good place to move

[7urtle]

thinking of moving to AZ. Is it a good job market for a upcoming mechanic? affordable food,housing?

[bldeagle10]

you can get apartments here for quite cheap. i prefer the north peoria area. its quiet. my sister rents a 1 bed room apartment that is actually pretty nice for 565 a month. you just have to look around.
food is...well its a city. theres restraunts from cheap to holy crap thats expensive a plate. and theres jack in the box cheap fast food lol.

as far as the mechanic deal goes. i have years of experience but no official job experience. its all side jobs. and im not ase certified so its hard for me to find a mechanic job. but it may not be to hard for you to find a job. az was hit hard with the recession so i would line up a job before moving.

[smcdonaldaz]

Cheap depends on where you're coming from. The housing market is depressed as is the economy. One thing working against you is that UTI has a strong presence here and they are pumping out mechanics every quarter into the job market.

Good luck, AZ is a great place to live!

[GoldenP51]

Awesome place to move...been here about a year and a half and love it... especially the winters. Like the others said though the area has been hit hard by the economy so I'd try to land a job before you come out here unless you have some cash saved up to live off of for a while. Living expenses are not too bad...it depends on where you are in the phoenix area but you can find some pretty cheap places if that's what you need to do.

[Sandlapper3396]

Well to plug my little town, Casa Grande is awesome lol!!

It's about 35k population, mostly late 20s to mid 30s. Its right at the intersection of I-10 and I-8 to Cali. Which is great if you frequent San Diego and LA as much as I do. It's a medium sized town but there aren't many big city conveniences that it doesn't have. Think that's attributed to truckers, and train stations that run through it. If this place had a good book store there would be no need for me to goto PHX ever.

Just like everywhere else housing is cheap right now. There are several manufacturing companies in the area as well, again probably due to the easy transportation access throughout AZ.

[OkieJeeper]

My wife and would love to be near or around phoenix just waiting for a job opening. I know the real estate market is definitely a buyer's market but how is the unemployment rate for the area?

[jimmydiablo]

depends on your line of work.

[akfroggy]

Left PHX in 1990, never looked back, As Edward Abbey said, "...Phoenix is a cancer on the desert." He was right. It's become a cement and asphalt hell. Sorry to be so negative but I grew up there and it breaks my heart to see what it has become.

[NitroxAZ]

Arizona is a very nice place to live. Job market is not the best now though. East Valley is the best IMHO.

[udo4accept]

i wouldn't move here for anything. we're trying to find a place to move to ourselves. tired of all the asphalt and cement heat factor. it doesn't cool down at night like it used to. it's waaaaay hot in the summer. no real seasons. it's either hot, or not as hot. but if you're determined to live here be ready to do service work. there is not much manufacturing here. the south east valley may be best for jobs. houses are probably cheap because many are bank owned repo's.

i enjoyed it here for the first 20 years i was here. now i've had enough and miss the 4 seasons terribly and want that back. my kids want to live in a 4 season area. if you were from omaha i'd ask if you just want to trade houses!