Need info on Surprise, AZ

[sagerat]

Greetings,
Opening in my field at City of Surprise.  When I lived in the Valley of the Sun ('68-'86) Surprise and El Mirage were a bit, um, rough-edged shall we say.  

What's Surprise like now?  Any and all local info welcome.  Thanks.

 

[expatbrit]

Don't you want to be surprised?

[napper]

Surprise has become just another bedroom community of the Phoenix metro area.  My ex-wife and sons have lived there for the last 5 years.  Very much suburban.  I would not want to commute out of Surprise into Phoenix - only a couple of through roads and greatly expanded population over the last ten years.  Since it sounds like you would be working out there, too, the commute shouldn't be a problem.  Or if you chose to live closer the Phoenix, at least you would be commuting in the opposite direction of 90% of the other lemmings.  You should be able to find a very nice place for a decent price.  Surprise was one of the fastest growing areas when the housing bust hit so I would expect housing supply is still way ahead of demand.

Good luck.

[DangerMoney]

Sage,
If you look at  Surprise on Google Earth you'll see what Martin is talking about: it's now just part of the Phoenix sprawl. You may also want to make the move now rather than later:

http://www.azcentral.com/business/realestate/articles/20120627metro-phoenix-home-prices-continue-rise.html

Hope you can make it back. We lived in Mesa for 25 years and will go back... maybe not until retirement, but we'll go back.
Good Luck regardless.

[sagerat]

Thanks for the info.  

I plan on going home to AZ when I retire but sooner if I can get a job there.  We keep looking at the Cottonwood/Clarkdale/Camp Verde area for our ultimate destination.  I ruled out Globe/Miami/Superior as  while the riding is good and easy to get to Tempe to watch my beloved Sun Devils, there ain't much else going for those places.