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Phoenix, AZ
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San Francisco, CA
$346,100 Phoenix, AZ
76.5% less
Median Home Cost
$1,471,200 San Francisco, CA
$2,111Phoenix, AZ
77% less
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$9,415 San Francisco, CA
Phoenix, AZ Webinar
Everything you need to know about Phoenix, AZ real estate
FULL TEXT TRANSCRIPTION:
My name is Scott Fuller, Founder of leavingthebayarea.com. I want to welcome you to this episode of Leaving the Bay Area's, Market Snapshot. Every week we travel the country and we visit different locations to find out where people are moving to, where are some of the exciting relocation destinations people are coming or going to? And today I am especially excited because we're going to be traveling Southeast to one of my favorite vacation destinations, the Valley of the Sun, Phoenix, Arizona. And I'm even more excited because of my guests today. Jonas Funston, and Ashlea McCaffrey, from Phoenix Relocation Source. You guys, thanks a lot for joining us today, we look forward to kinda getting in and diving deep into a lot of the things that are hard to research online, right?
- 100 percent.
- It's really just you go on Zillow and say, okay, this house costs 450,000, you've got two bedroom, four bedroom, three bath. But when it comes down to like the detailed information, it's great to have it come from a local source, which clearly you guys already have a lot of experience working with people relocating into the Phoenix market, which is obviously a booming, booming market right now.
- Absolutely, 100 percent.
- You guys are keeping busy with that. But I think if you're on the webinar today you're gonna find that we've got a lot of value that we're gonna provide to you, and we'll make it a lot of fun as well. So, guys welcome, and Jonas, why don't you kinda give us a little background of yourself and your team,
- Absolutely.
- And what you guys are doing out there?
- Absolutely, well first off, thank you so much for the invite, we're super excited to be doing this with you. You know, when you presented the opportunity, I just thought it was a great fit, obviously kind of what we're doing out here. We're specializing in the relocation space, as far as people coming here from other markets, particularly California, which is leading the charge, and then when we cross paths, and found you guys on leavingthebayarea.com, it's was just the Yin to our Yang, kind of perfect fit, so, I'm super excited. I'm the team leader of the Epic Phoenix Real Estate Group, I'm also the Founder of Phoenix Relocation Source. And Ashlea McCaffrey, she's our lead client concierge. We are a team of seven strong out here. I've been doing real estate full-time 14 years. Obviously kinda seen the boom to the bust to the boom so been riding the market a little bit. And one thing that's, as long as I've been living here, which I'm a fellow California transplant myself from San Diego, there's always been a strong out-of-state element that have been here whether they be snow birds or relocation folks and that's only gaining momentum. And right now in Maricopa County where we reside is currently leading the charge with more people moving here than anywhere else in the U.S. so yeah, it's perfect.
- And it's a good county, there's a lot of great growth going on out there.
- Absolutely.
- And before we get into that, just real quick, for our viewers--
- Sure.
- We wanna keep this as interactive as possible so if you have any questions go ahead and press that button it's gonna raise your hand and you can send us a question. We'll be happy to have our experts here answer that for you. And I'm also gonna launch a couple of polls throughout our 45 minutes today and this is really just to kinda get a better idea of, you know, what you're looking to learn on this and so we can kinda tailor maybe some of our conversation parts to that as well. So I'm gonna launch the first one here, but let's go ahead and get started then Jonas and Ashlea. I'd love to talk about, and here's what a lot of people come to me and say, okay, I mentioned them going to Phoenix, obviously the first question is, how much does it cost, right? What do these houses cost, what are some of the different areas? And since it is really such a wide-spread area run us kind of through maybe some of the more popular areas and cities--
- Right, yep.
- Within the Phoenix metro area and then give us an idea of kind of what those price points might look like.
- Sure thing, so Phoenix as you know was a boom-bust market. We've been crawling out of the great recession every since.
- Oh yeah.
- We have since caught up as far as our housing goes. Right now our median home price, for Phoenix as a collective, and when we say Phoenix we mean metro, so all the surrounding cities and that sort of thing. We're at 270,000 currently, that's the equivalent of what actually, coincidentally, is the average rental rate right now in Phoenix which is $1,625 which to California folks is laughable I mean you can't even get a box for that.
- No.
- As far as pricing it's all over the board. Obviously everybody knows Scottsdale and Phoenix is a mixture of lot of, or, Chandler, Gilbert, Tempe, that sort of thing, so there's various affordable housing all the way up to multi-million dollar homes. I think before we dive in just to kind of give the lay of the land I'd like to pull up a map and just kind of show people so people know in relation to where they are.
- I think that would be really helpful.
- Yeah, a lot of times when people come out here they don't realize how vast Phoenix is and I think it helps put it in context as far as proximated to employment opportunities, transportation, education, stuff like that. So I'm just gonna take over the screen here for a sec.
- I'm a very visual learner, Jonas, so this is helpful for me as well to kind of say, okay, where is everything at since we're gonna talk about some different cities.
- Absolutely, so good ole Goggle maps. This is just kind of an overview of greater Phoenix. As you kind of see the lay of the land it's almost set up like right? So Phoenix is our central core, downtown area is right here in the middle. We've got an amazing transportation system, I mean the freeways are gorgeous. One thing that they have is the developers and city planners, urban planners, have a foresight to kind of plan ahead and put in the infrastructure before the build-out actually catches up and I know that's been a big pain point for areas like California and Chicago and other points like that. So we have basically our primary freeway which is I-10 kinda cuts through the middle and then we're connected by the 202 which loops out in our East Valley, that kinda connects our southeast communities which is Chandler, Gilbert, Mesa, Tempe, those areas. The 101 kinda goes all the way through Scottsdale, towards Phoenix, Peoria, Glendale, and ties back in. And then the newest edition is the 303 which is in the outer ring of the West Valley so we've got a lot of explosive growth in the far reach of the Southeast Valley and also the Northwest Valley, so that's you're Peoria, Surprise area, Buckeye. And then they are under construction with the 202 &that's actually gonna alleviate a lot of the central Phoenix traffic here. So, Chandler, Gilbert, you probably hear that a lot. We're actually getting--
- Oh, yeah we are.
- A lot of California people interested in Chandler-Gilbert with the schools in Southwest a-sh-lee, we'll get into a little bit later. That's our Southeast Valley down here. Phoenix, obviously central. Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, that's obviously like our Bel Air, Beverly Hills kind of equivalent. And then the West Valley, Peoria, Surprise, Goodyear, neighborhoods like that. So when we're doing a snapshot of some of the median home prices and kinda giving some examples I just wanted to kind of put this in context as far as where we are and to kind of gauge distance. You know people always ask me, how big is the Valley, it's actually a bigger land mass area than Los Angeles, than greater Los Angeles, so it's huge. I mean it's an hour basically from east to west, north to south, so, and that's assuming you're not hittin' rush hour. So it's . As far as the homes we just kinda wanted to pull up a quick infographic. I think this just makes it real plain and simple for everybody as far as kind of most recent activity. This is basically a year-over-year comparison so I think this is a great kind of snapshot as far as kinda where we've been, where we're going. The active listings have been kind of hovering right about the same amount, I mean plus or minus a couple thousand homes. This does not take into consideration homes that are under contract. So that's currently active on the market, just over 17,000 homes. Including the pending properties and that sort of thing it almost pushes up to closer to 30,000, about 28 and some change. Obviously our listings under contract, you know, almost 13,000 so year-over-year increase. Median home price we talked about, 270,000, so that just kind of. End of last year we reached that mark where we finally eclipsed, that the pre-crash, pre-peak pricing, so have officially caught up as you know. And then when we look at our month supply as far as whether we're in a buyers market, or a sellers market, it's a pretty tight inventory. At one point it crawled up to about four month's supply, it's currently running about 2.4 months. And what that means in layman's terms is if no new homes were to be added at the pace that we're selling how quick would it take to burn off the inventory. What we consider a balanced market here in Phoenix is closer to a five, between a five and six month supply, so inventory is tight and obviously a lot of that is driven by the pure volume of folks moving here. We're--
- Yeah, 'cause that's not normal for your market, right?
- It's not.
- I mean you're already over more towards that five, six months--
- Right.
- And even beyond in a lot of years.
- Yeah, yeah, after, when the market tanks that pushed it upwards of over an eight month supply, I mean it was high. So that's certainly not normal. We hear mixed statistics, but the going number that I've heard quite a bit is on average 200 people are moving here a day. So you can only carry so many golden permits, you can only go so fast, right? Same thing with apartments, so, really putting downward pressure in our inventory. As far as quick snapshot, I mean there's so many cities to cover, but we just decided to kind of give just like an overview of some of the more popular areas that we're kind of having a lot of conversations with clients about and just kind of wanted to give a brief sampling. So obviously we can dive into much greater detail, but just to kind of be mindful of time just kind of wanted to give you a brief snapshot as far as a bang for your buck, what you get in different areas. Starting with Chandler, so obviously Chandler was one of the Southeast Valley locations, that's where I originally moved here from. I lived in two homes in Chandler, my kids went to school in Chandler. Fantastic schools, parks, shopping, you name it. This is a resell home. So this is a four bedroom, two bath, '05 built, so just before the market just, just sailed off the cliff there. This is currently under contract, but the ask on this was 383, that gets you just under 2200 square feet. This is in southern, or south Chandler, excuse me, which is a little bit higher price point in the south Chandler versus north Chandler, or west Chandler. But you get a beautiful home. Obviously a lot of amenities and--
- Did I see a pool back there, or was that a different one?
- You're seeing, you're seeing a shot of another listing. This one does not have a pool, but it definitely has a pool-sized lot. You're about a fifth of an acre on this one. You know, vaulted ceilings, nice finishes. The next one is actually on Azalea Drive, is actually a new build so this one kind of borders Chandler-Gilbert. Chandler-Gilbert are kinda like, I would consider 'em sister cities. We get a lot of people kinda of interested in both communities. This one kind of starts both, this is a four bedroom, three bath, new construction. So the builder is Lennar, they're big on the, everything's included, kind of concept. Where you don't really get to pick all your finishes, but they include a lot of the bells and whistles for you like the granite and the flooring and Talus. This particular product is actually unique. This is one of their multi-gen concepts, or their next-gen concept. And so what that is it actually has an attached guest suite in there. So what we see is with a lot of the Millennials that are maybe staying at home a little longer with parents after college or trying to get into the job market or with kind of the baby boomers that are kinda aging out, this is a, whoops, jumped into there, this is a great product because it actually has a full little, this is the main kitchen, but it has it's own little guest suite as well as attached kitchen for mom, or for in-laws or what have you. So instead of having to buy two homes, or a condo, or buy a home with a separate kitchen which is gonna add a huge price tag. It's a great value at just under four, four and a half, 450,000. Gilbert is merely to the east. This is in a community called, Seville. So Seville is what we call a master planned community. So obviously you have a high concentration of homeowner association communities out here, there's obviously not HOA communities. In a master-planned community it's basically comprised of multiple builders within a large community and make you feel like, some are as small as like a half mile square mile, some are as big as like five, six square miles. But Seville has been around about 2004, all the way up to current, they're just kinda closing out. But this affords some fantastic amenities. People looking for golf, people looking for an area with resort-style pools, slides, lots of greenbelts and parks. This is kind of up their alley. This is a three bedroom, two bath. Our ask on this is 439,000. It's just shy of a quarter acre, so you're definitely getting a nice piece of property as far as land. This property does come with a pool. So, just gonna skip back for a second. So three-car garage, ranch style, single level. So coming from California where, especially say the Bay area which, I mean, this isn't gonna get you anything, I mean you get a ton of value here and being in Arizona you get a lot of outdoor living. I mean we spend with all the sunshine, temperate weather, we spend a ton of time outdoors even in the dead of summer. So this kind of gives you that resort-style pool, but very budget friendly. Kind of inline with the average list price over there. Gilbert's right around 160 bucks a square foot, this is a little bit higher at 173, but you're definitely gettin' kinda some more bells and whistles and in a--
- What percent of the properties out there have pools?
- About 35%, about, a little over a third, so it's crazy when you're flying in. Like when I'm flying back from California and you just kinda peek out the window and you just see a sea of pools, but a lot of the master-planned communities, and the active adult communities, they have fantastic resort-style amenities, so often times people don't even opt to get their own private pool 'cause they have that option where they reside. The same thing with, we're seeing a big boom with multi-family right now as kinda pricing has gotten escalated and affordability starts to become an issue we see more people kinda going for multi-family condo, town home product, obviously they won't have private pools.
- So, Jonas, the property you're showing us on Forest Avenue with a pool, looks beautiful. My property here in the Bay area, obviously depending on the area within the Bay area, that's gonna run ya, starting at a million and a half. So what is actually, if we're seeing some of these awesome properties for around 450 maybe to 500, what are you actually getting when you go up in price that's maybe 800 to a million?
- 800 to a million, again depending on the area. I grabbed a couple listings, one in Chandler, which is kind of in our backyard, and then obviously everybody knows Scottsdale so if people wanna see what a million dollar property looks like in Scottsdale. It's gonna get you a bang-up house. I mean this is gonna be in the multi million dollars even where I'm from in San Diego. This particular property is in the au-ka-at-eel area, so that's kind of like a designated village within south Chandler. That particular area is what we call, our high-tech corridor. We've got Intel, we've Orbital Sciences, we got Ebay, PayPal has operations. There's a lot of kind of incubator companies and bioscience companies down there, so a lot of high-paying white-collar jobs in that area and a lot of 'em are hiring and expanding and that sort of thing. So this particular home is right there dead center. So this will get you a six bedroom, 4 1/2 bath, a lot of square footage.
- 4600 square feet.
- 4600 square feet.
- Oh my gosh, okay.
- .
- Yeah.
- Fa-re-da-unce. This particular property--
- Yeah, it's stunning. This particular property, resort-style yard. You're backed into a community lake, or a lake there that kinda backs up to a couple other communities there. So, I joke that we live in the Sonoran Desert, but with all the California transplants we still like to pretend we live in California so we try to find bodies of water.
- This is the oasis, it's like you're in Tahiti right?
- This is the oasis baby.
- This is right here. So, but yeah, I mean this is just under a mil, brand new to the market, 980,000. You can do paddle boarding out there, they got the little, you know, you've got your evening sunsets, big entertainment space. And then of course Scottsdale, Scottsdale is Scottsdale. As we go further north, Old Town, which is kinda to the south towards Tempe and that sort of thing, all the way north to Scottsdale. Scottsdale I think becomes like 15 freeway exits, so it's a big, long, basically peninsula. But this is kind of more high desert for somebody looking for truly Sonoran-style living where you basically have mountain views, you've got saguaros, you got roadrunners and that sort of thing. This property kinda butts up in the foothills of the mountain range between east Scottsdale and Fountain Hills, but again, beautiful home. Nice bedroom-bathroom count. Four bedroom, three bath, just under 3200 square feet and this is actually 1/3 of an acre lot. And the nice part with this is they actually have some open space behind you so you're not just kinda stacked on, piled in like you are in lots of folks in California, you got some stretch room. You got the resort pool, you've got the fire features, just an absolutely stunning property.
- .
- That's incredible, yeah. Definitely resort living, like you said, it's kind of the inside-outside living concept where, you know, there's, it's, you're kinda feeling like you're not even inside when you're outside.
- 100%, yeah, 100%. A lot of homes have the wall of glass, you know what I mean, the disappearing doors and where you just kind of, just kinda flows into the interior-exterior space. You have these beautiful vaulted ceilings, so, I can't explain to people how frequently you're doing stuff out here as far as activities, I mean, there's just a ton of stuff to do, so.
- Let's talk about, all the people that we are working with, or having conversations with, are interested in kinda retirement. So they're saying, okay, we'd love to get into something where there's an active adult community, maybe the 55 plus, it has a lot of awesome amenities. What kind of concepts do you guys have out there 'cause obviously Phoenix is a huge retirement hub.
- Yeah.
- But what are some of the different concepts, the communities, and what those price points look like and what those amenities--
- Absolutely.
- Would represent.
- So Phoenix since basically the late '50s was basically the brainchild of the active adult community concept, all the way back in the day, Sun City and out in east Mesa, Leisure World and that sort of thing was kinda the template which a lot of other, particularly sun belt states have kind of replicated. We have a full spectrum of properties all the way down to super basic entry level, kind of town home style. Even some of the older properties like the ones in the '70s and '80s are kind of more of your like a manufactured products. So you could have stuff in the low 100s for something super basic all the way up to ultra luxury where you're pushing eight, 900,000. In the East Valley and West Valley I'd say there's definitely some communities that lead the charge. Down closer to Chandler there's Sun Lakes which was a Robson product. They're just finally built out, but they've been building for a long time. It's about five square miles.
- Yeah.
- So a little community. It's own post office, whole nine yards.
- Trilogy.
- You have a potential client right who's--
- We do.
- Who's closing escrow out there.
- Yeah, Maureen, yeah, a little shout-out to Maureen. So she came out and found something in another community called Solera, but absolutely knocked her socks off with what you got for her selling her place out in Oakland versus kind of bang for her buck, being able to come out and buy cash and still be able to throw a couple hundred thousand dollars in the bank just to kinda enjoy the, enjoy her time out here. But yeah, her property was in the low threes, beautiful home, primarily single level. These are gonna be fantastic, these are gonna be generally smaller lot sizes. A lot of the active adult, they're looking for the amenities, they're looking for the lifestyle, we say, you're buying a lifestyle. They don't want the upkeep anymore right, so a lot of desert-scape properties, artificial turf, not as many private pools in there, but the amenities are just off the chart. I mean they've got, I can't even tell you how many clubs and things that you do from Pickle-ball to golf courses and tennis to croquet to hiking clubs to Spanish. I mean it's unbelievable. So I do have a example of a property out in Gilbert which is one of the Trilogy product so I, this is one of the more I'd say upscale communities, not Uber high-end, but kind of mid-level. I mean this is a great price point. We see a lot of people from California and Seattle and that sort of thing that are cashing out their chips, selling their homes that are worth a ton and just coming down here and getting a great value. This particular property is 345,000. Again, you generally won't see a big bedroom, bathroom count. Usually it'll be a three, or a two bedroom with a den, or maybe three bedroom. Square footage is gonna be kind of in the 15 to 1800 is pretty common, sometimes you'll see as small as 1300. Lot size is obviously considerably smaller, just over 5,000 square feet, but what you can do--
- You typically see it for a lot less than right, so they're coming and saying, I don't want this expanse of 2500, 3,000--
- You got it.
- Square foot home, smaller lot, easier to maintain and manage.
- Exactly. And they wanna travel, right? And a lot of times this particular property isn't always their primary. A lot of times they're selling a bigger home that they have elsewhere and maybe they have friends or family in other markets, but they don't wanna endure the brutal winters, right, so they'll buy something smaller and this will be kind of more of a lock-and-leave concept for 'em and where they, maybe they have somebody coming over and just kinda checking in from time to time, flushing toilets, running the AC sort of stuff. But aside from that there's no maintenance to it, right, everything's clean and in great shape. But this is just kind of some examples of some of the amenities that they have. Obviously you got like Hibachi and the Pickle-ball. And it is gated, car-gated, I should say. Stellar golf, but it's nothing overly frilly as far as the property, but for somebody looking for a nice property, great price point, and truly looking for that lifestyle, this is a fantastic option, this is great. I mean this is, a lot of times people do this and they're like man, I wish I had this years ago, and they just have people, just kinda like, why you movin' to Arizona, and they go, they just kinda drop those regrets and they're just like, this is fantastic, so.
- Awesome, okay, so I'd love to get in with Ashlea. Ashlea, you ready--
- 100%.
- To give us some info here?
- Yeah, absolutely.
- Okay.
- Moving from the Bay Area to Phoenix, AZ
- The only other thing I wanna to add about Trilogy and that retirement community specifically, is that really gives people an opportunity to move somewhere where they immediately feel safe. They probably very rarely need to hop into their car, it's very, very golf cart friendly. And you may not want to lounge in your backyard because you really are treating your community as your new social circle. So you have an opportunity to go to your community pool, you can go have a drink at the restaurant, you can go sit on the patio and enjoy the sunset and watch people golf. And I think a lot of people that are in that age bracket are really looking for their next chapter and communities like Trilogy, excuse me, really allow people to do that with a lot of ease and for relatively low amount of money.
- That's a great point Ashlea because a lot of these folks are kinda coming in and you're starting over, right, so this is a new phase in your life--
- Yes.
- And I think with a lot of the activities that they offer within that, it's very, very conducive to be able to quickly make new friends--
- Yep.
- That have common interests--
- Yep.
- And, so again, those communities are just fantastic. You know my wife and I were out there with you guys a few weeks ago, just taking a quick trip out there and looking at some of those communities it's like I'm not quite 55, but I wouldn't mind hanging out there, right, I mean there's some pretty cool stuff going on so it's, it's fun.
- Well, and with it, with it being guard-gated too, if somebody, if there's a couple let's say that's moving out here and then one of them should pass, not only is that community in an incredibly safe part of town, but you're living in a guard-gated area. So it's like double safety for, let's say, a widow that might not know how to live on her own, but it will remain very safe and a builtin close-knit community for her.
- Awesome, that's great. So let's a, Ashlea let's get a little bit deeper into maybe then the other segment of people who might be looking to move to Phoenix. So let's say, for example, it's a working family who is moving for a job transfer looking for a new job in the area and they have kids. Education is always gonna be something that's gonna be very, very important to them, it's one of the first things that working families ask us about.
- Yes.
- Tell us about some areas, give us some information on some areas that have some great education. So talk about maybe some of the areas that you guys would put a little bit more focus on if people, again, had the opportunity to move anywhere, pretty much anywhere within the Valley. What are some of the areas that you would direct them to that are better with schools?
- Sure, sure. So as the lead client concierges, I am not a licensed real estate agent, my goal is really to help people with those living day-to-day type of questions. Like education, that's the biggest thing that comes up when you do have people that are moving here with kids that are school age. I have a daughter who is just finishing up kindergarten and she is in public school and I've don't a lot of research on this topic because I'm living it.
- That's right, yeah.
- There was just a recent article that was posted and put out there that Chandler, actually for the third year in a row, was named the top district in the state. Right behind it was Deer Valley and Gilbert. Deer Valley is gonna be more, north Phoenix area, but Chandler takes the cake, it typically does. And that's for public schools.
- Okay.
- If public school isn't someones thing then we have a huge amount of charter opportunities out here, and private, so dependent upon what someone's needs are I can really help them understand which each, what each of those systems really means and what it would be able to offer to their child specifically. But if somebody's budget supports it, Chandler-Gilbert is gonna be your best bet. In the East Valley and for the west side, probably like Peoria or Surprise.
- Yeah, and that is also good for even if you have kids that have moved away, but you just like the community of either Gilbert or Chandler, it's great for resale, right?
- 100%.
- So from an investment standpoint, if you love the community, you're going to get that back when you sell the property because of the high-end high-rated schools.
- Not only that, but it typically will bring a different demographic of neighbor and I explain that to people. They're like, well I don't have kids I don't care about the school, it's like, well no you do 'cause you're gonna wanna live next to somebody that cares about that, so--
- Yeah.
- It brings a closer knit community, I think, when you have stronger, a stronger public school district.
- That's the upside of having a non-licensed realtor on the team. She can get into demographic questions where we have to bow out so.
- .
- Awesome, talk about a little bit, shopping obviously, you guys, I mean Scottsdale I think is known for shopping there's a lot of fancy things going on there, but talk about some of the areas that you guys recommend what are the options for shopping and things like that?
- Sure, we have everything from our first Aldi coming which is like a budget-based grocery store all the way up to Neiman Marcus and Saks at Fashion Square Mall. So, I mean, we really have and everything between. I'm an avid Nordstrom rack shopper, we have really amazing Nordstrom racks here, but we have something for everyone in pretty much every city. There's gonna be pockets of the East Valley that really have everything like Chandler Mall has pretty much everything and if it's not there then you'll be able to find it at SanTan Mall which is in Gilbert. Between the two you really have anything you could ever want from budget-friendly to really, really incredibly high-end.
- Yeah and we went to the, is that the Tempe Marketplace?
- Yeah, yeah, it's very--
- It was great.
- Comparable to SanTan, it's awesome. Tempe Marketplace and SanTan Mall are all outdoor malls and they have everything you could want as far as like retail shopping, but then also really interesting bars and restaurants where you could sit outside, you can take in a movie. There's all different types of opportunity. If you wanted to play like laser tag, or mini golf, I mean it's almost like a city within a city in a lot of regard, they're really cool places.
- They are and I'll tell you what so I think, Jonas, when we were out there we were talking about sushi a little bit and it's like okay, you come from California, really close to the fish, right, 'cause we're close to the ocean, but guys in Phoenix are like, oh I'm not so sure about this. But we went to a place and I forget the name of it, but it was in the Tempe Marketplace, but it was the best sushi.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's good.
- The best I think I've ever had it was amazing, must by flying them over daily, right?
- They are, that was kinda the way too and it's almost like an oxymoron right, when you say fresh sushi in Phoenix.
- Right.
- But honestly some of the best sushi I've ever had is Phoenix and Vegas, you know what I mean, and clearly middle of the desert, but yeah, everything is coming on freight, usually same day or within 24-hours, and they've got some, they're not just a sushi scene, but the culinary scene in general in the time that I've lived here has just taken off. I mean we've got, obviously we've got the chain restaurants and that sort of thing too, but there is some absolutely amazing restaurant concepts from food trucks to just really cool unique one-off end use to only found in Arizona, but maybe have a couple, and a couple restaurants. But yeah, if you're a culinary buff this is your town man, this is your town. You know I'm surprised that our team's not a little thicker than we are. I think we're out running around showing properties where we're--
- I see you're looking a little tight there, Jonas.
- I'm wearing this medium shirt today so.
- It's the baby gap.
- Yeah, baby gap.
- Relocating from the Bay Area to Phoenix
- Let's jump into health care because I know that that's really important for a lot of people especially seniors who are coming in, that's usually one of the first questions we get. Is where we're going to is it gonna be close to medical services, and, so tell us a little bit about some of the major hospitals there, some of the clinics, and maybe the proximity to some of the more popular locations that you guys are servicing.
- Sure, so we have Banner out here. Banner has a number of hospitals all over the Valley so regardless if you're in the East Valley, West Valley, somewhere central, more north, there's more than likely going to be a Banner Hospital near you and they are full service. So you'll be close to a facility if there is an emergency that happens. In the West Valley, or in the East Valley, excuse me, we have the Dignity Health system which is a hospital in Chandler and also one in Gilbert. And then Mayo Clinic is kind of one of our claim to fames.
- Oh yeah.
- They are just as notable, in a lot of people's opinions, as Cleveland Clinic, not as broad as far as their numbers of locations, but very, very much so sought after. Mayo is a private hospital so we do have private hospital options as well as public hospitals and then a number of locations of state-funded hospitals in the downtown Phoenix area.
- And then last year was rated number one hospital in the U.S. They've got over 60,000 employees--
- Yes.
- Spread across and I think almost 5,000 physicians spread across Arizona, Minnesota, and Florida. So certainly that's a huge claim to fame, like you said, equaling the Cleveland Clinic and a lot of other--
- Yeah.
- Highly-rated hospitals, so.
- We also have Phoenix Children's Hospital which is world renowned for their different specialties and the doctors that they really have that are affiliated with that hospital.
- Oh, that's great.
- Phoenix Children's continues to rank regularly in a number of different areas, so they're also great, they're right in Phoenix.
- drive time, pretty much anywhere you're gonna be in the Valley with the exception of maybe like the outer, outer areas, you're within 10 to 15 minutes of a major hospital.
- 100%.
- Clinics everywhere you go.
- Yeah, that's important.
- We've got for quick stuff we got all the pharmacies. Now they're doing the mini-clinic stuff, you know what I mean, where the kind of stuff that you could avoid going in and having to go to the hospital for, so there's a lot of great medical services out here in very close proximity throughout the Valley.
- Excellent, let's jump into employment and kind of the diversification of industry there and it's probably, a lot of people may mistakenly think, oh, you know, Phoenix is just kind of an area for call centers, right, you've got these giant warehouses that are packed with people who are answering phones. But the reality of it is we're starting to see a lot of tech companies, right?
- 100%.
- Banking, move into Phoenix. So tell us about kinda what you're seeing and where they're coming into in the area.
- Yeah.
- Jonas and I can talk about this together, but the one thing that I wanted to touch upon in regard to employment opportunity is, I think when someone is planning on uprooting their entire life, and their family's lives, and their children's lives, and relocating, that a lot of the time you don't see what's right in front of you. And it's my job to kind of help you find the path of least resistance to get here. It is unbelievable how many people I talk to, when I ask them, have you talked to your current employer to see if there's an opportunity for you to relocate out there, or out here with them, and the fact that I hear, I never even thought to do that. And it's like, it's because it's such, it's so obvious for someone that's not relocating to think, well, why wouldn't you transfer with your company? So with the boom of different types of industry out here, and the fact that there are different huge Fortune 500 companies that are now based from Phoenix, there is so much opportunity for people just to kind of pick up and move. And the weather is better, the cost of living is less expensive, like you have so many more bells and whistles from Phoenix as a whole and you could still potentially keep your same job. It's the biggest reason why people don't move--
- Yep.
- Is because they need employment, so, that's just my-- .
- Have a job and have money coming in, right, when you're maybe gonna move, but that's a great point like look at what your options are with your employer, if you think that you might be looking to get a different change of scenery and cost of living.
- 100%, yeah, yeah, I'll just chime in for a second. I think there's a lot of misconceptions about Phoenix, you know what I mean, for people maybe that have never been here, or haven't been here in a long time, because it's so rapid growth. I mean even in the 15 years that I've been here it is neck-whipping how quick stuff gets, things get built, companies expand, people are moving here. It blows my mind. For the long, you know people come out here and they just, Phoenix as a whole used to be know for the five C's, right, copper, cattle, citrus, climate, and pretty much all those C's are almost gone. We've got the climate part, but so a lot of people decide it's only, farming and retirees out here, and they come out here and they're blown away that the median age in most areas is mid 30s, right? And so, I mean, we've got a very forward-thinking governor I guess you'd say, he's very pro-business. You know I think he, not just our governor, but other governors, particularly like maybe in Texas, see the opportunity to capitalize on being more business friendly and not having as much red tape and regulation and heavy tax burdens and that sort of thing and creating several opportunities. We're fortunate in the sense to be able to, due to our proximity to California, that for a lot of California companies logistically it actually makes more sense to either expand or even completely move operations out here. Like the cost of business in certain industry has gotten so expensive. I was actually reading an article a couple months back in the Phoenix Business Journal that, particularly in the West Valley which is kind of our hub for distribution and manufacturing, that in certain instances it's actually gotten more cost effective to set up the distribution in Arizona even though the product is coming in say, Long Beach, or up in the Bay area and it's more cost effective to ship it out here as far as, and ship it back to California which blew my mind, so.
- Yeah, that is mind blowing because you would think, how would that, from a numbers perspective, logistics standpoint--
- Yeah.
- How would that even make sense, but I guess when you run the numbers and you're looking at it saying it does.
- You know lower real estate, lower cost of real estate, lower construction cost, lower taxes. Your employment pool, we've got a massive employment pool. We've got a lot of great talent coming out. I mean ASU is the largest campus in the U.S. right now, it's huge and they're expanding. I mean they just opened another campus in central Phoenix added another, I think, 15,000 students. So the one thing that I think was important, from a Phoenix standpoint, is we used to be a one-trick pony, part of the crash which was construction and building, and when the market crashed the cities and counties really did a close look as far, we can't be a one-trick pony anymore. So they put a lot of money and research in trying to interest other companies as well as show them why they need to relocate. So they were able to kind of pinpoint as far as our education system and what sort of talent lived here, and what sort of talent was coming out and so it made it very easily, from a standpoint of attracting those businesses out here. So fast forward to today we've got a lot of expansion, like you said in the tech industry, and startup industry, and that sort of thing, and it's just growing like rapidly like wildfire growing, so that's really exciting for us because that's bringing in a lot of high-paying jobs. Cost of living is still low and affordable here so when you've got good pay and low cost of living it's very easy to attract talent from other states, even outside of California, move here, right, to have those job opportunities and a fantastic place to live.
- Absolutely, I wanna back up a minute 'cause we did a question from Chuck. Any information on Prescott 55 plus living? So any information on maybe some communities located in the Prescott area?
- Yeah, so Prescott is a little bit more rural than metro Phoenix is. It's not that far out, it's only about an hour and a half drive. It's, there's not a lot of the active adult communities in there, all the way up towards that area. They're up in the area called, Wickenburg, there is some active adult communities, but Prescott we see a lot of kinda retirees that are maybe not looking for the master planned communities, but basically just more, a lower, obviously affordable pricing. It is a cooler climate up there too so Prescott does--
- I was gonna say it snows.
- Yeah.
- It's four seasons.
- Somebody who's kicking and screaming their not gonna do a summer out here, it's a great option, but it's not a big, it is a big retirement community, but it's not a big active adult community.
- Okay, so we're running on just a couple of minutes left here and I wanna make sure we're sticking to our 45 minutes and obviously we're happy to stay as long as we need to if people have questions. I did wanna talk about climate a little bit and I wanted to share this, this was kinda cool. So today is May 23rd, in case we happen to see this recorded at some point in the future. We're at May 23rd and I'm gonna share my screen here real quick, I think, and this is a live webcam to Snowbowl, which is in Arizona. So everybody thinks, okay, well it's always hot and 100 degrees and it's like, we're in the end of May and this a live feed--
- Yes it is.
- Of Snowbowl at about I think 9500 square feet, so I think that's just incredible. Now how hot, what's the temperature where you guys are at in Phoenix?
- Freezing.
- Yeah, we're.
- It's 71 degrees--
- 71.
- I think a high of 77 so we're gonna get through a test, we'll be okay.
- Oh man, I hope you guys can make through it, yeah. So anyway, I thought that was kinda cool to share that real quick.
- Yeah.
- But any, a couple of things, you guys sent me over some information just kind of what the state kinda tax rate is, you guys are maybe between 2 1/2 and 5%, California about 12.3%, I just want to do some comparisons. 'Cause a lot of people are conscious about what are some of the comparisons of what I'm going to be paying, cost of living, right?
- Yes.
- We've already talked about the housing differences, and prices, property tax rate, .87% up to about 1 1/2%. Here you're gonna start at about 1 1/4%, and it could go up if there's any special assessments, or Mello-Roos or different things like that.
- Right.
- Maricopa County, sales tax rates about 7%. Here we're looking at maybe 8 1/4% up, depending on the county. And Arizona does not tax retirement benefits and income. California is the Social Security is exempt, but other types of income are taxed as well. And what's your current price of gas right now per gallon?
- A whopping 3.07 a gallon so.
- 3.07.
- And I hated filling up at 3.07 I feel like I got ripped off.
- I think that I filled up a couple days ago here, and it's fluctuated a little bit, but I think that was at about, what was I about, 4.49 for premium, so it kinda hovered around that 4 1/2% and they found that there's maybe 60 cents attributed to every gallon that's a tax for the state and nobody seems to know what that tax actually is.
Moving to Phoenix
- What it goes to, yeah. Arizona, Arizona actually has one of the lowest gas tax rates, I think it's 18 cents per gallon so, I mean, obviously it's one of the main reasons. And it's funny to me because, because Arizona we don't, we don't have any oil fields out here, we don't do any sort of any of the oil is, sorry, what am I looking for? Process here anyways and it's way cheaper than all these other states, it just blows my mind, so. But yeah, on property tax I think is a big claim to fame for us. You know we've had literally clients come out here and when I tell them a property tax on a specific property, the clients are like, New Jersey, Chicago, and they're like, oh, that's monthly right? And I'm like, no, that's annually. So, but then the average, you kind of translate it to dollars, the average property tax right now is $2,085 a year. So super, super low and that is attractive.
- Okay, so 30 seconds and less. What are some of the popular recreation activities to do out there because I know for three months out of the year it's very hot, right, you're over 100 degrees. So what are people doing in the winter time and what are people doing in the summer time, indoors and outdoors?
- Well in my world I do a lot of myth debunking. People think we don't have water here, and/or we're going to be running out of water. Neither of those things is accurate. And I told Jonas this the other day, but we actually have more boats per capita in the state of Arizona than anywhere else in the United States.
- And boats in the water now, right? I just wanna make that clear.
- Dryland docked boats, right?
- But with the low, with how inexpensive gas is, boating is a huge hobby out here for people. We have a lot of lakes. People like to escape and they like to go down to the water 'cause it's a little bit cooler, it's a great way to spend a day. We go north when it's really hot because, believe it or not, Arizona is incredibly seasonal. Phoenix itself really only has two, hot and hotter, but when you get out of Phoenix we have four seasons and the change in the trees at fall, and it snows in the winter. So camping, a lot of hiking, a lot of fishing, a lot of swimming. For the kids we have a ton of different types of museums here, have the Science Center, the Phoenix Children's Museum, the I.d.e.a. Museum. Anything you could ever truly want to do.
- Water parks, right, the water parks are amazing and you're paying what, like a couple dollars to get in?
- Not even, they're state, or city parks, for like $1.25, and ours is at the, like end of our street. And we have free water slides, and a lazy river, and it's just awesome.
- They've changed them for me, they're building a surf park here in Gilbert.
- It's true.
- Any sort of thought of me moving back to California is now gone because I will be able to surf less then five miles from my house.
- It's really wonderful here, we have anything you could ever want and anything you've become accustomed to. There's nothing that we .
- That's awesome. Well, I wanna be mindful of our time because we're a few minutes after. If anybody has any questions let us know, and again, we have this recorded. We'll be putting this back out on the internet if you wanna see a replay or maybe share that with somebody that you're to convince to maybe move over to Phoenix. Have them take a look at this. And Jonas, Ashlea, really appreciate you guys taking the time today.
- It's our pleasure.
- Thank you.
- Great information. I think that was really helpful for people. And for anyone watching this if you need some more information specific to Arizona get in touch with us, info@leavingthebayarea.com and we can get you connected with our partners and get you guys all set up and I'm sure they'd be happy to work with you as far as getting you some more information on the Phoenix area so.
- Of course.
- Any last words?
- Thank you for having us.
- Yeah, we just appreciate the opportunity, it was great, thank you.
- Excellent you guys. All right, well hey, enjoy your afternoon.
- Thank you, you too.
- All right, you too, bye.
- Bye.
Cost of Living Comparisons
Phoenix, AZ VS San Francisco, CA
68.3% less
Cost to Rent
4.4% more
Utilities
13.8% less
Food & Groceries
9.2% less
Health Costs
24.4% less
Transportation
1.1% less
Auto Insurance (Annually)
25.6% less
Auto Sale Tax
85.7% less
Auto Registration (Annually)
1.3% more
Sales Tax
25.6% less
State Income Tax
31.9% less
Child Care
Commute Comparison
| Phoenix, AZ | San Francisco, CA | |
Average Commute Times |
24.5 mins | 45 mins |
Comparison of gas prices |
$3.00 | $4.49 |
Live Traffic Comparison
Phoenix, AZ
San Francisco, CA
Climate
Phoenix
San Francisco
103
Average Summer High68
77
Average Summer Low55
69
Average Winter High58
45
Average Winter Low47
299
Sunny Days Per Year259
9
Rain (inches per year)25
0
Snow (inches per year)0
Popular Cities in Phoenix Metro
Phoenix
1.6 million people
Scottsdale
255,000 people
Tempe
185,000 people
Mesa
508,000 people
Gilbert
242,000 people
Chandler
253,000 people
Current Temperature in Phoenix, AZ
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