Cheapest Place to Live in Arizona

Although home prices are higher than other parts of the state, Phoenix, as a major metropolitan area, provides plenty of affordable apartments and condos near jobs offering competitive salaries. Within Phoenix proper, the most budget-friendly places to live generally located in the central and west portions of the city. For instance, the median home price in Maryvale, an older west Phoenix neighborhood, is $51,000, compared with $95,000 for the entire city of Phoenix. In the metropolitan area, suburbs such as Youngtown and El Mirage feature homes well below $100,000. Going further out, Apache Junction, Coolidge and Florence offer very affordable housing that is still within reasonable commuting distance to Phoenix.

Like Phoenix, Tucson has an abundance of rental properties as well as well-paying jobs to keep expenses relatively low. For home buyers, the cheapest parts of the city for real estate are South Tucson and Flowing Wells in northwest Tucson. The median home prices in these areas are below $100,000. Located in between Phoenix and Tucson, cities such as Eloy and Casa Grande have many budget-friendly properties for sale, including many newly built properties.

In 2009, Forbes magazine named the Yuma and surrounding area as one of the cheapest metropolitan areas in which to live in the United States. Some of the biggest bargains are found in the area’s manufactured home neighborhoods, including retirement communities such as Palm Desert Mobile Estates. For even lower home prices, check out the nearby communities of San Luis, Somerton and Wellton.

Outside of the big cities and resort towns, several smaller Arizona towns offer inexpensive living. In the northwest corner of the state near the Utah border, Colorado City has plenty of reasonably priced homes–the median home price is just $37,000. The charming western Arizona city of Gila Bend offers both a budget-friendly desert oasis as well as fast connections to bigger cities such as Phoenix and Yuma.

In east-central Arizona, secluded mountain towns such as Clifton, Mammoth and Miami are also quite easy on the pocketbook. Burgeoning Douglas, located near the Mexican border, offers low home prices in the temperate southern Arizona climate.