Surprise guide

Surprise Real Estate is a fast growing community located 19 miles northwest of Phoenix in the West Valley, Maricopa County, Central Arizona. Surprise is Arizona's seventh largest town, covering the 72-square miles at an elevation of 1,130 feet.

Surprise has not seen much growth until 1997 when the city had less than 2,000 homes. Surprise has been the holder of the title of Arizona’s fastest growing city four years out of the past five with a new home completed every three hours. Today the population is an estimated 57,000. Signs posted at Surprise’s borders read “Population Increasing Daily.” There were over 3,200 single-family home starts in 2001.

A square-mile-plus downtown development, Surprise Center, features government offices, shops, upscale restaurants and entertainment venues. Luxury apartments, churches, gas stations, restaurants, grocery and drug stores, are cropping up everywhere. Surprise's city leaders are working on establishing short, medium and long-term goals for the future to manage open space, economic development, revitalization of the Original Town site neighborhood, meet future mass transit needs, coordinate with other cities, and provide a well-rounded community where residents will love to live, work and play.

The tremendous growth of this once-sleepy square mile farming community surprised many. Surprise's popularity is growing, largely due to Its large expanses of open land and a growing availability of amenities for the elder community, including new homes, shopping centers and businesses. Surprise not only offers world-class resort retirement living, but award-winning master planned family communities as well .

The active retirement  community lifestyle concept started in Surprise more than 40 years back. Sun City Grand, opened in 1996, is one of three of Dell Webb Corporation's master-planned retirement communities in the NW Valley. Arizona Traditions, complete with a golf course is another retirement community in Surprise.

Surprise property tax rate ranks among the lowest in the state of Arizona.

Surprise Houses

Surprise’s Single Family Residential Design Guidelines manual has been named “Best New Ordinance/Guideline/Legislation” by the Arizona Planning Association. Eight new developments including Greer Ranch, Fox Trail, Cotton Gin, Sierra Montana,  Marley Park, Mountain Gate Desert Oasis, and Sierra Verde representing around 10,000 homes have been approved under the new guidelines two of which will start construction within a year.

Home buyers can walk through more than 100 model homes and choose from hundreds of different floor plans in any of the 36 subdivisions currently under construction.

View houses for sale in Surprise.

Surprise is also hosting training facilities for the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers. The $37 million Cactus League Spring Training facility and stadium will be completed in 2002, utilizing funding from  the Maricopa County Tourism and Sports Authority's $26 million contribution. Surprise is also building a regional library, aquatic center, recreation center, and passive park

View websites in Surprise of things and places to shop.

Dysart Unified School District opened a 1,200 student capacity, two-story elementary school in August 2001. Another elementary school is scheduled to open in 2002 and the district’s second high school in 2003.

Rio Salado Community College serves about 5,000 students per year offering courses including computer programming, special interest and associate degree programs.

Surprise's desert location offers wide range of climates with warm summer high temperatures reaching 104 degrees and cool winter lows into the mid 30s.

Surprise was first homesteaded by two families in 1929. Surprise was little more than a gas station and few small houses in 1937. Surprise purportedly got it's name when one of the town's founders announced that it "would be a surprise if anything came of this land". A Glendale real estate developer and state legislator, Homer C. Ludden, the founder of the city of Surprise, actually named the city after his Nebraska hometown. Ludden subdivided the rural square mile parcel into low-cost home sites for the area’s agricultural workers.