Ok.. well, not technically.
First, we didn’t buy property. We purchased a lifetime lease.
Next, it’s not really a ‘house’ but an RV lot with a casita.
But still, we’re super excited to have finally reached this milestone that has been in the works for over two years and all part of our long term plans for splitting our time between RVing and boating.
Updated for 2023 – scroll down for our annual accounting of maintenance, assessments and taxes.
We’re the Newest SKP Saguaro Park Leaseholders
So first, the big reveal – last weekend we purchase a lifetime lease to Lot #172 at the SKP Saguaro Co-Op in Benson, AZ.
And we’re a wee bit excited about it!
What is SKP Saguaro? What is a Co-Op?
Located in Benson, AZ just south of Tucson the SKP Suaguaro Co-Op RV Park is a vibrant community of fellow Escapee RV Club Members.
The Co-Op isn’t owned or operated by the Escapees RV Club, but by members of the co-op. There are several similar co-ops in the Escapee’s park system around the country.
Founded in the early 80s to embody the Escapee’s spirit of ‘sharing and caring’ and to be non-profit place for members to live in their RVs affordably and in comfort.
Leases start at a one time purchase of $10,674 (this is now up to $17,539 in 2023, as park capital improvements via assessments add to the lease value – see below) – which gets you a basic 75′ x 52′ RV site, as well as access to the community amenities like a clubhouse, woodworking shop, gardens and more. Some lots have casitas or sheds, for which the actual cost of building & improvements is added to the lease cost.
When you’re ready to give up your lease, it becomes available for someone to take over at the actual cost of what you paid for your lease plus capital improvements to the lot and park (no profiting, no selling/marketing, no passing it on to an heir).
On top of the one time lease purchase, you pay an annual maintenance & operating fee plus assessments (see below for our annual accounting of these fees) for upkeep of all of the community amenities, costs and park property tax. Cable, Wi-Fi, sewer and water are covered, and you just pay for your actual electric use.
Your self contained RV must be the primary residence on the lot and where you sleep – the casita however can be an extended living room, office, storage and/or private bath. There is an onsite storage lot where leaseholders can store their RV for free if they don’t want it on their lot while out of the park (or if they have a second RV).
When the leaseholder’s RV isn’t on their lot, the lot can go into a rental pool to become available to others passing through (they have really affordable daily, weekly and monthly rates). Those in the rental pool earn credits towards their maintenance fees based on a percentage of park’s rental income for that month.
SKP Saguaro is registered as a 55+ up park to meet FHA regulations for exemptions, but they are welcoming of those under 55 but over 18. As long as they don’t exceed the 20% quota of residents under 55 – they’ll continue this policy. As far as we are aware, they are the only SKP Co-Op park designated 55+ that will sell a lease to someone under 55.
As we were 43 at the time of putting our name on the hot list, this is what made this particular co-op appealing for us (although there are other co-ops that are not designated 55+), not to mention – we just loved the park.
(For more on 55+ up rules: Can You Stay in 55+ RV Parks if You’re Under 55?)
To become a leaseholder, you put your name one their Hot List (for a deposit of $500 – which gets credited towards your lease purchase) – and as leases become available you call in to express interest. If you’re the lowest number on the list, you get first dibs on the available lot of your choice.
The wait time is generally around 2-3 years.
So Why Did We Become Leaseholders?
A lot folks ask us long term nomads if we’ll ever settle down, or what happens when we feel called to be more stationary. Co-Ops like these were established for precisely that time in an RVing journey – for folks not ready to give up RVing, but not ready (or able) to move back to a sticks-n-bricks.
While we feel no call for either anytime soon – we did want a safe place to leave our RV while we’re cruising and a desert southwest winter launching pad. And maybe a place that eventually becomes a winter home-base.
We love spending our winters in Arizona – roaming around boondocking and engaging in the vast social opportunity with our community. So the location is perfect for us and still easily reachable from the east.
We first visited the park in November 2015 to hang out with our friends Jil & Tom – we shared Thanksgiving with them there. We were quite intrigued by the concept of the park and community – and in particular their lot with a spectacular back porch with an open view of the Dragoon Mountains.
We went back for a second visit in February 2016 on our way east – and decided before leaving to put our names on the Hot List and start the countdown. We could always remove our names at any point and get our deposit back.
We started getting serious about securing a lot late last year – as we intend to spend this upcoming winter in the southwest.
We had actually briefly fantasized about having a lot by March 2018, and just getting Zephyr there after our visit to Texas.
As every basic lot came up – we called in.
We really weren’t interested in one with a casita, we just wanted to get our wheels in the door. Current leaseholders actually get first dibs at any new lots that become available before Hot List members, so we can always upgrade later.
But alas every time we called in, we were told someone much lower on the list beat us to it. Every week, our names dropped further down the list to a point we felt confident that we’d have no problem getting a lot by the time we wanted one this winter.
We kept our eye on the available lots anyway. And we also learned that our friends Jil & Tom decided to move to Oregon recently.
When I saw their lot come up last week – we decided ‘what the heck’ and called in. Even though we were realistically 10-15 spots ‘too high’ to snag a spot.
Imagine our surprise when we were told Lot #172 was ours!
Not only had we checked ‘Get lot at Co-Op’ off our to-do list, serendipity aligned to get us THE spot that initially introduced us to the park (and one we already knew we’d love!). It took us 2 years and 3 months on the Hot List to get a spot.
Jil was of course the first person we told.
For those curious, our lease purchase price with a little pink casita with a living room, storage, porch and plumbing for an eventual bath was $28,392.54 (including this year’s maintenance and assessments).
The casita (with porch) is 12′ x 24′ with an interior living room of 11′ x 15′, and the RV parking pad 14′ x 62′.
The Plans?
Sometime this fall we’ll store our boat and make our way back to Texas to get Zephyr out of storage (2019 update: that didn’t happen, we actually didn’t make our way to Benson until December 2019, a year later than anticipated).
Zephyr will stay in Benson during the spring/summers while we’re boating. Yes, it gets hot there, but this is actually the EXACT area of Arizona that Zephyr served her entire service life as a commercial intercity passenger bus. There’s little humidity to worry about, the park is actually at about 3700′ elevation (so not as bad as other areas of AZ – highs tend to be in the 90s) and we’ll have access to power to run an AC.
When Zephyr isn’t there, we’ll be leaving the lot in the rental pool. If you stop in SKP Saguaro to check it out – you can actually request our lot. Be sure to send us a picture enjoying the sunset there.
We also not-so-secretely hope that other Xscapers might be tempted by the idea of SKP Saguaro and join us in Benson?? Yes, please – get on the hot list and become our neighbors!
2023 Update: We departed Benson in January 2020 to return to our boat on the east coast as the reality of the pandemic was setting in. We didn’t return in 2020 due to COVID, we ended up home basing on the boat in Florida and just didn’t feel a cross country trip would be fun, so we kept our RVing adventures more local. Our lot was in the rental pool the entire time since we left in early 2020 as we left our bus in the storage lot. We returned to SKP Saguaro for Nov & Dec of 2021, with intentions to return again in late 2022. However, on our way there after our summer 2022 van adventure we had a calling to return to the boat in FL sooner – which was a good thing, as we had two hurricanes to deal with, which would have been more anxiety causing being so far away. We have returned in late 2023 however!
Maintenance, Assessment & Tax Cost Update
The purchase of the lease is just the upfront expense to get into the park.
There are ongoing costs to operate and maintain the park that all leaseholders are responsible for.
To a new leaseholder however, these costs are not as clearly spelled out as they could be (in our opinion), and even in our advanced research we were caught off guard by how many separate invoices we received at the beginning of 2019. So we are sharing.
Apparently unless you’re attending the board meetings and/or reading the minutes – you might not be in the know.
These are broken down into four categories:
- M&O – Maintenance & Operations – This covers the general costs like park insurance, water, Wi-Fi, cable, staff salaries, etc. Any credits for being in the rental pool for the year prior are applied. This invoice comes due in March after the year the fees are for, and it can be made in two payments if desired.
- For 2019 – $1300. We got about a $600 credit for the time our lot was in the rental pool for 2018 – as we bought the lease mid-year.
- For 2020- $1275. And we had a credit for the rental pool that offset that (we were in park all of December 2019, so no credit for that month), but paid about $45 in taxes.
- For 2021 – $1390. Our rental pool credit all but covered that except for $6, plus $48 in taxes. Despite being in the pool the entire year, the park closed to new rentals during the beginning of the pandemic which decreased the rental income.
- For 2022 – $1733. A pretty significant increase in M&Os, and decrease in rental income from the year prior. That all combined with us being in the park for Nov & Dec 2021 – we only got a $741 rental pool credit. Leaving a balance due of $1052. Much more than we were anticipating, and the first year our rental pool credits didn’t come close to covering the M&Os.
- For 2023 – $1768. Nice to see there wasn’t a huge jump this year. We had our lot in the rental pool the entire year of 2022 (we only used it a short bit in January) – and our rental pool credit entirely covered the M&Os, with just owning $62 in taxes. Great to see rentals back to normal!
- For 2024 – $1676. Nice.. a decrease this year! We had our lot in the rent pool for 10 months of the year (we were in park Nov & Dec), and ended up owing $331.
- General Assessment – The park maintains a fund for ongoing small repairs that the board can tap into. This is invoiced in March. Assessments paid get rolled into the core price of your lease, so you get these back when you sell.
- 2019 – $238.
- 2020- $264.
- 2021- $194.
- 2022 – $184.
- 2023 – $60.
- 2024 – $67
- Special Assessment – Leaseholders must also fund special larger projects. Much to our surprise, in April 2019 we received an invoice for $560 for this – apparently paying off some repaving and clubhouse work previously done. Starting in 2020 there was a $400 for 5 years assessment approved by the community (which we voted in favor of) to replenish this fund, and in 2024 a $450 assessment approved for another 5 years. Assessments paid get rolled into the core price of your lease, so you get these back when you sell.
- Property Tax – You’ll also have an annual property tax bill from the county. Every year this has been right around $170 for our lot with a casita & concrete, and it comes due in October/November time frame.
All of the assessments and M&Os can change from year to year. Keeping in mind the the park is now over 30 years old, and a lot of the infrastructure needs to be maintained and/or replaced. Which is why they’re trying to establish a larger fund for those projects, instead of being caught off guard by large assessments.
But definitely go in eyes wide open that you’ll have ongoing fees that could continue to expand as the park ages and/or new projects are approved. We’re providing our accounting of the fees above, as we couldn’t readily find this information when we were becoming leaseholders.
Heck, compared to the $270/mo we were paying for storage for the bus before we moved it to our lot, we’re quite happy – plus we get to be part of a great community when we are in Arizona.
And of course, you’ll also pay an electric bill – charged exactly as you use it.
In addition to paying your fair share of the costs of the park, all who stay in the park any significant amount of time are expected to volunteer. That keeps the costs of operating the park down, and heck, you get involved with the community this way. There are countless committees from steering the long range goals, technology, landscaping, infrastructure, entertainment, architectural, marketing, etc. When we’re away from the park, we volunteer on committees remotely to at least stay involved. When we’re in the park, we find ways to pitch in.
Video tour of our lot:
We did a live video tour of our lot once we finally arrived in late 2019, which you can watch here:
Hi! Great post, especially as I’m reading it while watching the sun set on the Dragoons from the back porch of your casita. I’m here through the end of November and feel I really scored being assigned #172. I’ve been climbing the hot list for 2 1/2 years so maybe I’ll be a neighbor soon. And so sorry about your sweet kitty.
So awesome that you’re enjoying #172! You should be able to stay there for the rest of your stay, as we likely won’t get back there until early 2025.
Sorry I won’t get to meet you IRL but secretly happy to continue occupying this awesome lot.
Thanks for sharing this post. I know I’m a little late in reading it but I have asked all the questions about a coop that you covered in this post.
Greetings from Saguaro SKP park Benson lot 194:-) Was excited to hear you were a new leaseholder just a few lots from mine – but disappointing to hear you’re not coming to Benson this winter-:(
I’ve followed your blogs/vlogs for several years now and thank you for sharing!
Today I noticed a new YouTube video detailing your search for a van camper.
I understand you’re searching for something short ( less than 20 feet ) but full featured. Personally I own an Airstream Westfalia – which I use as both a daily driver and for my summer travels to escape the desert heat!
Only 250 of these unique van campers were imported into the USA in 2005/2006. The van is a Mercedes Sprinter model year 2004 and the camper conversion was done in 2005 in Germany by Westfalia. Airstream was the importer/distributor.
On a rare occasion one of these comes up for sale. Last week I noticed one for sale in the Bay area. Here is a link to the for sale listing: https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/cto/d/richmond-2005-airstream-sprinter-camper/6783905170.html
If you want to find out more about the Airstream Westfalia here is a link to an owners forum: https://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=72410
That is a very cool and unique design! Thanks for the heads up on this – we’ll keep an eye out for a chance to see one in person if one pops up for sale on the east coast.
This is really funny. I’ve read your writings occasionally for the last year but not this article. In November, we stayed at SKP and amazingly they gave us lot 172 for two weeks. Nice spot!
We are now on the hot list.
How awesome that you got assigned our lot! Glad you enjoyed your stay.
Thanks for the follow up. That’s what it seemed like to us but they were so insistent (two different people making comments that we overheard) and I know that train noise can “sneak up” in the middle of the night.
Staying in Tucson now, we had to drive to Benson to check it out. Impressive location and view! I have a question though. When we stayed at Dreamcatcher in Deming, a couple of people commented on how noisy it is there from the train and the highway. They claimed it was worse than Deming where we noticed train & highway. It looked as if “in town” Benson could be bad but didn’t really hear much from the Co-op park. How have you found it to be?
We never noticed any such noise during our stays. The park is pretty far off the highway.
TM, Nice story, great details, thanks. Innovative living, good mobile life strategy.
Thanks for explaining how the program works. Would you provide some more detail on the workings of the rental pool? I suspect most leaseholders are there in the winter so their lot is not available for the pool when the demand should be the highest. Then when they are gone in the summer, there is near as much of a demand from visitors wanting to get a spot. How much credit do they give a leaseholder and what is a realistic expectation for annual credits? Thanks.
We’ll try to remember to follow-up once we’ve had ours for a while and have numbers to share. Our lot is currently in the rental pool for summer, and will be in for most of the winter as we roam around. Our understanding is that based on the amount of time you have your lot in the pool, you get a portion of the total proceeds of rental income. We shall see.
Thanks for the reply and I will look forward to your update later on. So it looks like the revenues go in one big pool rather than allocated back to specific lots. That may be the most fair way to do things. The average January low temp in Benson is 28 F so I can see where heading out to Yuma or Quartzsite is a good idea when the average January low in Yuma is 46 F. You can enjoy some warmer weather and get some savings in the process!
Well.. our goal is having a place to store the bus while we’re boating.. and having it nearby as a basecamp where we want to winter, which is roaming around the desert. But who knows, in time, we may find we’ll enjoy being still in Benson for bits of time.
This is appealing. I didn’t know that there was anything like this. You mentioned there are others around the country that this coop has. Where can I find out more?
By clicking the link in the post? … https://www.escapees.com/benefits/rv-parking/skp-co-op-parks/
Hi Neighbors!!!!
Chris and Cherie, we were so excited to see your post.
Linda and I got our lot (#270) at SKP Saguaro CO-OP about two years ago and after waiting for almost three years. It’s a wonderful place; so much to do and see. We have much to tell you…
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
We’ll look forward to visiting this winter. (I’ll set aside a special bottle of wine for a proper greeting)
Safe travels,
Rob
Hi Cherie – I have thought about joining an SKP outside of Florida (I am domiciled in FL,) but wondered how the lease/purchase would affect my FL domicile? Is the requirement simply to not spend more than 6 months in a single location outside of FL?
There’s no such requirement to spend anytime in Florida to retain your domicile claim. However, you do need to look at the states you stay in for when they might consider you a resident. In AZ, you can be there 6 months out of the year before needing to legally move there – as long as you’re not taking local employment, enrolling in school, etc. One reason SKP Saguaro was appealing for us.
Got it – yes; I knew I didn’t have to spend time in FL, but I thought there was something in the paperwork about spending 6 or more months in another state. Now that I think about it, I may be thinking about some detail associated with health insurance… I can’t recall now. Anyway, thanks! And congratulations! I recently stayed in the Benson Co-op and really enjoyed my time exploring there.
Oops I missed this announcement when it was new, I must has fallen off the subscription list again…
Wait, where’s the TJ’s? Tucson?
Congratulations!!!
I’ve visited 3 SKP Co-ops this past year and really liked the location of SKP Saguaro, too — in that less crowded corner of Arizona — but that will probably change now 😉
And the folks there are very, very active — I had a hard time getting any work done! I was in lot #106 — too much inside-road traffic on a corner like that. I see you can walk to the laundry, that’s great! Funny that the showers are in the office building, though, instead of at the clubhouse/laundry building.
Will they let you paint the casita purple? 😉
Tomorrow’s my one-year anniversary on the road already, I can hardly believe it. I’ve working hard on getting my blog ready to open it to the public. (Was inspired to do this by meeting fellow bloggers at the Xscapers bash this winter). Thanks to all your ongoing work over at the Mobile Internet Resource Center, I was able to set myself up to be able to work from all the remote boondocking locations I prefer to “live” in! I’m definitely not ready to stop moving around, probably not for many years…
Looking forward to meeting you at this winter’s bash!
We’ve had our eye on that place for quite some time. Seems to be one of the better managed SKP Coop parks in the SW and it’s filled with friendly folks! At 4200 feet it’s a bit chilly in January and February, but then that givers you an excuse to hit the road and find warmer places during those months. Having you based there in the winter will also likely give us a chance to meet up again IRL which would be nice. Now you just need to drag Nina and Paul out of that paradise called “Europe” and the Fab Four will be reunited!
Make sure to check out Mi Casa Restaurant in Benson, it’s NOT “your typical Mexican place!”
https://www.yelp.com/biz/mi-casa-restaurant-benson
😉
I gotta admit.. Mi Casa is one reason we fell in love with the park & location. So delicious and food taken to art! :). Hope to catch up with you guys again soon!
Will see if my comment loads this time 🙂 Congrats on adding another big chapter to your story. We love the Benson to Bisbee area and Sonoita is on our list of places we could live. The climate is so temperate and the views are wonderful. Enjoy making it your own!
Thanks Jodee… perhaps we’ll be in the same general area at some point!
Congratulations Chris and Cherie! Welcome to the world of SKP Co-ops!
Let me put in a plug for the Co-op I bought into a couple of years ago, Pair-A-Dice in Pahrump, NV. It’s similar to the Benson co-op but has lower entry and maintenance costs.
Pahrump is an interesting town. It’s the largest unincorporated community in the country (about 30,000 people), 60 miles from Las Vegas. It takes about an hour to get to the Las Vegas airport.
Here’s our web site: http://www.skppairadice.com/
Sounds like you love the park.. awesome. And didn’t see any restrictions on age other than ‘adult only’ – which is super cool.
Welcome to the co-op! We are in the process of trading lots at the end of your street. See you in the fall when we and you get back. I’ll be calling you to officially welcome you on behalf of the orientation committee. Enjoy your summer.
Cool.. thanks.. we’ll see you sometime this fall for sure! We’re not really ‘phone people’ however.. so an e-mail is a much better way to reach us 🙂
We love, love the Benson to Bisbee area and have Sonoita on our short list of “we could live there” locations. So maybe not neighbors, but someday we could be in your neighorhood :-))) Looks like a great lot!
How exciting! We have friends at the Jojoba SKP in California. We are considering getting our name on the list there, very cool concept. Congratulations, Chris and Cheri!
We’ve heard great things about Jojoba – unfortunately, they’re not open to residents under 55. And we’d have to take into consideration the extra income tax burdens of working while in the state of CA (they’re very aggressive about that.)
Benson is a great place spring and fall. I have relatives in Tucson. I stay in the Valley Vista park which is one of my “free” parks with Thousand Trails. Winter is cold by my standards. Lots of people winter over in the Benson area. Summer is just plain hot. I hope you enjoy your site and the addition of the Casita makes it much more flexible.
More than likely we’ll be wintering by roaming around the SW and leaving the lot in the rental pool – perhaps returning for bits of time ‘at home’ especially at the end/beginning of our RVing season.
This is so insanely cool. We’re still on the hot list there, so we may well join you one day 🙂
Nina
We’d love nothing more than to be neighbors with you guys .. until then, wishing you much love across the puddle.
Congratulations on getting a casita! We spent a few winters there recently and were on the list. Then, this last fall, we had an opportunity to buy a place next door at the San Pedro RV Resort. It will soon become our new home base. Love it there in Benson! We made some great friends at SKP. They are casita owners as well…so will look forward to meeting you there at some point this coming winter! 🙂
I am a Natural Health Consultant for Pets and Their People and will hopefully be holding some seminars/classes in Benson next winter.
Awesome… lovely to be virtually meeting our new neighbors. See you this next season!
Welcome to Saguaro
Linda Coughenower Lot 200
We are in the cool Olympic peninsula in Washington state on our lot in the Evergreen SKP coop park lot 632 until Sept.
See you in the fall.
Howdy there neighbor… looking forward to meeting you in the fall! Olympic Peninsula sounds like an amazing place to summer over.
Congratulations on securing a lot at the Benson Co-Op. We’ve been there on several occasions and added our name to the hot list about 5 years ago. We haven’t activity been seeking a lot at the Co-Op, but you never know in the future. We winter over in Casa Grande and the weather in the summer is definitely nicer in Benson than the Casa Grande/Phoenix area. Way to go guys!
Sounds like you’ll have your pick of spots once you’re ready to become leaseholders. Perhaps one day we’ll be neighbors 🙂
Congrats. It looks great and what a neat idea. We are 5 months into our new life as full timers. Currently in AZ heading to CA to hang with family. After that, we are looking for a place to winter. I’ll check out Benson (BTW, if you have any other suggestions for winter locations, we would love to hear them.
Once again, congratulations and wishing you all the best and safe journeys
Peace,
Ray, Leslie and the cattle dogs
(no website yet, in the meantime check us out at namasteinmyrv on Facebook)
Oh gosh.. there is no shortage of amazing places to winter over in the SW. Have an amazing rest of your first year on the road!
I just want to be you when I grow up! (My hubby and I are just winding down our sticks and bricks and ready to move to RVing FT in a year… it has been a long road securing our dream) I just found you and have been following. You are an amazing couple. A big fan!~Kim
Thanks for coming along Kim.. and wishing you guys a successful transition to RVing!
Welcome to Benson. I am just up the road from you at Butterfield RV park. After following you while I was RVing perhaps we’ll meet one day.
Wow! You are really far south. Further south (and east) than Yuma. The summer heat is extreme in that area. Hope you don’t wear you’re A/C out keeping the inside of Zephyr from melting. The winter temperatures are wonderful down there. The company for whom I worked had facilities in the Phoenix/Mesa area. They never sent me down there in winter. It was always in the heat of summer. The last time they sent me down there was late August. The coldest day was 112 degrees F. The hottest day was 117 degrees F. The worst part was that the hotel maid would turn my A/C off when they did my room. I would come back after a day of work and find the room stifling. I would quickly turn the A/C back on, change clothes, and head out to dinner. I would tell myself that it will be cooler in the morning. I would get up in the morning and find that the cool off got it down into the nineties. I hope Zephyr tolerates that kind of heat without burning out the A/C compressor or other major problems! Wishing you the best!!
The park is actually at 4200′ elevation, so there is some relief from the extreme heat that areas like Tucson get. When we bought Zephyr, she was in Yuma in June… we saw 127 that year (and we mostly survived). We would have considered anything below 115 a cool breezy spring day 🙂
Carl it’s a very temperate area around Benson and Tombstone with much higher elevations than Tucson and Phoenix. Triple digit days are more rare than snow in January.
Woohoo, love that you’re going to be Arizona based! Congratulations!
Hi Guys, we visited Tom and Jill and saw their (now your) casita a few years back. I agree that they had a great view from their lot.
Enjoy and Congrats!,
Mark & Patsi
After seeing theirs, we were pretty set that we wanted a lot with a back porch facing the Dragoons 🙂 Still kinda in disbelief we snagged theirs!
Congratulations, in our third year of full time life un a 37 foot motorhome (have seen zephyr on I75 going North in Manatee county while we were heading South to Sarasota to see family). We are full time Florida (Have not been able to transition the job to allow mobile life), so we purchased as small RV Port in an owner owned RV Resort in Zephyrhills. Keeping the coach under cover will keep it cooler in the summer heat. Thus will be our base station, and the port gives us a place for storage and extra room to enjoy (And extra facilities). We have a lot if full time year round friends here also.
We love the Zephyrhills area.. one of our favorite Thai restraints is there.. Little Ninja!
We were on that list but then decided to change to Jojoba in California because of their emphasis on art studios and the giant outdoor pool and hot tubs! We have some friends at Saguaro so that is disappointing we won’t be neighbors but I think you’ll like it there.
We’ve heard fabulous things about Jojoba – we would have considered it except our understanding is that they’re not as receptive to under 55+ members. And, as we’re still income earning – we’d have to deal with income tax issues (CA is extremely aggressive about that.)
Thanks for giving us all the info. I wondered how those parks worked and what the costs were. I would love to do that someday.
Talk about “adulting”! Congrats, you two. We passed thru Benson last winter; love AZ.
Congratulations!!! Now you don’t have to lock Zephyr away when you are off playing with Ynot. We love the location too. Even owned property in the area in the past when we thought we would build. Wish we had signed on sooner at SKP Sagauro as our number is still too high on the list to nab one of the basic lots. Things happen when the time is right though – as your experience demonstrates. So happy for you.
For sure.. you just never know! Do keep trying — we hear over the summer, less folks call in and it’s been known to happen that those lower on the list snag a site.
Okay now that’s just freaking awesome!
Mazel Tov!
Well dang it, WE wanted that lot! ! We are still around 203 on tge hotlist though 🙁
Nice to know we might finally get to meet you this winter, after following your blog for several years and learning so much from you guys 🙂
Oooops.. sorry we took your lot 🙂 (Ok, not really.) Do keep trying – we hear over the summer, less folks call in and it’s been known to happen that those lower on the list snag a site.
Congratulations! You’ve got a solid plan!
Congrats! We like The SKP Park in Benson as well. It’s a good group of people and a good location for relatively short trips in southern Arizona. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it !
So much to explore within just a few hours of a drive, and Trader Joes within an hour. Score!