Arizona Newcomers Guide: 20 Things Nobody Tells You in 2027

What's going on, everybody? This is Living in Arizona Now, and today we're going to do a complete Arizona newcomer's guide heading into 2027. If you're someone who's thinking about moving to Arizona, this is going to have 20 plus bits of information that you can take away. And if you already live here, this is going to be a great crash course because we're going to provide the most up-to-date information about population, median home price, and all that jazz. Let's get into it. So first up, let's talk about choosing the right city. So just so you know, the population of Arizona is around 7.6 million people phoenix metro 5.1 million and tucson has a metro population of 1.1 million people the largest suburbs in Arizona are going to be Mesa which is actually the largest suburb in the United States with a population of over 510,000 then you have Gilbert at 287 chandler at 278 glendale at 260 scottsdale at 240 approximately 68% of Arizona's residents live in Phoenix Metro. Phoenix is the largest city in Arizona, the fifth largest city in the United States, and it is the capital of Arizona. If you're just talking about the city proper itself, Mesa is almost as big as Tucson. Some of the smaller city areas that are growing quickly include Prescott, Flagstaff, Sedona, and the Verde Valley. Those are other places you can explore living if you want a more calm, higher elevation experience. let's move on to cost of living so phoenix has approximately an annual gross income needed of around fifty four thousand dollars so in order to have your basic needs met to live in phoenix it's around fifty four thousand dollars in annual gross income for a single adult tucson is a little bit cheaper that's around forty five thousand now the average median asking rent in phoenix metro is around sixteen fifty per month tucson's a bit cheaper at thirteen seventy so it looks like Tucson's about 10% cheaper across the board than Phoenix. If you're talking about groceries, transportation, insurance, and everyday expenses, again, Phoenix is going to be a little bit more expensive, but it varies depending on what part of Phoenix you're in and where you're shopping. If you're shopping at Sprouts, or if you're shopping at Whole Foods, or if you're shopping at Safeway, prices vary for groceries, of course. Now, the thing is, Arizona is about middle of the row in terms of cost of living in the country. In fact, Arizona as a whole ranks around number 15 whereas Phoenix metro is about three percent above the U.S. average Tucson being about three percent below the U.S. average so a bit cheaper in Tucson overall but hold it right there before you call U-Haul and ask how much it's going to cost to move to Tucson let's get more into the list because you don't want to just pick a place based on affordability if that's the case we're moving to Glendale or we're moving out to the west side of Phoenix or south Tucson and most people who move over there aren't too satisfied with their experience living in Arizona so sometimes it's better to pay a bit more now don't get me wrong there's some beautiful places in Tucson and to save yourself some real problems long term always rent before you buy now the Phoenix median home price is around 552,000 Tucson is around 315,000 and the Phoenix asking rent is around 16 19 Tucson 13 68 like we talked about before but the thing is down payments mortgage rates, property taxes, HOA fees, insurance, those all add on to the top of your actual experience of how much you're paying. I know, I know it's a lot. So if you're buying a home, you have to think about all of this and take it into consideration. So before you make the big deal about buying right off the top in an area that you might not enjoy, definitely rent first, get a six month to a year lease, see if you like the area. And it gives you time to kind of get landed in base camp so that you can explore around Phoenix and see where you live. Maybe you start out in Mesa, but then you're like, actually, I prefer Chandler. Or maybe you start out in Chandler, but you're like, maybe I prefer Ahwatukee. You guys get the idea. So you really want to be paying attention to not rushing things right off the bat in terms of buying. Now, the next thing people need to prepare for when you get here is it is four seasons, kind of, but we get a mild winter with a long, hot summer where temperatures commonly are over 100 degrees from basically May until October. I always said it starts to get cooler around Halloween and it starts to get hotter right after Easter. So, I mean, that's a long time, but really it's hot June, July and August. We're talking temperatures that are going to exceed 105 degrees and can easily be 110 degrees for weeks on end or plus we're talking sometimes 115 118 and yeah it can get really hot in Phoenix in particular and in Tucson it's a little bit cooler now i know some of you right now are like well pause let me contact a Tucson real estate agent because Tucson sounding too good to be true right now i know but let's keep going okay so the thing is with that heat you're going to have air conditioning bills you know you're going to want to try and find outdoor activities because you don't want to just be getting cabin fever in your house all the time because it's too hot to go outside. I mean, right when you step out the door, it's like an oven. Right when you step out of the car, you're in an air con unit in your car. But then when you get out, it's like, whoa, it's an oven. It's hot. You're good for about five minutes. But after five minutes, man, the extreme heat can really cause safety issues for some people. And if you're someone who's trying to go hiking in the middle of summertime in June, July or August, a Papago or up to Piestewa Peak or South Mountain or something it's not really possible guys because you're going to get heat exhaustion or something like that i mean at the very least you're going to really feel a little bit woozy okay so you get hot vehicles pets you have to take into consideration your pets in the summertime i mean the thing about Arizona is probably one of the places on earth that has the best air conditioning in the world you can imagine why the aircon industry has taken off in Arizona or in Phoenix and Tucson in particular with central cooling and all that so the good news is if you're indoors it's fine it's when you go outdoors that you'll feel it but if you choose to go to places like Flagstaff you really do get four seasons it might be 110 in Phoenix but it could be 95 in Flagstaff it could be 70 degrees in the winter time in Phoenix but it could be snowing in Flagstaff so they get cold winters four seasons they even get snowfall I mean four or five snowfalls a year it just depends but elevation in Arizona does vary Phoenix sitting at an elevation of around a thousand feet whereas Tucson's around 2300 feet so that's a 1300 foot elevation difference and then Flagstaff over a mile high sitting at around 7,000 feet elevation so you can see how elevation can impact whether or not you're getting four seasons or a warmer or cooler kind of experience as I'm going through this video if you guys really want a Phoenix versus Tucson head-to-head side-by-side deep dive let me know in the comments and we can get that out for you guys so next up is going to be critters and wild animals. A lot of people need to pay attention to this when you're picking a place because we have rattlesnakes, coyotes, scorpions, javelinas, tarantulas, black widows, bobcats, mountain lions. I mean the big ones that are most common that people really kind of have an issue with rattlesnakes, coyotes, and scorpions and I'll explain why. Rattlesnakes because they can den in your house especially if you're outside of the big city. If you're living in the big city you're not going to really have a rattlesnake problem but if you're living in the foothills and you've got desert around you rattlesnakes are going to be there. Coyotes same thing at night you'll hear the coyotes you hear them and they go you know they i'm not gonna make all the noises but you get the idea okay so about coyotes the thing you need to pay attention to is your wildlife coyotes don't attack humans and if they do it's very rare unless you got like this rabid coyote but other than that coyotes are going after your pet your small dogs and your cats maybe even your big dog and that's kind of where you have to pay attention because if you keep your cat or dog outside or you have an outdoor cat you know coyotes if you hear them around you they can come I've seen it a little bit in the cities, but it's not so much in the cities. Especially around golf courses, you'll see coyotes. Just your small animals, you got to watch out with coyotes, okay? With scorpions, scorpions can be like in one place. They don't really like migrate around. But if your house has scorpions, you got to really do a deep dive to get the in there to get those scorpions out because they stay in one place and they're just there. And the problem with scorpions, aside from just being an absolutely ugly, scary looking creature, they can sting. Small ones are the ones that you actually have to watch out for. The wildlife is a thing that you have to pay attention to if you're living in suburban neighborhood. I mean, I'll see javelinas out there in Cave Creek or in, you know, parts of Tucson, you'll see them. That's just something that you got to pay attention to. As far as like bobcats and mountain lions, those are obviously going to be up in the mountains and the foothills, especially where there's more wildlife, especially where the terrain is more desert or a higher elevation, bobcats and mountain lions. I mean, they're not going to be in areas where it's like no bushes and stuff. They usually like to live around places that grow vegetation, like saguaros, palo verde trees, mesquite trees. If you see those around, the likelihood there could be bobcats, especially if there's mountains, would be a little bit higher. They're, again, not really known for attacking people. They have been known to attack smaller animals. The ones that could potentially attack people would be mountain lions, but it's very rare. And I think that there's only been like one or two documented cases in like the last few decades. It's happened in Colorado and california a bit more uh but bobcats, mountain lions, they're just big cats, it's kind of cool if you see one, i mean it's kind of like a mystical creature, they do say in southern Arizona there's a jaguar sighting, call them El Jefe, i don't know how the heck the jaguars are getting across the border from Mexico into Arizona, they must have been there the whole time because if you think about it, they got a border wall, how could a border wall allow jaguars to cross unless that jaguar's got some secret hack getting over or under the wall at the border, but let's just say there's not many jaguars in Arizona, maybe one or two and who knows, not a lot though, next up would be the checking shoes, garages, landscaping for scorpions and black widows, this can be a thing, and then hiking safety and avoiding rattlesnakes, obviously when you're going hiking there could be rattlesnakes you'll see them on the trails when you get out there, especially in the warmer months from about April until October, there's going to be rattlers out there, okay but when it gets cold they hibernate next up is going to be the electricity and the utility bills, this is something that you also want to take into consideration, you're probably curious about yes, water prices have gone up in Arizona, but the average electrical bill in Arizona seems to be around $2.43 a month. It just depends on how much you're running the AC. Are you running the AC when you're at work? Are you running the AC at 78 or 71? You know, it just depends on the temperature, but you know the water bills have gone up. This gives you an idea in Tucson, the residential water example is $65 a month. That's excluding sewer and trash, okay? But either way, the thing I will say though in Tucson, it is more expensive for electrical. We're talking about 10% more for electric in Tucson. It could be the fact that Phoenix pulls off of that Palo Verde nuclear power plant out there by Buckeye. That could be a big cause of why Tucson is paying more because they have a less efficient power grid. Summer air conditioning costs and seasonal electrical spikes can impact your bill. So obviously in the winter, you're going to be paying a little bit less. Another thing to consider, a two-story house costs more to cool than a one-story house. Just think about it. The air has to get all the way up to the upstairs. That's a lot more space to cool. So you can see why the air con is going to have to be pumping a little bit harder. Homeowners should be aware about water availability in the area that they're picking. You might want to ask that question, your real estate agent or the rental agent, just about the water. You want to kind to have that conversation so water and critters are two things that you just ask about don't be that like super annoying person who goes in there and asks a million questions about it just ask the very direct question and then that's done okay next up is going to be the water supply and drought this is something that you should all be aware of it's not something that's a panic mode back in like 2018 they did a study governor Ducey and the state of Arizona said Arizona has over 100 years worth of water supply build baby build so they started paving the desert in all direction they got the green light to go out into Queen Creek and Buckeye and Verrado and just paved the desert all over right well then all of a sudden something mysterious happened they started to change their tone we're like uh well i don't know if we got 100 years of water uh supplier reserves this and that and then you know it kind of became an interesting subject all over again especially as Lake Mead went down but i will say that if you ever go up onto the Salt River Project and you explore all the way up top at Roosevelt Dam, okay, Roosevelt Lake, you've got Apache Lake then you've got Canyon Lake and then Saguaro Lake all the way down to the Salt River and then Rio Salado, you ever start noticing those getting low that could be a reason of concern for Phoenix now the other water source is CAP, that's the Colorado River Project or Central Arizona Project as they know it, but we call it Colorado River water anyway, it comes in basically on an aquifer or on a canal from Lake Havasu, so that's coming in from Lake Havasu and you should pay attention to the water supply on the Colorado and the Salt River, the two main tributaries, okay so those lakes they're not there for your recreation only, they're there for your water supply, that's where your shower water comes from and then once you're in Phoenix around there you'll see all those canals, that's them pumping in that river water, okay, from the Salt River into the lake through into the canals that's the water that's going through your pipes, okay? Now you know. Next up is going to be transportation and driving. Phoenix has a lot of freeways, okay? You've got the I-10, which goes basically east to west. Then you've got the 202, which is a loop. You've got the 101, which is a loop. Then you got the 303, which is a loop. We don't really have much public transportation. I mean, it's an urban sprawl city. It's very spread out in Phoenix. Arizona doesn't really have any public transportation to speak of. I mean, yeah, sure, you could take a Greyhound, but good luck. And then you could take an Amtrak. It doesn't even have a station in Phoenix. The closest Amtrak station in Arizona for Phoenix is going to be Maricopa. How you would get to Maricopa from downtown Phoenix, I guess maybe they would have a bus. But yeah, public transportation in Arizona is pretty much non-existent. We have one of the best airports in the country at Sky Harbor, consistently ranked in like the top 10, top five. I think it's even been ranked the best airport in the country a couple of times. So that's one good thing. So between the best freeways in the country. I think Phoenix in particular has some of the best freeways in the country, and then also one of the best airports. As far as Tucson goes, they do have one freeway. It's I-10, and it just runs right through there. Everything else is just surface streets. Interesting, right? I did notice in Prescott, they were looking to do some advanced freeway networks from Prescott Valley to Prescott. That didn't really get off the ground because they had to pause it during the 2007-2008 crash, and they never really resumed it, but we'll see what ends up happening, but I would say freeways are definitely the way to get around Arizona and it can be a bit intimidating being on the I-17 being on the I-10 with all those big trucks just barreling down and then you get those big trucks that people own you know these guys with these you know jacked up lifted trucks and they like to go like 80 to 100 miles an hour and they'll pass you and you're just sitting there cruising along in your you know Toyota Corolla and here comes big teddy with the big old lifted truck he's gonna be coming roaring past you he's like doesn't have anything to fear because his car is three times the size of yours but anyway vehicle registration emissions testing are all dependent on car make or age of the car whether or not you qualify the older your car the more vulnerable you could be to emissions testing and paying extra for vehicle registration those are things you can just look on it's a case-by-case basis but public transportation is limited one thing i will say they do have a light rail in tucson they also have a light rail in phoenix but the only people who seem to ride the light rail in phoenix seem to be people who sleep outside homeless not really too many business people riding the light rail every once in a while there are some routes where you will see people who are actually working that actually have a job that ride those but they need to fix that because i think in order to get people actually interested in riding the light rail it needs to be a safe and clean environment not with people who are a little bit shady who are trying to sell you machetes and chainsaws when you're sitting there at the light rail station yes that happens some guy comes up to me he's like hey you want to buy a chainsaw for five dollars the first thing i said is that he's got to have stolen that from somebody and he's trying to sell me a stolen chainsaw for five dollars no buddy i don't want a chainsaw for five dollars but that's a weird question to be asked at a light rail station is it or is it not next up let's talk about jobs you guys need to think about this so Arizona is in a point right now where it's actually at an inflection point I would say where jobs are becoming more tech okay you've got Taiwan semiconductors you've got a lot of tech companies moving to Arizona they've got data centers in Phoenix all around and south of Phoenix and Coolidge and all the way down there in Florence, that whole area down by Eloy, they're talking about building data centers in tech corridors, okay? This is something that is a problem for Arizona because they say we have a brain drain. So yes, the tech jobs are coming, but they're having to import people from India, from Taiwan to take those jobs, and they're not actually going to Americans or Arizona state residents because Arizona state residents lack the technical know-how to do those jobs. So even though those jobs are coming in and the industries are coming in, Arizonans can't do those jobs. So immigrants are moving in to take those jobs, but you can't look at that as a negative thing because those same immigrants also stimulate the economy because they're going to buy homes. They're going to do all sorts of other things, you know, buy cars from all this stuff. So I would say it is all good, but at the end of the day, if you're someone who's going to complain about not knowing technical stuff or not being tech savvy, go get the education to become tech savvy learning. Otherwise just stay out of it. Like let the economy grow how it has to. And you know, holding up prosperity and growth is not really the answer because that's how the economy moves forward once you get stagnation that's when things kind of gridlock it's like circulation it's like you got to move the body blood flowing if you don't you're going to get sick so yeah the economy's got to keep pushing forward in order for things to keep moving forward otherwise people are going to be talking about inflation and economic crashes and no jobs and all that stuff so it's just the way it works guys as far as finding work construction that's all big here medical is another thing that's big real estate agents seem to be pretty uh healthy during a boom in Arizona i've noticed like it goes through booms and busts in 2018 2019 2021 all that real estate agents were everywhere all my friends were like hey you want to buy a house you want to buy a house and then all of a sudden now in 2025 2026 hey into 2027 no one's really asking if i want to buy a house because the economy cooled down so did the housing market next up let's talk about Arizona taxes so the state individual income tax is about 2.5 it's a flat tax. State general retail tax, 5.6%. Phoenix combined general retail tax is 8.6%. Tucson combined general retail tax is 8.7%. Now, property taxes, vehicle license taxes, retirement income, that just varies depending on where you're at. Arizona, in terms of taxation, again, it's like in the middle of the road. I'm not going to say it's the best. I'm not going to say it's the worst. You guys can let me know what you guys think about the taxes. I'm not a tax professional, so you need to talk to tax professionals if you have those questions. I just give you the basics. Healthcare access. We've got the Mayo Clinic. We've got Banner Health. We've got Honor Health, Dignity Health, Tucson Medical Center. And then you got healthcare and insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenses that can vary depending on the people. But availability of specialists in hospitals, especially with that Mayo Clinic, it's some of the best in the country. Or as they say, that's something that's been said. Rural versus metropolitan healthcare access can vary. For example, if you're living in the Verde Valley or Prescott, you might have to come down to Phoenix which is about a two-hour drive to get the proper health care in some cases so if you're someone who needs health care you might want to be closer to the Mayo or to the metro area because once you get out into the smaller cities or out into the countryside that's something you have to take into consideration i mean don't get me wrong everyone would like to live up in Pine or Flagstaff on the outskirts and beautiful mountains and stuff like that but at the end of the day you know there's things that people have to weigh versus pros and cons right i mean And we can get into all that in another video if you guys want videos going into detail like that. So talk about it in the comments and we'll see if we can get that video. Now let's talk about schools and education. So public schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschooling, Montessori, they have all that in Phoenix. Okay, and Phoenix doesn't rank very high in terms of public schools, but the Montessori and the charter schools seem to be a little bit better education. You got St. Mary's, you got Brophy in Phoenix. Then as far as the colleges go, you've got Arizona State University, University of Arizona. So ASU, Arizona State, Tempe. University of Arizona, that's Tucson, Wildcats. Then you had Northern Arizona, that's in Flagstaff, that's actually the Lumberjacks. So depending on where you're coming in from, where you're living, you want to research the school district if you got kids and choose that neighborhood depending on how the school district ranks and try and find the best education for your kids, right? And then child care costs and family-friendly communities are something you want to take into consideration. We've got a lot of master planned communities out in Arizona. You know, if you wanted to talk about some of those in Mesa, you got Eastmark, you've got several in Gilbert i would say if you're a family person the best places to move right off the cuff it just heads up in phoenix would be chandler gilbert eastmark and Mesa, Queen Creek really family friendly areas, Tucson, Oro Valley around the Catalina Foothills is also nice i think Prescott's got a good family community i mean it just depends but as far as Phoenix goes the southeast side of Phoenix or east Phoenix seems to be more safe and family friendly let's get into crime and everything like that so when it comes to neighborhoods and the cities i mean we've made a top 10 most dangerous areas to stay in Phoenix or in Arizona in general we've made videos going into that i'll try to put a link to that down below in the description so you can watch that in its entirety but just to give you kind of an off the cuff on that west Phoenix especially around like I-10 you know is a little bit more crime uh just anything west of Phoenix from basically State Route 51 to the west it's just lower income uh more affordable but there's also more crime and that's not a joke so what i'm saying is you can live on the east side and never have anything stolen out of your car the whole entire time you're in Phoenix metro or you can live on the west side and like once or twice a year something gets stolen out of your car get the idea okay also you'll hear a lot more sirens and stuff but there are some areas on the east side that you should pay attention to like downtown Mesa is a little bit sketchy but as far as like crime goes south Tucson's another area you would want to avoid so around like the airport area there's like the industrial area but you know we're not going to get too far into the crime on this one but you do want to research crime data statistics before relocating desert hiking safety and heat related emergencies we talked about that a little bit earlier but that's something you should take very seriously if you got some heat advisory pay attention to it if you're going to go out you know after 9 a.m until like 5 or 6 p.m because yeah it's hot guys in the summertime but during the winter months from like you know october end of october november december january february march you should be fine hiking outside really guys but another thing is dust storms and monsoons arizona monsoon season begins around like june 15th ends around september 30th the interesting thing is lately we kind of get these like hurricanes that come out from the sea of cortez up which is down there by baja mexico very randomly but it seems like once every few years there's like a hurricane that kind of creeps up in in september to run the baja into arizona and causes us some rain nothing too crazy i mean it's not like we're getting a cat one or a cat two coming up into arizona but it still causes some flash floods thunderstorms strong winds and then another thing is haboobs those are dust storms guys so driving safety during a dust storm can be something that you know i would say if you see the big dust storm building don't drive into it because visibility becomes limiting and another thing is flash flooding in washes and low water crossings if there is flash flood signs that say don't cross when flash flooding don't cross because then you end up being one of those people who's getting swept down in your car in a flash flood and then you're going to be on the top of your car and there's going to be AeroVac or a helicopter trying to catch you and you're gonna be on Fox 10 news channels you know in Arizona because they're doing a rescue for you because you are in a flash flood now let's talk about outdoor recreation so Arizona is one of the best states for outdoor recreation and you got Grand Canyon National Park, Sedona and the red rocks the world national park, Superstition Mountains for those of you in Phoenix want something close you have the Salt River and the lakes that are associated with that you have Lake Havasu you have other Arizona lakes i mean we've made a whole video about all the lakes in Arizona there's so many of them and you have Flagstaff you have the Mogollon Rim camping up there by Payson you have Tonto Natural Bridge you have hiking camping boating skiing weekend adventures we've done all that on this channel that's why you guys subscribe and keep up with us because we show you the best of the things to do and the outdoor recreation stuff that Arizona really stands out for next up is going to be Arizona culture and lifestyle so we get a lot of snowbirds who come in from Canada and the northern states basically they're escaping the cold bitter winters of November December January February wherever they are and they come down to Arizona and so instantly in Phoenix around about i would say October November all of a sudden you start seeing way more cars on the road in Scottsdale and Gilbert and Queen Creek because those snowbirds have arrived and then they leave in the summer months but Phoenix and Tucson the culture is a bit different Phoenix has the sports teams I used to say we had four sports teams now we only have three major sports teams because we lost the hockey team the Arizona Coyotes went to Salt Lake City but Tucson doesn't quite yet have a pro sports team but they have some you know triple A teams for hockey and baseball and you know that's something that's interesting the festivals the entertainment you know we can get all into that in another video talking about festivals and entertainment and let you guys know when those happen but Arizona State Fair that happens around October and if you're one of those people who's thinking about coming to Arizona to retire you got Sun City, Sun Lakes, Green Valley, Surprise, Prescott if I was to pick any of those I would go with the one right south of Tucson in this day and age I really like that area of Sahuarita, Green Valley. But still, West Phoenix ranks among the best in the country for the Sun City, Sun Lakes, Sun City Grand, 55-plus retirement communities. They've got a couple in the Southeast Valley as well, but Northwest Phoenix out there past Luke Air Force Base is probably the best in the state. But like I said, if it was up to me, I would take Green Valley. But those 55-plus retirement communities, pay attention to that because if you've got grandkids living with you, they won't let those kids live with you but you got HOA fees housing costs and maintenance health care access and retirement budgets you got to pay attention to all that but when you're in a retirement community like that they're going to have specialized care for people who are in your age demographic because that's who's there okay so there's benefits and drawbacks of those communities so biggest mistakes that newcomers make buying a house before researching the neighborhoods so rushing into buying coming in first thing they do is buy it's a mistake underestimating the summer heat you know some people they can only handle it for a couple summers and they're like i gotta get out of here some people are like hey i love it it's arizona i take the good with the bad it is what it is welcome to life and other people say they love it right and they don't like it so it just depends not budgeting for summer electricity bills that's something that some of you guys who are tight on money might want to take into consideration choosing a home too far from work because phoenix has urban sprawl if you're someone who works in mesa but you live out in surprise how much are you going to have to be driving to get there like those are things you have to take into consideration because phoenix tucson those are huge urban areas like phoenix is a massive urban area i don't think you guys fully understand how big phoenix metro is health care access and retirement budgets you got to you know pay attention to that people move out and they don't take into consideration the health care and the budgets that's required for all that but another thing is ignoring hoa fees and restrictions because hoas can be a real pain in the butt we could make a whole video about hoas but hoas they'll tell you what color to paint your pergola to paint your you know your ramada to paint your garage what you what plants you can't plant in your front yard and then you got to pay them so they can tell you what to do and then you're just like man hoas are a pain in the butt and then you always have those people out there who are like i love my hoa they help maintain my neighborhood so i mean it depends are you an hoa lover or hoa hater right and you have things about the desert wildlife that we talked about i'm not going to go too far into that and then if you're coming to arizona you should visit during a summer just so you know how hot it can get like come out here in june july and experience it let us know if you guys can really handle that for like you know long term right because what you're going to experience in July for three days that's going to be your whole summer and then your first 90 days in Arizona you're going to establish residency get a new ID card get a driver's license change a license plate on your car right register your vehicle set up your electrical bills your water your internet your insurance and then find your health care providers get all that stuff established register to vote if you're eligible and then explore around the neighborhoods and make connections go into the shops just look around i mean i even go to like a pawn shop just go in there walk around and just see who's there right like that go to the gold and silver dealer and just go in there and ask them how much to buy an ounce of silver i don't know guys you know what i'm saying but go to the hairstylist go to a couple different hairstylists find the one that works for you but make the effort to understand the neighborhood and the community that you're living in and get to know the people there that's something i really do recommend so then you have to figure out is Arizona really right for you who is it best suited for i would say everyone is best suited for Arizona but the air quality you know could be an issue for some people i've heard it's dry air that's something that might impact whether or not you like it but there's little things that can come up along the way it's not just all hunky dory grass is greener on the other side stuff but people who might struggle with the climate or the cost of living would be people who can't find adequate work so you kind of want to line that up but like i said that dry weather is different for someone who's coming from Florida or Louisiana or Boston or Chicago and you won't really know how it's impacting your respiratory system or your body until after a couple months of living here so pay attention to that and then if you guys want that Phoenix versus Tucson or smaller communities let us know in the comments and then i would say just when you're coming out here try to become an Arizona resident and be like getting in tune with the environment don't be coming out here trying to say well this is how we did it in California this is how we did it in New York this is how we did it in Chicago don't be one of those types of people because that's something that I know that Arizona people hate hearing. It's like, try to blend in as fast as you can, and then you'll never have any, like, judgments or problems, right? It's like, if you got a California place, they always said, change those California plates as fast as you can. Okay, I'm not saying you have to. I'm not bigoted. I'm not trying to judge people from California or New York. I'm just saying that's some tips from locals where you can watch the best places to live in Arizona. Click right here.