Well, I'm going with the family to check out the area for a possible move. Just a few questions:

Most of the new housing going up seems to be on the outskirts of Phoenix to the east and south of the city. What is this area like? Farmland? Desert? Tatooine?

Lots of the new housing is priced from $200K and goes up to the low $300K's. This seems oddly low to me when housing was just $400K when I last looked earlier in the year. Any locals have an idea what's going on?

Anyhow, we'll be driving around the city a lot looking at various neighborhoods. Since I work for a DoD contractor as a SW Engineer, I'm interested in areas relatively close to such employers.

 

I live in a comunity called Verrado. It's west of phx (Buckeye), you'll actually see the exit as your coming into the city from California. The market has leveled out quite a bit in the last year or so so there are some good deals out here. Also crazy incentives on new homes as they are getting a little desperate.

 

There are so many new homes being built and for sale in the outskirts of Phoenix-metro that there arent enough buyers to fill them. Supply and demand dictates that prices drop (or at least stop rising with the rest of the market)...

Great to get into, crappy to get out of...

 

The Phoenix real estate market experienced a big correction over the last year and a half. Prices are now back to where they should be. Typical example: I built my house in 01 for 230k, it peaked at 515 a while back, and now comps at just above 400. Builders were going full steam ahead, prices got too high, mortgage rates went up, and oops, prices corrected. I would say now is a great time to be a buyer in Phoenix. Inventories are high, incentives galore.

Most of the suburbs of Phoenix are pretty much the same, farmland recently developed into little planned communities. Some are nicer than others and the home prices reflect that, but none are bad areas. Generally all the bad areas are in the actual city of Phoenix. I would consider first where you're going to work and go from there. For me the commute would be a big factor as it can really suck in some areas. We are about ten years behind the curve on freeway expansion.



Kirk

 

If you want something really far up in the north valley, talk to me. I'm selling my house. It's close to the bantha fields.

 

I would, but I have an aversion to sand people.

 

housing is getting cheaper because of the glut of investors, overstock, and dare i say increasing gas prices are hurting the homesales in the burbs.

 

Any idea of any specific companies you would work for? Honeywell, Intel, and Motorola are the big tech ones around here, and they are mostly in North Phoenix or the East Valley (Chandler/Tempe/Mesa/Gilbert area). I just made the move (back) here about a year ago from the Glendale area in LA. Coming from a 50+ mile commute there, there is no such thing as a bad commute in Phoenix. It's still nice to take advantage of the relatively cheap housing here and live close to where you work. I now have a 5 mile commute on a road that has very little traffic.

If you wanted to buy a giant cheap new house on the outskirts of the city, you can count on at least a half hour commute with a lot of it being on surface streets.

If you're concerned about nightlife at all, IMO Scottsdale and parts of Tempe have the most to offer, but are more expensive to live in. With the 101, though, it's easy to get there anywhere from North Phoenix to Chandler.

Feel free to hit me up w/ any specific questions, since we just went through what you're doing last summer.

 

Well, I mainly looking for DoD firms. I'm pretty comfortable with them. Unfortunately, my current employer has no branches in AZ at the moment.

As for my current commute - it's about 11 miles and 30-45 minutes long each way.

 

Well, wish me luck. I'm off on the trip Sun morning - with stops at the Grand Canyon and Vegas on the way back.

No S though.