Thinking of retiring in Tucson, Austin and Sarasota Fla (Green Valley: homeowners insurance, crime)

[sandyart]

We are looking to leave our corp. jobs in NJ and thinking of relocating to a company? and then retirment in several years. We are looking at three place named above- -Tucson, Austin, Texas and Sarasota Fla. Yes, I know very different places!!
We are young ( mid 50"s) and like a lot of things to do. We are holistic (big whole foods shoppers, follow Andrew Weil, nature, etc.- - I think you get the picture) We were all set to move to Sarasota in the next two years, as we like green year round and my husband like the ocean, however the house you get in Sarasota for 400-500K is very small and with the hurrican ins going through the roof, we have pause for thought
My husband and I started looking at Austin and Tucson as recommendations from friends.
Have never been to Austin, have been to Tucson about 10 years ago (Green Valley). The desert was interesting, but growing up in NJ we were taken aback that it was so dry- - I actually had nosebleeds for the entire week we were visiting. We did not get to see downtown or many other areas.
I love the architiecture in Tucson and have heard it is very hot in the summer- -which we don't mind as long as we can run our four dogs in the early morning. Was also wondering about the other posts regarding "critters" since have two GSD's (old guys) and two standard poodles who chase anything that moves! We also have two cats who go out and was wondering if they would have to be indoor cats if we moved to any of these places.
Any help, advice would be great and much appreciated!!
SC

[Idaho]

Speaking on Tucson and pets - Your cats better become INDOOR ONLY... Unless you'd like them to be snacks for coyotes, bobcats, or cougars. When your dogs are out, keep them leashed and stay with them. (see note about cats above).

[june]

Originally Posted by Idaho

Speaking on Tucson and pets - Your cats better become INDOOR ONLY... Unless you'd like them to be snacks for coyotes, bobcats, or cougars. When your dogs are out, keep them leashed and stay with them. (see note about cats above).

Cougars! Are there many of them in the tucson area? Dont they attack people also?

[TucsonDesertRat]

Originally Posted by june

Cougars! Are there many of them in the tucson area? Dont they attack people also?

Occasionally, but you are probably more likely to be robbed than jumped by a big kitty :-)

I currently live here in Tucson. I spent much of my childhood here and I came back permanently about 2 1/2 or 3 years ago. Before that I spent 10 or so years in Austin.

If you are looking for a place with a lot to do without having to try to find it, Austin is your best bet. If you like the outdoors, well both places are good. If you like live music, Austin wins hands down. The live music scene here is pretty lame.

Tucson is a great place to live if you are looking for a jumping off point to play in the desert and in the mountains. Unfortunately it has gotten somewhat dangerous out in the desert over the past 5+ years due people smuggling drugs and illegals across the border. It used to be I only got shot at by crazy old miners who thought I was trying to jump their claims. Seems like these days I need body armor to be safe in the desert south of here ...

Don't get me wrong, if you stick to the more heavily populated tourist areas it is generally safe (except for mountain lions <grin> ). I personally like to get *away* from people so I go out in the back country and that is where it can get kind of dicey if you run into the wrong folks.

I have had the unique experience of watching both the Austin *AND* the Tucson I grew up loving run into the ground by explosive growth. Austin was 'destroyed' by the tech boom and Tucson was 'destroyed' by Yanks and Californians. Both towns had nice small town feels to them before their growth exploded and they became unreasonably pricey to live in.

Austin has WAY better food, jobs, music, freeways, water supplies, public transportation, culture, and variety.

Tucson has the desert and the mountains.

Both towns have a LOT of drugs and drug users. Austin sees WAY less crime from this as most of the dopers are professionals and college students where as here they seem to all be lower class and on welfare. (in Austin there is no where near as much theft to support drug habits as there is here).

Austin is techies and college kids. Tucson is doctors and old folks. (Austin is a much younger crowd than Tucson, though not as young as it used to be).

Austin is lakes and lakes and oh, did I mention lakes? Tucson is deserts and mountains but not much water.

You REALLY want to figure out which town to live in? Spend a few weekends in each with a police radio scanner and listen to the calls that go out ...

Crime here in Tucson is a LOT worse than in Austin. In Austin you can pretty much bet that most of the really bad crime will be on the South East side of I-10. In Tucson it seems like it is all over the place.

I live on the eastern edge of Mid Town and I hear gunfire ALL the time. In Austin I lived Downtown, Central, North West, and South West and in over 10 years I NEVER heard gunfire. There was a gunfight up the street from me a week or so ago and I heard over 18 rounds fired in the exchange ...

Traffic is bad (not by LA or NYC standards tho) in both towns. Here there are no freeways (which I happen to like) and in Austin the freeways are *parking lots* at rush hour. When they are not parking lots they are raceways. They used to sell bumper stickers in Austin that read "Pray for me, I drive 183" (Hwy 183).

Austin is hot (80's-90's mostly with low 100's) and humid in the summer Tucson is hot (90's -100's mostly with some blistering days in the 110-115 range) and *dry*. It is SO dry here that to cool our house we pump humidity *in* (swamp coolers - they work really well till monsoon season and then your house turns into a swimming pool for about 6 weeks)

Austin is cold and miserable in the winter and sometimes (rarely) gets ice storms that shut down the city. Tucson is really cold at night in the winter and 60's and 70's in the days *most* of the time. It usually doesn't really seem to stay cold enuff to notice.

If you don't like dry heat, you won't like Tucson. If you don't like hot and high humidity you won't like Austin.

Stay away from Florida. You'll probably be eaten by an alligator.

[DACorreia]

Hi,

My partner and I currently live in Tampa, FL - just over an hour north of Sarasota. You are correct that Sarasota is a very expensive place to buy property. Additionally, you can expect very high property taxes, very high homeowners insurance, very high flood insurance, and some degree of certainty that in the next ten years we'll see at least one major hurricane come through (more of a direct hit than the four we saw a few years ago.)

We have four cats and two dogs (Golden Retrievers). Let me tell you first-hand that hurricane evacuation with animals is very tough.

I saw an ad for a dog trainer in Tucson who offers classes on snake aversion therapy. They teach your dogs to avoid snakes in order to minimize risk. I'll be signing up for that one.

Our cats are indoor-only already - I think it's a good idea for lots of reasons.

While Tucson may be hot for some, Florida is both hot & humid. If you don't do well with high humidity, it can be staggering here.

I doubt that there are many wildcats near here that would harm you (there are a few panthers left in Florida), however, the mosquitos here will certainly eat you alive (they really should be our state bird).


We plan to relocate to Tucson within the next two years. I'll be out there again in June to do more neighborhood research and to narrow down the areas in which we might buy.

-David

[lolligrump]

TucsonDesertRat: Your assessment of both Austin and Tucson are RIGHT on! Grew up in Tucson, moved to Austin, now live in the Raleigh, NC area. Thanks for the smiles and memories of everything I remember about both. Still would like to return to Austin when I get ready to retire ...

[OREGONRAIN]

These posts seem to point to Austin as the more desirable of the places mentioned, in fact by a long shot.

[TucsonDesertRat]

Originally Posted by OREGONRAIN

These posts seem to point to Austin as the more desirable of the places mentioned, in fact by a long shot.

Yes, well, if it were not for the fact that I LOVE going out in the desert to escape civilization then I would SO have stayed in Austin. Thing is, there is so much BLM land out here that that, if you are not adverse to shooting back at folks who take pot shots at you out there, you can disappear into the desert for weeks (if u take enuff provisions) and not be bothered by having to deal with any people (except the aforementioned crazies).

I'm here because I can go live in the desert, away from the rest of the world, whenever I want. Sure do miss that good'ol Texas music scene in Austin tho!

TDR