Some time ago, our health
insurance provider pulled out of Florida. Our new health insurance cost
quite a bit more money, while at the same time offering substantially less
coverage than the old policy. Unfortunately, there was no better health
insurance available in this part of Florida for Federal retirees. Between
this and the fact that Bill has yet to get used to the terribly humid Florida
summers (15 seconds outdoors and he's sweating like a horse), we decided to
consider alternative places to live even though we really did like our
Cape Coral home. Internet searches made
Tucson sound like a nice place to live, so we decided to go there and take a
closer look.
Our first trip to Tucson is fully detailed
below. We took this trip to decide if we actually wanted to live in Tucson
or not. Ultimately we decided that we DID like Tucson, so when we returned
to Florida we put our house on the real estate market. It took six months
to get a good offer on the home, but we finally got a solid
contract early in 2004. We made our 2nd trip to Tucson from January 6-10,
2004 to buy our new home. Click
here or on the "Trip 2" link below to see all the homes we saw
during our 2nd trip, including many pictures of the home we ultimately purchased.
Or ~ keep reading to find out about our 1st trip!
House Hunting Trip 1
July 16-20, 2003
We departed Florida Wednesday afternoon, the 16th of July, 2003 and arrived at our Tucson motel at about 10:00 PM. Because of this late arrival, we decided to forgo our first day of sightseeing. Thursday and Friday were spent looking at houses and learning about the various Tucson neighborhoods, and Saturday we took a day trip to Tombstone.
Note the following, which is in no particular order:
Tropical Storm Claudette passed Florida a few days before we left for Tucson. The storm broke up over Texas and New Mexico, and by the time it reached Arizona it was only causing cooler than normal temperatures, accompanied by very cloudy weather. This is the reason why all of the house pictures look so dark. Actually, this is interesting when you think about it ~ the hurricane missed us in FL, so we jumped in an airplane and raced to meet it at the other end of its path! J
Our minimum requirements for a house were that it be at least 1,800 sq. ft., 4 or more bedrooms, 2 or more bathrooms, a 2-car or larger garage, and a swimming pool. All of the houses below met these requirements.
For what houses cost in Tucson ~ we think we can sell our Cape Coral home, buy a home in Tucson, and have enough money left over to buy a small condominium to use as income property. But, we're also thinking about spending all of our profit on the FL home in order to get a higher-end home in Tucson, and forgetting about the condominium.
Almost every house we saw had tile roofs, which is very nice since this type of roof should last a lifetime.
One of the other striking things that we saw was that all the roads, even residential streets, were w-i-d-e! What's better is that all these streets have sidewalks on one or both sides of the road, something which is a rarity in Florida. These wide roads were very, very nice!
Tucson is hotter in the summer than Florida, but the humidity is very low. Of course you know what they say, "It ain't the heat, it's the humidity". This was proven very nicely to us during our Saturday in Tombstone. We sat through a 35-minute reenactment of the "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral". The temperature was nearly 100 degrees, we sat in full sun, but, neither of us was sweaty or uncomfortable. Compare this to Florida, where it takes a half hour to cool down after walking from the front door to the mailbox and back!
We liked everything about Tucson! When we got back to Cape Coral, we signed a listing contract on our Florida house. Once we have a solid contract on the house, we'll rush back to Tucson and find our new desert home!
We spent a lot of time checking out the Tucson neighborhoods, which is why we were only able to tour 10 houses.
The pictures below are of those
houses, and near the bottom of this page is another link
to the photographs taken Saturday in Tombstone . . . enjoy!
#1 ~ $249,000. |
#2 ~ $289,000. |
#3 ~ $310,000. |
#4 ~ $297,900, our favorite of the 10 houses! |
I walked out in front of #4, then snapped a picture of the view to the left. |
#5 ~ $295,000. |
#6 ~ $309,900. |
#7 ~ $374,825. |
#8 ~ $299,000, spectacular landscaping but mediocre house. |
This and the next picture are a small example of the fully landscaped 1-acre lot! |
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#9 ~ $334,900, our 2nd favorite of the 10 Tucson houses we visited, and the nicest looking from the outside (Bill's opinion, not Bonnie's). |
#10 ~ $184,999, nice but too small! |
Bonnie is pooped after being on the go for two days! |
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