Phoenix Living

[EternalOptimist]

What's your favorite Phoenix season? The one where the streets melt, or the one where the temperature inversions hold all the pollution down at about eye level.

Yeah, Phoenix has its downsides. The weather is HORRIBLE and the drivers are INSANE! What we miss about Phoenix is our house, our neighborhood, the cost of living and our friends. We had this great house in East Mesa - it was a rambler with a tile roof; 3br; 2ba; huge yard with mature landscaping including grapefruit, orange and lemon trees; private back yard; built-in landscape watering system; huge kitchen with island; custom window treatments; covered patio completely tiled; misting system around back patio... you see what I mean, it was a house with no end of perks. And we only paid about $125,000 for it. I had a great job and the freeway was getting closer to us all the time - easier commute every time we turned around. There was a Safeway going in just a couple of miles from our house just before we left, a Home Depot had just opened near by, there was a Fry's on my way home from work and an two Albertson's close by. WalMart and the mall were an easy distance from us and there were tons of fast food places (Wendy's, Del Taco, etc.) as well as nicer restaurants like Black Angus, etc. not too far away. A Park was really close to us and so were two or three schools. It was an ideal location and if we ever moved back (which is highly unlikely), we'd try to get our old house in our old neighborhood back.

Here are some tips (that may be obvious to you) that our real estate agent (who was very experienced) told us when looking for a house in Phoenix:

1. Try to get North/South exposure - East/West exposure is killer with the heat of the sun and your energy costs will be significantly higher.

2. A tile roof is the only way to go - Comp shingles don't last in the severe Phoenix sun. They get dry and brittle and they break to pieces and blow off the house during the monsoons.

These are the main Phoenix-related tips he gave us.

 

[johnnyV]

What's so HORRIBLE about the weather except the 3 months or so of extreme heat? One of my buddies put it to me this way - up North, we have about 3 months of freezing your butt off cold where you can't go outside too much & in Phoenix there is 3 months of melt your a$$ off heat where you can't do much outside. How about the rest of the year? My family tells me it is some of the best weather in the country once the heat is gone.


Dear Eternal, thanks a bunch for the tips. You can't pay enough for that kind of been there done that knowledge.

JV

 

[PurpleTail]

Peoria Area??

I have also been looking in and around the Phoenix area and need some feedback on the Peoria area around 75th and Deer Valley.

Good? Bad? Indifferent? Growing/expanding?? Cost of living/per sq ft housing?

Thanks for any and all input.

 

[farmboy]

75th and dear valley is a great area..i live very close by..45 minutes to sky harbor, always..drove it this morning! phx has the most to offer, for the cost, than any other city in the west..the weather is great.. 3.5 months of heat and then it's unbeatable. every activity you can imagine is available..no bugs, no humidity, car stays clean..evenings and mornings in early and late summer are some of the best temperatures for a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. usually not much wind and the sunsets are great..traffic is REALLY not that bad if you compare it to den, lax, ORD for sure, msp, sea, ect... they have actually stayed ahead with the freeway system..you can get ANY where in the valley in 45 minutes. rush hour is only 6:30-8:30 am and 4:00-6:00pm. is ord that way??? most people drive pretty reasonably, with the exception of the young punks in honda civics..the valley has grown A LOT though.. it is changing...prices have gone up over 60% in the last year and a half. look east, west and north..

 

[8vATE]

..no bugs, no humidity.

Well....

There are scorpions and snakes.... so its not perfect...
But its close....!

 

[PHX767]

We are in a Central PHX condo neighborhood where we are the "kids" even at our, er.. semi advanced age. Nice layout, no traffic, 15 minutes to Sky Harbor. No yard responsibilty, no pool to clean, just keep replacing the plants my beloved wife keeps murdering.

We are definitely in the hot wx right now, but I was in MDW, HOU and ATL recently and we have it better. No bugs or humidity. A monsoon every now and then, and as someone said - those sunsets this time of year!

There is a reason all those folks are moving here. It's a great place!

 

[miles otoole]

Still better than Dallas weather. The humidity is what ails ya. Although, I have read that all the massive development in Phoenix has artifically increased the humdity.

 

[BeanFighter]

How about farther north? Prescot, Sedona, Price? Any gouge on these areas?

 

[EternalOptimist]

Peoria is a good area. Nothing bad to report. It's growing. The entire valley is growing but it is expanding East and North mainly. Prescott and Sedona are wonderful areas. Flagstaff is too if you want to commute the 2.5 hours in to Phoenix. There is actually skiiing in Flagstaff - Snowbowl is fun in the Summer too - we took the ski lift to the top one Summer when we were there. It's the tallest peak in Arizona or so they say. Sedona is pretty artsy - they have lots of new-agers there. I think the artsy lifestyle is attractive to people and therefore it might be on the expensive side.

I know housing in all areas has been booming in the Phoenix area. We've been away from there for a year and a half. 60% is a major increase! We should have kept our house. Oh well, hind sight is 20/20.

As for the weather, it's all a matter of perspective. The two years we were there the temps crept up into the 90's as early as the end of April and only got hotter until it crept back into the 90's in October and finally cooled off to the 80's or so by November. Now, being from Seattle and used to a little rain now and then and some clouds to keep the sky from getting boring, I had a hard time with the weather. To me, even in a dry climate, 90 degrees is too hot. And it doesn't cool down at night either - if it's 90 degrees in the daytime, it's 85 at night in the desert. So your air conditioning is constantly running. I was too cold all the time when indoors and too hot outside. It's not 3 months of hell and 9 months of paradise - to a Seattleite it's more like 9 months of hell and 3 months of paradise. I admit, the winter months are great - it's the time of year the citrus is ripe too - yum! January is the best month for citrus.

Anway, if you like the heat, you'll love Phoenix. I missed the rain, I missed evergreen trees, I missed winter, frankly. And I got really sick of wearing sunglasses every day. I got cranky and edgy while living there - probably very similar to the feeling Californians get when they move to Seattle in the winter and see nothing but grey skies. It all is a matter of what you are used to and how well you adapt.

 

[PurpleTail]

Thanks for the info. I think I will move forward on a house I found in Peoria for under $100 sq ft. I am not in Phoenix or very familiar with the area so it is nice to have some feedback from people who are there or were there. I hope the growth continues