units nationwide are vacant. That needs to return to historic levels of under 8%. That's an extra 10 million housing units throughout the US. It will take years to burn off the excess.
4) Whenever there is a large supply/demand imbalance, prices must fall in order to reach an equilibrium level. Currently supply of housing far outstrips demand.
5) Baby boomers are reaching retirement age and are starting to sell their primary residences. Many purchased their retirement homes several years ago. This will create an additional excess supply of housing.
6) The younger generation of new college grads are more saddled with student debt than any previous generation. And that student debt is nondischargeable. So it will take many years for the next generation to be able to save up enough money to buy a house. That translates into lower demand for housing.
7) There is a push to return to 20% down payment on housing. I'm all in favor of that measure, as it's critical that a homeowner has a decent amount of 'skin in the game'. Absent large down payments, we will likely see another large down cycle in housing in the next few years.
8) Household formation is flat. That means no new demand for housing. Historically, household formation numbers are ~1 million per year. Again, less demand for housing.
9) Interest rates are near record lows. That makes home ownership more affordable. It also inflates home values. Once interest rates move back toward historic levels, home prices will have to fall in order to maintain the same level of home affordability. Home values fall when interest rates rise.
10) Home values over the long term rise at approximately .5% above inflation. The last decade was a large deviation from that historical norm to the upside and we are now experiencing a regression to the mean. In fact, once the regression starts, it tends to overshoot to the downside. We are still WAY above historic norms in home prices and have several years of price declines to work off before we return to the mean.
We are nowhere near the bottom here in Tucson. What looks like a bargain today will almost certainly be well underwater in the next 24 months. Home buying in this environment is akin to catching a falling knife.
Whether or not the housing prices have bottomed in Tucson is complete speculation. The issue before was that normal, working people on an average salary for Tucson could not afford to buy a home at the prior prices. That is no longer the case so, if we haven't hit bottom, we're certainly close.
Then I suppose I wonder why you have remained in the Tucson forum, wasting other members' time with questions and now arguments. If you do not wish to move to Tucson, Godspeed and best wishes to you in finding a place more to your liking.
This person is obviously uncertain and asking questions. He or she has a right to ask questions about such a huge step as moving. Since when did it become an offense to ask questions about a certain place when having doubts? As to "wasting other members' time," members need simply NOT to click on a link if they do not want to offer an opinion.
Jetzzz, you make some very valid points from an informed perspective and I would love to discuss them further. But I don't want to go off topic and incur the displeasure of our fair moderator, so I will start a new thread.
Tucson is not a thriving metropolis with high paying jobs growing on trees.
Oh well.
It's a beautiful place with lots to do if you love nature, the southwest, and college towns.
The crime? How could it be worse than a larger metro area like Denver?
If you're asking how Tucson metropolitan area crime could be worse than Denver metropolitan area crime, my opinion is that the Denver area has more numerous (and more populated) suburbs that lower the overall crime rate for the region. Not a whole lot goes on in suburbia, and if you have a city surrounded by bedroom communities, by adding to the population but not adding (significantly) to the crime, you're going to skew the results to the positive.
Now, if you're asking how could Tucson be worse than Denver, to this, I have to ask if you've ever been to Denver? I don't mean to sound confrontational or accusatory, I'm just curious. The reason I ask is that I can't imagine anyone considering Denver dangerous if they've been there. There are some urban parts, but it is truthfully nothing to worry about. I've never been to Tucson, I've heard less than pleasant things, but that amounts to nearly nothing. I've been to Denver, I've gone down the rough parts of the much fabled Colfax Avenue, and for sure, I wouldn't pick that place to lay my head at night, but to hold Denver in the realm of "dangerous" cities bespeaks of a sheltered (enviably so) life.
Crime stats are bad in Tucson, that's pretty universally agreed upon. That can be read into in several ways, and as someone who's never lived in, or visited the city, I really don't feel comfortable speculating-- I just don't have the knowledge. But you seem to be holding Denver to a standard of danger or nefariousness by which other cities can be judged favorably. I don't think that's the case. If you stack similar cities up against Denver, I think, more often than not, Denver will look like the better option.
I may be a resident of Tucson as early as this summer-- a lot is still up in the air. My biggest concern is safety, and a large part of that is an image that statistics and anecdotal evidence has planted in my head. The kind of thing that's impossible to shake without a real, tangible experience to replace it. It's a shame, but that's how the mind works. It does the best with the information available, and unfortunately, there's very little you can do to get an accurate read on any place without spending some time there.
Anyway, to cut a rant short, I think it's very easy to fall victim to projecting prejudices and preconceptions onto unknown places. If Tucson is your home, it will feel much safer than if you're a thousand miles away, contemplating a move there. The same streets that are quaint and familiar to one person are suspicious and distant to another. It's all about perspective.
Davros, you're afraid of living life and are full of paranoia. I hardly think you have any place to make statements in this thread. And you don't even live here, nor will you be moving here or to any major city in the US because you are afraid of your own shadow. Move along please.
Mistygrl, you need to read his last thread. The guy obviously is angry at himself that he doesn't have the courage to move here and won't (based on his remarks in this thread and his last) and is taking it out on all of us by trying to tell us we're in denial when we express that our city is wonderful, beautiful, and not some festering cesspool of crime.
I can only guess what he'd think once he read the stats of my hometown of MKE. He'd run screaming from his computer, it's worse than Tucson. But regardless, it too is a wonderful city.
If that is your best defense of Tucson's safety situation, there is a problem. And I see this defense of Tucson made all the time on this forum. "Well, there's crime EVERYWHERE".
See, there may be no place in the world without crime, but there are plenty of places in the USA with very little crime, and in particular very little violent crime and no gangs.
Tucson is not one of those places. It has violent crime. It has a moderate murder rate for a city of its size. And it has gangs.
Not everywhere is trending towards more dangerous. In fact, some are trending towards safer.
If the opposite is happening in Tucson, then your city has a serious problem and you are in denial.
rubbish, total rubbish. i have lived here in tucson since 1962, and i have seen the changes over the years, some good some bad. and yes crime rates have gone up, but that is misleading as not all areas of tucson are "unsafe". and yes there are gangs here, find me a city the size of tucson or larger that doesnt have gangs, you wont find any in the US. and yes i have been to many other places as well, albuquerque, nm luray, va stanley, va jackson hole, wy among other places. the small towns dont have the crimes rates the larger cities have, but then they also do not have the night life the larger cities have either.
if all you are going to judge a city on is the crime rates, then stay away from any city with a population, because there is crime anywhere there is a population.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kimballette
Then I suppose I wonder why you have remained in the Tucson forum, wasting other members' time with questions and now arguments. If you do not wish to move to Tucson, Godspeed and best wishes to you in finding a place more to your liking.
well said.
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