OK, SO I'm exaggerating. But it does totally amaze me how many people seem to find Payson, Arizona, and are interested in buying homes here. Payson is a very small town. When we moved here 15 yrs ago the population was 8,000+. The last I heard we are now near 16,000. When I am down in the Phoenix area, and I mention I'm from Payson, the universal answer seems to be "Oh, really? Where is that?". And yet we have/have had rental Owners from literally all over the US; Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Kansas, Alaska, Nevada, Montana, Utah, California, as well as from AZ: Tucson, Phoenix, Tempe, Yuma. Some of these Owners are looking to retire in Payson "down the road", some used to live here, some are purely investors. Some are drawn to Payson because they have relatives in the Phoenix area, some just like the closeness to the metro area while still being cooler weather/lighter traffic, and some I have no idea how they found Payson! Our tenants come from all over, also. We routinely get calls and emails from other states, people looking at our web site at rentals because they are moving here. Now I understand that we are a nation of rolling stones, people like to try new places. But when so many people in our own state don't know where Payson is, I can't quite understand how all these other people are finding it.
Not that I'm complaining. Payson has almost doubled in population since we moved here, but it is still a small town. People are friendly, we run into people to talk to all over town, and we can still get from one end of the town to the other in 5 to 10 minutes. And with the increase in population has come more businesses and improvements. We now have a Home Depot, A Chili's, a Starbucks (in Safeway), several non-chain restaurants which are very good, Walmart has gone "Supercenter", we have a multi-screen theatre, a larger public library, an off-leash dog park, a pretty good electric light parade, two shops showcasing local fine art, a coffee house with occasional live music. None of that was here when we moved here.
So I'm glad that people are finding Payson. How ever they're finding us, a small town seems to be very attractive to many buyers. We've seen many people over the years move here from larger cities, they seem to just slow down/calm down and adjust to the atmosphere. Payson is surrounded by National Forest, so we can't grow out on the edges the way the Phoenix area has been doing, so we can't get too big. May we stay a friendly, small town!
Comments(1)