Not mentioned here is the single most important consideration - the commute. My advice is LIVE CLOSE TO WHERE YOU WORK. Otherwise you will spend the money you might save on your mortgage driving to and from your work place and that can be very expensive and very wasteful of your time. 1. Do not live in the West Valley unless you work there. Commuting into PHX is time-consuming, expensive and you will be looking into the bright sun morning and evening. The freeways are good but the traffic isn't and the only reasonable vehicle is a car. There is no good public transit except metro Phoenix and Tempe. If you decide on the West Valley the further north the better. Suggest north of Thunderbird. 2. Investigate your desired location very carefully if you have kids and especially kids in elementary or high school. The southwest, west and south areas do not have very good schools. Property and violent crime are also problems in these same areas. 3. If you have a choice of electric utilities stick with SRP (Salt River Project) service areas. You will save in the area of 15% of your electric bill compared to APS (Arizona Public Service). 4. Make sure your water services are provided by a city entity. Do not trust private companies. 5. Pay attention to the construction of your new house, especially the insulation. It gets hot here during summer and your cooling bill can get very expensive if your house isn't properly insulated. It also helps a lot to have a north/south exposure and lack of windows on the west facing wall. Big shade trees will also help.
Trevor, watched a couple of your RU-vids. Very good. Really like the info and style. Just moving from Oregon. Will follow your channel. Love to work with you, but got a long time friend who's a broker down here.
Welcome to AZ! Glad you made it out of Oregon as well, we left OR, moved here last year 2022 and love it. The people are very nice here, you'll find a lot of us Oregonian-Arizonans if you haven't already. Cheers to a new chapter! 🥂
Native here. The summer utilities, AC can be as high as an auto payment. Insurance is also very high. Don't forget the monsoon season, your either running for cover or fighting for shade. High crime, sadly always stay alert to your surroundings, no cities or counties are different. Schools , public are rated poorly. If you enjoy eating out, plenty of places for options. Air quality, poor, housing is expensive, commuting stay close to home, loops, highway is extremely crowded, rush hour bumper to bumper. Winter is the best with spring training and enjoy outdoors activities.
If you can work and live in Anthem it is a very nice, but distant, area. I would not consider living there if you have to commute into the Phoenix metro area.
So nice to see Surprise on the list. I can vouch for all of the points (positive and negative) you made. I would also mention: 1) Safari and Wildlife Zoo is a 10-15 minute drive down the freeway on Loop 303 2) Nearby Sun City attracts a lot of retirees so that adds to the lack of nightlife in the area 3) Area around the Civic Center area is seeing a huge boom in development of retail and residential Overall, I prefer living in the more affordable West Valley and still marvel at the view of the White Tank Mountains every day.
