AZ Calgunners - What was your biggest surprise?

[sigstroker]

What county are you moving to?

[Youngearth]

We have only spent a couple of days looking at real estate and our house has not even been listed yet so it?s still early. Whenever we look, it seems we keep ending up looking at houses in the Cave Creek or northern Phoenix/Scottsdale areas.

[mrkubota]

Cave Creek / Carefree area is generally cooler than Phoenix. Most of the properties near our place on the north side of Cave Creek are 2.5ac lots or larger.14369.jpg

[superhondaz50]

Thanks for your replies. I just accepted my job transfer with my company, so it appears we are on our way to AZ. My family all have a nervous excitement combined with some anxiety about moving. My wife is a life long so-cal girl and my oldest is in college in Pasadena, but I am confident it will be a good decision.

I do have a question about smog checks. I have an older (1974) project truck that I swapped in a modern engine and a supercharger. It?s pre-1975 here in CA so I have never had any issues with registration, will it be a problem in AZ? We also have a 2004 diesel truck, any smog requirements on these?

Only Tucson and Phoenix areas have emissions controls. You can look it up based on zip. I believe 1967 and newer need it. I also believe you can get an exemption if you don't daily your car AND you have collector car insurance. You'll pay about $80 for 5 year reg on that truck. When looking at real estate find an area outside of an emissions control zone.

[StephanieLynn]

We were in Phoenix for nearly 4 years until escaping to Tennessee this year. The heat in southern Arizona is serious, and pretty much unbearable. If you enjoy 360 days of sun per year, you might like it. Unfortunately, the entire greater Phoenix area is basically urban sprawl, over developed, over populated, and just like L.A. Scottsdale is one of the better municipalities to hang your hat in the Phoenix area, but it’s very Gucci and expensive. The most surprising thing to me was the kinda blah gun stores and gun shows. For many years, AZ was rated the #1 gun state (not anymore), and despite that, had a hard time finding anything that I had to have. On the plus side, the AZ CCW process is a breeze!