Join This GroupSeptember 3, 2009
Money & Work »
Consumer Information
Public
Offline
"Ultimate Cheapskate" Jeff Yeager will be chiming in your discussions. Post your comments, photos, videos here to the group. Be sure to check out money-saving tips from the Savings Challenge.
This group is very popular! To control the number of notifications in your inbox, see instructions here (post #6).
Have fun!
Print
Retiring in Arizona
|
SueAB said:
on November 14, 2009 04:52 PM ET
We lived in Ohio and spent about $6,000 every year wintering in a condo in Florida. That was taking a big chunk out of our retirement monies! We started to look for real estate to purchase in a sunny climate and ran across Maricopa, Arizona. It is between Tucson and Phoenix and is a poster child for the Arizona real estate boom gone bust. We purchased a foreclosure house in July 2009 for $57,000 that had been built in 2006 for $205,000. Now we don't need to spend our money trying to escape the cold - we live in a great climate! |
|
I tried retiring to Arizona in 2007, sold or donated my furniture and heavy clothing in NY, and took the bare essentials out by Uhaul. I arrived in April and by June knew I wasn't going to stay. I moved back to NY in December and realized I love the greenery and change of seasons. Phoenix area is to beigey for me!
The heat was unbearable, like walking into a blast furnace by 12 noon, the temperatures from May through early Nov. were over 100 degrees and in the height of Summer over 116 degrees for 90 days in a row!
So my warning, is try vacationing there first, before make a permanent move.
Reply to Post
Maricopa has several banks, many fast food chains, Ace Hardware, several doctors and dentists, two major food chains, several gas stations, Walmart, a golf course, Harrahs casino and a brand new library. We are about 30 minutes from the Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, 30 minutes from a major mall and outlet stores in Casa Grande. We think it is perfect for retiring. If you like, I will give you the name of an awesome realtor - experienced and honest. We bought our house from Ohio and she took videos of houses in our price range and e-mailed them.
I took a look at some real estate online in this Maricopa Az . the prices were pretty median from what I can remember looking at in Az before and the size of the houses I saw. Is this area out in the middle of nowhere? How far do you have to go to get to a city , town? I might want to check this place out if I am not out in the middle of the desert and have to drive 100 miles to get somewhere.
We too found real estate in the sun belt to be out of our reach. When I saw the prices in Maricopa on line I immediately contacted a real estate agent. She explained that Maricopa had grown during the real estate boom in Arizona and had fallen just as hard. It is a great town of about 40,000 and many Canadian snowbirds have already discovered Maricopa. It is well worth the look! I wish that AARP would do an article on retiring in Maricopa, Arizona!
Wow what a deal that is!!!! Arizona would be my choice ,but all the housing seemed to be out of site to buy anything nice. . I don't want to spend all my money on a home for the winter , but I would like something nice ,after all I am supposed to be enjoying my retirement . I want to have a little luxury!!!!
