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Living in Tucson Arizona - Where the Sun Shines

Posted By Paula Henry on Tuesday, May 03, 2011 7:42:00 PM | 8 Comments

Every Tuesday, here on Indy Real Estate Talk, we are featuring guest posts from real estate experts around the country. This week we have, Realtor, Dave Smith, from sunny Tucson, Arizona. I know there's many a Hoosier looking for sunny skies about now. Well, we found them, but - be warned, the sunny skies in Tucson come with some extreme side effects.

Hello from Sunny Tucson. We are about to enter what the rest of the country calls summer; here we call it 'BROIL'. There is a race to any shade, even if it is just the width of a telephone pole. We put sun shields in our windows and sunglasses on our tomato plants.

If you plant flowers and they say they can take full sun for 6+ hours. That means, Indiana sun, or Denver sun, but not Tucson sun. Here those flowers last about 90 minutes; by 6+ hours they look like you set them on your charcoal grill while it was lit. They don't just wilt, they turn black and shrivel up. Did I mention we love it down here? Summer Broil season is necessary to drive the snowbirds back East, otherwise they would stay all year round.

Yeah, when you have the season of FREEZE, we are in shorts and sandals playing golf. or laying around the pool and sending emails and pictures of us by the pool while you there are shoveling snow and scraping windows. (It's the snowbirds, not we natives) I say natives, it takes 10 years to get your native status. I got mine last year. I'm originally a buckeye, yep, a worthless nut. Ohio boy born and bred. So you know, I know green. What I don't know is basketball, but that's for another day.

How's the Tucson Real Estate Market? Well, if you are a bank you are selling about 55% of the real estate sales each month. If you aren't a bank . . . If you are looking to buy a nice snowbird nest, well, we gottem, cheap. And they won't cost you near as much as they did during the Loco years. (It was the sun in Washington that caused the Loco Years) So can I tell you a few things about Tucson you might not know. Let's see.

Tucson the City of Brown and Empty Rivers

But, Hey, You are in Indiana, a GREEN State. I'm not talking politics or even Political Correctness. I'm talking about GREEN grass and GREEN Trees. Oh, and you have rivers, that actually have water in them. We have river's too. But no water, fishing here is for sand trout. Or fishing to get the sand out of your sandals. And we don't have basements. So we can't store as much stuff as you can there in Indiana. Why don't we have basements? You'll need to watch the video to find out. Oh, and one more thing. I'm not wearing sandals in the video. It's not safe to wear sandals and stand on a shovel. So I put on tennis shoes just for the video.

If you're ever in Tucson let me know. I'd be fun to talk to someone that knows GREEN and water. Fishing stories are great too. I used to love to fish, but down here, the worms turn into worm jerky in about 10 minutes and the sand trout don't like worm jerky. Well, there you have it - sun, sun and more sun! No shortage of Vitamin D and no shortage of great values on homes in Tucson. If you've been thinking about winter retreat from the snow or retiring to sunny weather, call Dave; just don't look for a walk-out basement or rivers.

Discussion

#1 Posted by Ines at 5/6/2011 0:49 PM

I learned something new!!! AWESOME!! My sister lived in Tucson for a few years and she used to send me photos of people's rock gardens. For her it was so shocking not to see grass...now it all makes sense. We don't have basements in Miami either btw, and it's because of our water-table being so high....they would be sumerged 90% of the year.

#2 Posted by Deborah at 5/6/2011 4:53 PM

Finally something funny to read real estate realated. Thank you.

#3 Posted by Gena Riede at 5/3/2011 8:14 PM

I love this especially the BS part! What a guy...wouldn't you love to buy a house from a Realtor with a great sense of humor!

#4 Posted by Paula at 5/3/2011 8:17 PM

I laughed out loud! Seriously, though, I lived in AZ for 15 years and homes prices in Tucson are an amazing value, even without basements.

#5 Posted by Roberta Murphy at 5/4/2011 7:59 AM

Thanks for sharing the morning chuckle, Paula and Dave! We have more than a little of that crap clay soil in San Diego, too. Have become good friends with gypsum, compost, sand and worms. No basements, here, either.

Enjoy your green and lovely Indianapolisalso home to some good real estate values!

#6 Posted by Kristal Kraft at 5/6/2011 6:15 AM

Love this! Should be called "Taming the Desert with Dave!" I wonder why you bother to try and change things. Sometimes it's OK to leave things as they are meant to be. I know in Colorado people like their Kentucky Blue Grass, but certainly don't like having to pay for it! :)

#7 Posted by Ashley at 5/12/2011 -2:15 PM

Honestly! It's good perspective though-cause we think it gets hot here in Idaho(plus we get to FREEZE in the winter), but it's nowhere near that hot. We stick around the 100* mark for a few weeks, but it's usually 90s... and when it does get that hot, we have a ton of rivers to go play in, or a basement to cool off in. Thanks for the update on your neck of the woods. It's amazing that even the same 4 seasons can be so different-

#8 Posted by Cyndee at 5/16/2011 10:50 PM

Oh my Paula, loved Dave's guest post - unfortunately we can relate all to well here in sunny Florida too. Loved his great sense of humor, with this topic - hope you have him back again.