Arizona Sucks

Many thanks to member, Out of AZ, for recently posting this invaluable, honest look at how life really is in Arizona. I wanted to be sure everyone got a chance to read it, so enjoy!

I lived in the Phoenix area of AZ for eight years and just moved back to CO this summer. There are definitely negatives about anywhere, but there seems to be more in Phoenix than most. I’ve lived in NY, CA, CO, and NE and AZ is definitely the worst of all the places I’ve been.

For the nation’s fifth biggest city, there is absolutely nothing to do. You can go to one of 1235 shopping malls around the valley to escape the heat or go watch a movie, but you can do that anywhere in the country. You can go to an indoor baseball game if you can afford it. If you don’t have a swimming pool, your time in Phoenix will be miserable. If you do have a pool, expect crazy APS/SRP electric bills due to the pool and 24-hour air conditioning your house will need to keep it livable.

Your car will take a beating, the heat notwithstanding, but also the AZ drivers that you’ll drive defensively to avoid slamming into. Constant road construction is also a negative. There is approximately 15 miles of valley freeway closed every weekend for construction.

The job scene isn’t all that great. Not only is this place a right-to-work (more like right-to-get-fired-for-no-reason) state, the economy is heavily dependent on construction, which has all but ceased to exist right now.

There are like 21236 strip malls in Phoenix that look exactly like the 21235 others in the area. Same stores, same restaurants, same landscaping. It’s pretty hellish. And now, roughly half of most of the strip malls stand empty because of Arizona’s economy (and the broader US economy as well).

There’s no culture here. I’m not kidding. The best Mexican food here comes from chain restaurants. Or at least that’s what most Phoenicians think. Most Phoenicians love spending long weekends in Mexico but look down on Mexicans, Mexican food, and Mexican culture. Any other culture? Forget it, the best Italian food in the valley is at Olive Garden, the best Chinese is at Panda Express. For a metro area with a population over 4 million, it’s pretty pathetic.

The homes/neighborhoods/cities all look the same. Stucco brown boxes with eight tons of crushed rock in the front yard. You don’t know if you are in Ahwatukee, Tempe, Peoria or Chandler. It’s all the same.

I don’t know about public schools, I don’t have kids. But I will say that if you really think you’re going to receive a world-class education in a college with 70,000 others like at ASU or by paying tens of thousands for a degree people may or may not take seriously like at University of Phoenix, this may be a good place.

Phoenix is a waste. Truly. They waste water for miles of grass for golf courses or huge resorts. There are fountains and fake lakes everywhere. It’s great if you want to live near a body of green water so you can be eaten alive by mosquitoes. They waste electricity. How else do you justify living in a town that can get upwards of 120 degrees?

Phoenix is a demonstration of human accomplishment and hubris all at once. The fact that you can take a desolate, uninhabitable desert and turn it into the nation’s fifth-largest city shows what we can accomplish as a society. But for what purpose? So your kids can stay indoors for six months watching tv and playing video games because it’s too hot to play outside. So you can drive in your air conditioned car to your air conditioned office and back to your air conditioned home. So you can earn less money than most people doing the same job in the rest of the country. All this, with fluctuating real estate values, increasing crime, decreasing job opportunities, it’s all reason to stay out of Phoenix.

Don’t be fooled. There are very, very few good jobs in Arizona.

Simply put, there is pretty much nothing here. The Phoenix Metropolitan area is essentially houses and strip malls. If you want to work construction (even these jobs are drying up these days) or in retail or the service industry then you will have no problem finding a job in Arizona. Minimum wage jobs are quite abundant out here and easy to find. Want to actually further your career out here? Good luck. Definitely don’t even consider moving to Arizona thinking you’ll be able to find a good job at some point. It won’t happen and you will end up supporting your family working the drive-thru window. Moving here with a job offer is a bit less risky, but if you are let go for one reason or another – you will probably be forced into moving all over again. Sure there is plenty of small businesses and start-ups out here – what nobody will tell you is many of these business cheat, under-pay, and over-work their employees. If you happen to have secured yourself one of the very few good jobs in the Valley – congratulations – just realize that this is not the norm and many Arizona residents are struggling to make ends meet due to an abundance of poor paying jobs.

Everyone knows by now how useful the Internet can be when researching just about anything. There is a wealth of free and easy to find information scattered through out the Internet. Unfortunately, anyone can create a website and there is a lot of information on the Internet that is anything but factual. Websites aimed at Arizona relocation more often than not paint a picture of the Valley as a tropical, oasis in the middle of the desert that everyone dreams of visiting and moving to some day. These websites are owned and maintained by Arizona Realtors who are trying to sell homes, so of course they want to make the Valley look inviting. One of the many reasons why this site was created was to offer a REAL look at life in Arizona and not just tell people what they want to hear. Here are some of the most laughable LIES I have stumbled across on Arizona relocation websites.

‘The Arizona economy is very strong’ – of course nobody wants to relocate to an area with a declining economy, so why not tell potential clients that the economy is doing great? Unfortunately, the Arizona economy is just about done for after the housing bubble burst and the chances of a strong rebound are quite slim. Construction and real estate jobs are drying up across the state as there is no real reason to continue building more homes when very few are actually buying/able to afford them anyways.

‘The people are very friendly’ – sorry, but this really could not be any further from the truth. Arizona is home to some of the most rude, arrogant, and unfriendly people on this Earth. The trash, fakes, and frauds who could not make it anywhere else all seem to collect in this place we call the Valley of the Sun.

‘A beautiful year round climate’ – the weather in Arizona is beautiful for 2 months of the year at best. Temperatures well into the hundreds for close to 4 months is about as far from beautiful as you can get.

‘Affordable real estate’ – Arizona real estate prices may be falling, but prices are still high considering what you get. Not to mention if you make an average Arizona salary you will be hard-pressed to even qualify for a mortgage, let alone actually make the payments. And the cheapest real estate is found on the outskirts of town which works fine if you are retired, work-from-home, or work at the neighborhood grocery store. Otherwise you can brag about your 40 mile each way commute to work, while being stuck in traffic and getting repeatedly cut off and getting slammed into by illegals with no insurance – all while hoping you or your car doesn’t overheat from the 100 plus degree temperatures.

Supply and demand – inventories of available homes across the Valley are extremely high. There are more Arizona homes out there, than there are people who wish to move into them. Less demand – prices will go down.

Foreclosures – Arizona can brag about having one of the highest home foreclosure rates across the nation. Over the next couple years, many more homes will end up in foreclosure due to thousands buying homes they could never afford. What happens as more and more homes go into foreclosure? Supply of homes goes up and this will continue to drive Arizona home prices down. You can thank your neighbors who bought homes they could never afford for driving the value of your home down as well.

Lender owned homes – what happens when these repossessed homes end up sitting vacant? One of two things is more than likely to happen and both WILL drive down the value of your home. Vacant homes can often be very poorly maintained and this can deter any potential buyers browsing YOUR neighborhood. Or these lender owned Arizona homes are sold at below-market cost, which will effectively drop prices in your subdivision.

Qualifying for a mortgage – the days of mortgages for anyone and everyone are long gone. Good luck buying a house without a modest down payment, income verification, and/or credit verification. Fewer and fewer people are able to qualify for a mortgage which is keeping the supply up and bringing Arizona real estate prices down.

Everyone always talks about all the hot new jobs across Arizona. The Arizona job market has always been a main selling point used by Realtors trying to trap people into relocating to the Valley. Sometimes it seems as though there are more jobs than people across the state. What a lot of people simply overlook is that there is a HUGE difference between quantity and quality of jobs. So, why are there so many jobs popping up across the Valley?

Growth. As more and more people decided to move to the Valley – more homes, schools, restaurants, and shopping centers had to be built. The construction industry was most affected by this growth, and countless new construction jobs were created. Most of the other hot new jobs were necessary to meet the service needs of newcomers to Arizona. Somebody has to work in the restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, and shopping malls.

As long as people continue moving to the Valley, there will always be a number of construction and service-oriented jobs. The growth has to end sometime though, right? What will happen to Arizona, its people, and an economy tied to building and selling homes when growth starts to decline?