Here’s Why Luxury Home Buyers are Moving to Arizona
Beamed live from State Farm Stadium in Greater Phoenix, the Big Game will feature gorgeous scenes of Arizona interspersed between first downs and touchdowns. From the lush green golf courses of Scottsdale and the dramatic desert mountains of Tucson, to the red rock canyons of Sedona and the snow-capped peaks in Flagstaff, those drone images often inspire viewers to ponder moving to Arizona.
“Without a doubt, right after the Big Game, we get calls from someone snowbound in Philadelphia about seeing real estate in Arizona,” Todd Gillenwater says, CEO and an owner of Russ Lyon Sotheby’s International Realty, one of the preeminent real estate firms in the state. “It also happens around the Barrett-Jackson car auction, WM Phoenix Open golf tournament, Spring Training and other high-profile events here.”
This year the visiting population of the Valley of the Sun will be at an all-time high with record-breaking crowds expected in town for cars, golf, championship football and the baseball pre-season. Scottsdale Airport has already alerted private jet owners and companies that fly into Scottsdale of micro-thin take off and landing windows to accommodate the volume this year.
All that said, luxury-loving visitors will come to our city to seek fun, excitement, elite sports and passions, and then, well, this just might look like someplace they want to live.
What exactly is it about Arizona that attracts all those high profile events to the state? We asked Gillenwater, luxury homebuilder Julie Hancock, developer Todd Patrick and architects Mark Candelaria and C.P. Drewett—all experts in the luxury home field—to weigh in on the Grand Canyon State’s allure.
“It’s simple,” opines Gillenwater. “It’s the climate. We are a sunshine state, and that brings an outdoor lifestyle. People don’t come here to play shuffleboard. They come to golf, hike the Grand Canyon, explore the national and state parks and enjoy other outdoor adventures.”
An advantageous tax situation, a lack of natural disasters and the ability to go from the scent of orange blossoms to pine forests and snow in about two hours are other items on the “plus” side of moving to Arizona, Gillenwater points out.