As a result of our positive experience in Casa Grande, we went on a mad journey around the Valley where we managed to cover, with some zigzagging, something like 500-600 miles in about 9-10 days while still working full-time. I was able to work from the car with the lovely realtor’s truck wi fi during the drives between properties. It was a very intense period.
It was well worth doing because we ending up realizing that the West Valley has a lot nicer areas than many people in the East Valley we’ve spoken to give it credit for. Areas like Goodyear, Avondale and Surprise are clean, well presented and have plenty of good shopping in addition to all those cheaper houses. Surprise even has its own Trader Joe’s. We realized there were dozens and dozens of areas that we could consider. Of course, they also have more or less the same weather as everywhere in the Phoenix metro area shares in its sunshine and heat.
We picked the houses we looked at based on the fact that they all had big pools. If anything, although none of the houses we saw that day looked quite right for us, we realized we didn’t need to live as far out as Casa Grande or Maricopa to get a big house with an affordable price tag that might even come with quite a good pool. We opened up our search to nearly the whole of Maricopa county. The whole Phoenix metro area seems really ace. Surprise, Goodyear and Avondale, in particular, had some big pluses. Surprise has its own Trader Joe’s and nearly all the same sorts of commercial opportunities that Chandler has. Avondale is home to Arizona’s only used Lego store, which we’d visited previously. Goodyear is next to Avondale also giving it some ace proximity to said Lego shop.
Here’s the video: