Goodyear vs Surprise Az? (Phoenix, Tucson: sales, renting, low crime)

[nicoleeee]

Suggestions? How do they compare?
Thanks

[gritz]

I like them both. But I prefer Goodyear because of the commute to downtown is a little shorter.

Something I don't like about Goodyear is the 11%+ sales tax on resurants.

[S. Chris Webb]

Goodyear north of the I-10 (Palm Valley area) is pretty nice. South of I-10 it's pretty comparable to Surprise. Low housing prices, lots of crop fields between newer subdivisions, and new retail popping up here and there.

[LBTRS]

Live in Goodyear and work in Surprise and looked at both when we bought. Liked Surprise but it was just too far from the rest of the valley for our liking. We live south of the I10 (Canyon Trails) and are very happy here. If I had it to do over, I would make the same decision. The cities are very similar amenity wise but I think Goodyear is in a better location to grow than Surprise.

[Ponderosa]

Goodyear is more upscale than Surprise. This from the city's website:

The median income of our residents is estimated at $76,523 - one of the highest in the state, the highest in the West Valley, the third highest in the Phoenix metro area, and higher than the State’s largest cities including Phoenix, Tucson, Mesa, Chandler, Glendale, and Scottsdale (2007-2009 ACS*).

You will get different estimates at different places, but the bottom line is that Goodyear is higher in income and educational attainment than Surprise. Over time, I fully expect Goodyear to emerge as the "jewel" of the west Valley, but the recession has left it a bit of a diamond in the rough for now.

On the comment north vs. south above: In general I agree that north is fancier than south. But the exception is that if you go far enough south you hit the Estrella development which (in parts) is the most upscale development in Goodyear. Longer range, only about 10% of Goodyear is north of I10 so the growth is going to be on the south end.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

If I was to live in AZ year round or if I needed a job, I would have bought in Goodyear (north of 10). Instead I bought in Marley Park inside of the town of Surprise. It was paramount for me (actually my wife) to have green grass during the winter months. I looked closely at Palm Valley but all I saw was brown grass. Since I didn't identify any associations that would work for us, we bought out in the boonies. The side benefit is Surprise is one of the safest cities in the country. Being absent a portion of the year, crime rates were extremely important in my final decision.

[Ponderosa]

Originally Posted by MN-Born-n-Raised

If I was to live in AZ year round or if I needed a job, I would have bought in Goodyear (north of 10). Instead I bought in Marley Park inside of the town of Surprise. It was paramount for me (actually my wife) to have green grass during the winter months. I looked closely at Palm Valley but all I saw was brown grass. Since I didn't identify any associations that would work for us, we bought out in the boonies. The side benefit is Surprise is one of the safest cities in the country. Being absent a portion of the year, crime rates were extremely important in my final decision.

Your post seems to imply that you feel more secure in Marley Park than you might in Palm Valley and that is ridiculous. Surprise has a low crime rate (crimes per population) because a significant portion of the city is retirement communities - not exactly hotbeds for crime. I don't know how it would rank if you just looked at crimes and population in the non-retirement parts. In any case, both Surprise and Goodyear are very safe areas and that variable should not influence anyone's decision. To my thinking, the most important consideration in choosing Goodyear or Surprise is probably the convenience of one versus another to one's work, recreation, and so on.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

Originally Posted by Ponderosa

Your post seems to imply that you feel more secure in Marley Park than you might in Palm Valley and that is ridiculous. Surprise has a low crime rate (crimes per population) because a significant portion of the city is retirement communities - not exactly hotbeds for crime. I don't know how it would rank if you just looked at crimes and population in the non-retirement parts. In any case, both Surprise and Goodyear are very safe areas and that variable should not influence anyone's decision. To my thinking, the most important consideration in choosing Goodyear or Surprise is probably the convenience of one versus another to one's work, recreation, and so on.

We agree that Surprise and Goodyear both have low crime rates. Surprise has a population of 105,000 people and a good portion of them are retirees. We also agree that this group of unemployed people called "retirees" have an extremely low crime rate as compared areas with much younger group of unemployed citizens. As a side note, a lot of the turnover that is buying in Marley Park (20%) are retirees as well as new 2nd home owners. They are dodging Surprise Farms which is a investor / renting mecca.

So when I am surrounded by thousands of retirees that don't steal because they don't have to, you want to pull them out of the crime statistics and re-compare?? That doesn't make much sense. I am sure we agree that some socio-economic groups will yield a much higher crime rate. My approach is if you want to dodge crime, avoid those demographics.

All things being equal, the farther you are from the high crime areas (off the beat-and-path) the lower the crime. If you ever look at crime maps, neighborhoods close to exit ramps seem to get a higher amount of crime. I suspect that is why you bought in the area that you did; criminals outside of your area need a longer commute to steal from you versus people who are closer.

My post was meant to infer that I feel safer in Surprise than in Goodyear (and I do). You see, Surprise has a 90 person volunteer police force that walks my lot often (I call to tell them when I am there and when I am gone). See http://www.surpriseaz.gov/index.aspx?NID=915 . That's a lot of eyes on the street looking for suspicious activities. Many are ex-police / ex-military retirees that are vigilant to keep the area safe. It seems to have worked. See Gilbert, Surprise among America's Safest Cities - KTAR.com . Notice that Gilbert and Surprise are both "out in the boonies" and have a larger subset of retirees.

I get calls from the Surprise volunteer police when my neighbor parked their car in my driveway, when my light was on inside of the house (it was on a timer) etc. That makes me feel safer. My next door neighbor is a police (actually we have two police on our block). My police neighbor explained to me that the volunteer force (without guns) frees up the full time police (with guns) to do a better job. Now they don't have to bother with non-crime related jobs like direct traffic or recover abandon property etc.

So to be clear, I would feel safe in Palm Valley. I feel safer in Marley Park inside of Surprise because of all the things that I mentioned. If the Palm Valley neighborhoods reseeded every winter I suspect we would have bought there. Or for that matter, if a couple of the Gilbert golf course neighborhoods (Seville ) had re-seeded and were green, we would have picked that neighborhood over Palm Valley and bought a home from the Capt. It had to be green because my wife's vote was Florida.

[Java Jolt]

A large part of Goodyear is master-planned.

The old part is a little like Avondale south of I-10, not quite slum but not the best.

If I had to choose Goodyear over Surprise I would pick Goodyear because it has better freeway access into Phoenix. Commute can be rough to and from Surprise and Goodyear during crush hour.

[pandaundercover]

I agree with most posts. When we were house hunting, we looked throughout both cities, however, we settled on Surprise. Not only is the 40 min commute to downtown not a huge deal to us, because we only endure the trip once a month, but my husband works at Luke and it's only a 20 minute commute. Surprise is more developed than Goodyear at the moment too. And I have to agree with MN-born-n-Raised that Surprise DOES feel more safer. In order to test the safety feeling when I was house hunting, I was observe the neighborhood and see how it made me feel when I was standing out front- needless to say, Surprise expelled a level of safety and peace, but Goodyear did not. Not the areas we viewed anyway, and they were not slum areas or anything. I just got this vibe that if I wanted to take a walk by myself outside, I would be looking over my shoulder every 5 seconds, whereas in Surprise, I have no problems walking alone outside, ever, at night, without being worried. Thus, the commute may be the most annoying part of living in Surprise, but I would have to say many people find that a small sacrifice for how great this city actually is. Otherwise, both cities are both great places; it just depends what you want out of it.