Moving to Casa Grande / Phoenix / Kayenta / Anywhere

[PaleoRob]

Well, I guess I'll have to change my screen name soon. My wife and I are going to be moving to Casa Grande before the end of the year. Listing the house for sale up in Page. No job yet, kinda scary, but my wife needs to go back to school full time. Even commuting to and from UofA, with the house prices in CG we'll save money over moving to El Pueblo. Big change - this will be my first time living off The Plateau since '99. Eeek!

[Jim]

Azbackpackr:

So, I'm hearing about houses with pools selling for $85K in Avondale. How much is an ordinary house in Casa Grande? Has to be cheaper than $85K, right? But I'm told you now have to have pristine credit in order to get a loan, and they want big downpayments as well.

Homes are that cheap in the Valley? Incredible. No wonder so many people want to live there. How old are they, what condition are they in, and what is the neighborhood like? I knew Flagstaff is over priced, when a rancher from 1973 sells for $330,000., but how can homes be that cheap, and not a dump?

[kingsnake]

Bubble collapsed after all the Californians tried to flip everything four years ago ...

[Jim]

Bubble collapsed after all the Californians tried to flip everything four years ago ...

For $58,000., I think you mean it blew up, fell in the toilet, was flushed down, and went to the sewage plant.

[azbackpackr]

I said 85K, not 58K

Quickly perusing Realestate dot com for Casa Grande, there are hundreds of foreclosures with no price listed. The first actual house (not a mobile home) I found when searching with the low-to-high search option, was an older home for 20,900, on a pretty decent-sized lot. I am pretty sure you'd need cash to buy it though.

I know I don't have good credit any more, having defaulted on several credit cards 2 years ago. However, I have been busy making arrangements with a couple of them. The other three have not contacted me lately, and likely wrote me off. Maybe I can get my credit back, in about 7 years! I am not worried about it. Having "good credit" is an overrated Establishment line of crap, anyway, sez the old hippie in me...

[Jim]

Right, I transposed those numbers. I quoted you right, but wrote it down wrong. Not a huge difference compared to 300,000. Now, I absolutely hated Florida when I lived there and was employed. Three hurricanes that summer of 2004, and miserable summer humidity and rain (probably has something to do with my lack of enthusiasm for Flagstaff and it's summer rain), but I was shocked at how cheap homes were near my job. I basically could have bought a brand new and pretty decent home after one year of saving the small amount needed for a down payment. I couldn't do that for 300,000., but I could practically do that now for 85,000. OK, not really, I have no income right now, but you get the idea.

[paulhubbard]

A house just down the street from my GF's house = 5 bedroom, 3 bath, pool, fireplace, 3500 sq ft, less than 5 years old. Asking price (last time we looked) $125k.

[Jim]

Wow!

[azbackpackr]

Yeah, but..... You have to have exquisite credit, you have to have a big down payment, or you have to have cash. The loans are hard to get right now. My roommate is trying to buy a house in the Valley, and finding all kinds of deals, but even though his credit is pretty good, and his wife's is even better, they are having a hard time with getting a loan.

[writelots]

Bubble collapsed after all the Californians tried to flip everything four years ago ...

For $58,000., I think you mean it blew up, fell in the toilet, was flushed down, and went to the sewage plant.

That's what it felt like in my profession anyhow... I think now we're hoping that it might be crawling out of a treatment facility on it's way to rehab. Oh, that's right - you said blew up, not threw up...

I'm glad that there's tons of cheap cheap realestate out there now, even if it means my own worth has suffered. There are a lot (and by this I mean pumpkin tons) of empty homes, bladed lots and vacant, disturbed land that needs to be gobbled up before we start the madness again. Maybe the rampant growth will be 2% smarter this time...

[trekkin_gecko]

pagerob
have you looked in tucson?
with gas prices going up, that commute will get old and expensive
while tucson didn't get hit as hard as phoenix in the housing crash, i would think you could find something reasonable there
not sure what there is in CG, since i've just blown through in passing

[PaleoRob]

Even at $5/gallon, the commute will still be cheaper for us. My wife is actually looking at houses in Tucson online right now, and the selection (and prices) are going to be harder on us. I'd prefer Tucson, but with one income it doesn't seem as possible.

[kingsnake]

If you have not heard of Zillow before, check it out. Great resource, especially for doing comps. (http://www.Zillow.com, naturally ...)

[azbackpackr]

I was just looking on Realestate dot com at houses in Casa Grande between 20K and 35K. Lots of them.

The problem seems to be getting a loan, and that those short sales are really hard to get into, also.

[Jim]

Compared to some other locations, not Flagstaff, a new place for that cheap is incredible. Some places are both dumpy and expensive, a rare but very upsetting combination.

[azbackpackr]

In Flag you could buy the mobile home next door to me for about $20,000, make offer, maybe less than that. It's pretty new. $250 a month for the lot rent, I think. It has a view out the front, a small back yard and a hill covered with forest behind it. And it's quiet here. You wouldn't own the land, but that's the cheapest way to have a semi-permanent residence here, I think. I'd buy it, but I don't have the 20 grand.

[Jim]

Well, yes, that is cheap, but I have an enormous bias against mobile homes, single, double, triple wide, or stacked in any combination. Call me old fashioned, but I just don't like a house that is on a metal platform, has fabric covered wall, and wheels fixed to the bottom.

http://www.trulia.com/property/10486954 ... e-AZ-85122
What is the catch? It looks good to me!

[Sredfield]

Real estate in small out fringe towns really took a hit. Just before I retired we did a project that caused us to research real estate in and around Coolidge. The run up and resulting drop was phenomenal--think factors of 10.

[azbackpackr]

I don't think there is a catch, Jim. The houses in Casa Grande I saw that were in the $30,000 range were all older and probably in a more "ethnic" area. I didn't even look at more expensive houses. I was looking to see what a low income person might be able to pick up. I avoided looking at mobile homes in Casa Grande, though. I wanted to see what the cheapest actual stick built house would cost. It was about $20,000, but more of a 2br-1ba cottage, and probably 40 years old or more.

I have lived in 5 mobile homes and one house during my 25 years in AZ. Have to say, in the cold country, mobile homes are a lot warmer than my house ever has been, because they have central heating. Also, this one here in Flag is a lot sunnier and brighter inside than my house in Eagar.

[Jim]

I didn't know they still built homes using sticks and mud in the Valley. Does that meet the codes?

No, seriously, I think the more normal term is "on site built", since mobile/ trailers are built using 2x4's, or "sticks". I thought you said the home you lived in up in the White Mountains was probably very old and may not have been well insulated. Not having central heat is part of that. This bust is incredible. I wish I could pick up one of those homes to dwell in.

[te_wa]

$35K for a house is dang cheap. maybe thats why the I-10 is so frustratingly crowded..