Moved in this Tuesday with the bare essentials. I figure two more trips with the final one using a U-Haul trailer and some help from relatives.

My last thread asked for locations in TX to help narrow down the choices for me. But the feedback about property taxes and no such thing as a free lunch with respect to Texas' zero state income tax along with trying to find a place with no weather extremes made the search difficult. Snowmageddon scuttled the plan completely and made me reconsider Arizona.

Free state and minimal income tax locked me in. I crossed off places near the border, relatively high crime, extreme weather conditions (for us), and high median house prices. That left us three places: Prescott, Prescott Valley, and Chino Valley. Prescott has relatively colder temperatures being higher and also higher housing prices. Chino Valley seemed to have the least access to medical services. By process of elimination, Prescott Valley was the winner.

It turned out to be a great selectin for us. We're just 1 to 2 miles of most everything in town that has a multitude of eateries and services. People are friendly. The wife and I are just happy as can be starting a new life here.

Rey, look to the East. I’m about a stones throw over that mountain. I pass through PV at least once a month going to Costco. If you ever head over to Cottonwood, hit me up.

Oh, welcome to freedom!

Congrats. I’m down the road in Livermore for another month till kids are out of school. We already closed on a house in Florida. 3x the size and 10x the land for 1/2 the money. And this one will be listed soon. thankfully they are going under contract around here within days. I asked and got permission to work remote forever. The state income tax savings alone will fund a few NFA items... I love your weather and geography California, your politics broke me.

Congratulation on your move.

I remember when we moved to Florida from New Jersey over 20 years ago. It was a big awaking we did not realize before moving.
We were aware of no state income tax and lower cost of living but we were not aware of the gun laws.
I remember when we first got to Florida trying to register my hand guns. The lady at the police station laughs at me and said " you moved to a free state we don't do that".
At first I was not sure if she was joking and I called the Florida Highway patrol, They laughed and said the same thing.

Congrats on the CA-to-AZ move. We did it ourselves in 2005.

We have a great association here. Very active in state issues: Arizona Citizens Defense League.

We're looking at the Oro Valley area near Tucson. Montana is great for the 90 days of summer, but.....

quote:

Originally posted by 71 TRUCK:

I remember when we moved to Florida from New Jersey over 20 years ago. It was a big awaking we did not realize before moving.
We were aware of no state income tax and lower cost of living but we were not aware of the gun laws.
I remember when we first got to Florida trying to register my hand guns. The lady at the police station laughs at me and said " you moved to a free state we don't do that".
At first I was not sure if she was joking and I called the Florida Highway patrol, They laughed and said the same thing.

Your post reminded me of a guy I shoot with every week.

He was born and raised in New Jersey, spent his whole life there and retired from there and moved 5 miles south of me. I met him a few months after he got here.

First thing he asked me was if he could really just go to a gun store with another private party and transfer a gun on the spot after a sale. I told him no, you go to WalMart or somewhere like it, examine the gun, hand the guy the money and then shake hands and go your separate ways. He said "and that's legal!!?

That was around 9 years ago. Now he buys around 4 or 5 guns a year and has the time of his life.

Oh, and when he bought his house, he asked how much the taxes were. They told him "around $2,000 and he said, well, that's not not too bad per month. They said no, that's for a year. He couldn't believe it.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Flash-LB,

congrats

welcome to AZ

How many more good people can the state of California afford to lose before it utterly collapses?

Hope you enjoy Prescott Valley

quote:

Originally posted by Flash-LB:
Oh, and when he bought his house, he asked how much the taxes were. They told him "around $2,000 and he said, well, that's not not too bad per month. They said no, that's for a year. He couldn't believe it.

I honestly don't know what some of these places are doing with the money. It's not like they don't also have high sales taxes and high income taxes. About the only relatively lower tax in NJ is the fuel tax, but then I95 is a toll road, so there's that. Really, why are some governments so expensive to run? Is there really that much largesse in the form of social spending? I thought all of those handouts were heavily subsidized by the Feds. It was only in the 1960s that NJ was a Republican state and an escape from NY taxation. What a change.

Prescott Valley sure seems like a nice place. I'd love to live within a short drive of Gunsite Academy. I'd be going through their entire catalog of courses if I lived that close. When I wasn't at Gunsite, I'd be at Lake Powell.

Just don't tip over any cacti. They hate that in AZ.

So do they have the Az Cockroach's there

Suppose they cannot be worse the the roach's in Ca.

Glad you guys are happy.

Congrats! I'm envious.

Still trying to check out places but the number of viable places is dwindling. Maybe I'll check out PV. But I don't want to turn on a black light at night in the yard and see scorpions everywhere.....

Congratulations! We are in Sacramento and pretty much have narrowed down our move out of CA to Prescott Valley.

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
How many more good people can the state of California afford to lose before it utterly collapses?

Not sure, but hopefully my parents sell all their real estate and pick a free state soon for their last decade or 2. The state income tax I will save after moving will be close to 1k a month. I pay 7k in property tax now and it will go way down for 3x the house.

I do mortgages and in the last year I have done more deals in TX AZ NV ID MT WY FL and UT than in 15 years combined at my company. These are upwardly mobile very high earning folks who are done with CA. Yeah some are probably liberals.. zI don’t Ask their politics. But it’s a very interesting trend. Small sample size for sure definitely interesting to note.

Congrats on escaping!

Welcome to Preskitt.

quote:

Originally posted by konata88:
Congrats! I'm envious.

Still trying to check out places but the number of viable places is dwindling. Maybe I'll check out PV. But I don't want to turn on a black light at night in the yard and see scorpions everywhere.....

In college (Arizona State) I once had a 7th floor apartment dorm across from the campus football stadium.

We found a scorpion in the cupboard.

In town, on campus, on the 7th floor.

It came up and through the walls.

That said, I lived in Arizona full time for nearly 13yrs, and spent countless hours in the desert, day, night, morning, noon, between mountain biking and climbing and camping I was out in it, everything the state had to offer, and I never even came close to being bitten by anything and I saw very few snakes either.

The sun and snowbirds are the biggest concerns in AZ.

Congrats on the move. Go have finnerat Papa's down in the old section of Prescott. Great family owned Italian restaurant.

Congrats, welcome to Arizona.

quote:

Yeah some are probably liberals..

Ya think?