Why Are Millionaires From All Over the Nation Transferring to This Little-Recognized Arizona Suburb?

For Tina Garrity, the decision to relocate from Chicago to Paradise Valley, Arizona, during the early months of the pandemic was an easy one.

Ms. Garrity, 57, who owns a management consulting business, has been visiting the Phoenix area to see her family for decades. In March 2019, she bought a 6,400-square-foot home for $1.85 million in Paradise Valley, planning to stay there a few times a year. But when the pandemic hit, she started working remotely and decided to make it her primary residence.

Unlike her two-bedroom Chicago rental with no outdoor space, Ms. Garrity’s Paradise Valley estate, complete with a guest house, tennis court and putting green, spans just over an acre.

“Having a backyard and having space has made a huge difference in work and life in general,” said Ms. Garrity, who has kept her Chicago apartment when she has to visit clients in town.

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Ms. Garrity is one of many out-of-state buyers who have moved to Paradise Valley since the pandemic began, creating unprecedented demand in the affluent town between Phoenix and Scottsdale, according to real estate agent Joan Levinson.

The suburb has long been little known outside of Arizona, although it attracted high-profile residents like Randy Johnson, Mike Tyson, Stevie Nicks, and Muhammad Ali. But since Covid, agents said, droves of shoppers from New York, California and elsewhere – who are now able to work remotely – have set their sights on Paradise Valley. They are drawn to Arizona’s warm weather and low taxes, as well as Paradise Valley’s privacy, spacious lots and proximity to Phoenix and Scottsdale city life.

Before the pandemic, most of the activity in the Paradise Valley market came from wealthy locals, with some coming from out-of-state buyers primarily looking for second homes, Ms Levinson said. Now overseas buyers are flooding the market in search of first homes, she said.

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“Before the pandemic, we always had some out-of-state buyers, but the vast majority of buyers were Arizona residents,” said local broker Greg Hague.

According to Mr. Hague, prices have skyrocketed in Paradise Valley. The average list price of Paradise Valley homes is now just over $5 million, about double what it was three years ago, he said. In PropertyShark’s 2021 ranking of the most expensive US ZIP Codes, Paradise Valley was ranked 50th with a median selling price of $2.175 million, a 41% increase from 2020. That’s a dramatic change from 2019, when the city first appeared on the list 93.

The city is now attracting wealthier people than ever before.

“Our mainstream client probably had a net worth of $50 million about three years ago,” said Rich Brock, president and founder of Paradise Valley-based construction company BedBrock Developers. “Now it’s definitely over $100 million, and a good handful is over half a billion.”

Nestled between Scottsdale and Phoenix, Paradise Valley is surrounded by mountains. The city has several golf courses and high-end resorts, including the Camelback Mountain Sanctuary, which was recently acquired by New York-based Gurney’s Resorts. Later this year, the Ritz-Carlton Paradise Valley at The Palmeraie will open with villas and a resort.

Aside from the resorts, the city is almost entirely residential, with most single-family lots divided into zones spanning an acre or more, according to Paradise Valley Mayor Jerry Bien-Willner, who said the big lots are during the pandemic has been a major draw.

In June 2021, Samantha and Morgan Dollard registered their San Francisco home and set out to find a new place to live. Mrs. Dollard, 38, is a mother and homemaker, and Mr. Dollard, 42, works remotely in product management in the technology industry. They have three children of primary school age. In October 2020, they were overwhelmed by the challenges of distance learning and switched to homeschooling. Since their children were no longer going to school in California, they decided to sell.

“We were looking for something less busy,” said Mrs. Dollard. “We were looking for more space. We were looking for more peace. We felt like we were always stressed and running around the Bay Area.”

After considering locations like Orange County, San Diego, Boulder and Denver, they settled on Paradise Valley, she said. About two weeks into their road trip, they sold their 3,000-square-foot home in San Francisco for $3.25 million, she said. About a month later, they bought a 5,800-square-foot, 5-bedroom home in Paradise Valley for $2.875 million.

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“Each of the children has their own room, my husband has his own office,” Ms Dollard said. “It feels like we have space to just be.”

For many buyers, Ms. Levinson said, Paradise Valley is attractive because of its proximity to city amenities; The city is approximately 4 miles from downtown Scottsdale and 15 miles from downtown Phoenix.

That was a big plus for Connie De Groot and her fiancé, Richard Engel, a real estate developer who moved to Paradise Valley from Santa Monica, California, in 2021. Ms. De Groot, a real estate agent, has family in Phoenix and Mr. Engel has been developing properties in Arizona for about three decades. They said they were drawn to Paradise Valley because it has spacious properties, quiet streets, lots of greenery and its own police department, while being close to the city life of Phoenix and Scottsdale. “We wanted to be close to restaurants and things because that’s what we have in Santa Monica,” Ms. De Groot said.

As with a number of other transplants, Ms De Groot, 58, and Mr Engel, 76, said politics played a role in their decision to move their primary residence to Arizona. In California, they feel that local politics has led to rising crime, higher taxes, congestion and homelessness. Also, everything is under lockdown in California, Ms De Groot said, but they can go to restaurants and gyms in Arizona.

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In March 2021, they bought a house in Paradise Valley for about $3.3 million. A few months later, a newer home in town with more space became available, so they bought it for $5.799 million and sold the first home for about $350,000 more than they paid. Your new property is spread over 2 acres with a pool, two casitas, a pickleball court, a citrus garden and a koi pond. It’s about 2,500 square feet larger than her California home, which sits on less than an acre. Yet their taxes are significantly lower, Mr. Engel said.

Although Ms. De Groot and Mr. Engel have made Paradise Valley their primary residence, they still own their home in California and plan to spend time there, particularly during Paradise Valley’s hotter months, which typically last from June through August. During those months, agents said, many local residents sought refuge in their second homes, either out of state or in the mountains about a two-hour drive from the city.

As in other high-end markets across the country, inventories have dwindled in Paradise Valley, which has pushed prices even higher. “In all the years I’ve sold properties in Paradise Valley, there have typically been 300 to 400 houses on the market at any one time,” Mr. Hague said; In contrast, as of January 25, only 78 homes were listed.

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For David Wurtz, a 37-year-old tech executive, the warm weather made him move to Arizona with his wife and family from Boulder, Colorado last year. Mr. Wurtz, who was familiar with Arizona from growing up, said they moved because pandemic-related lockdowns halted many of their children’s indoor activities. In Paradise Valley, on the other hand, most after-school events can take place outdoors.

They sold their home in Boulder and bought a 14,000-square-foot Spanish Colonial building in Paradise Valley for about $13.5 million. The 6-acre property includes a swimming pool, basketball court and exercise track that extends around the perimeter.

“We’re having fun in Paradise Valley,” said Mr. Wurtz.