How Did Prescott Valley Get Its Start?

Prescott Valley is one of Arizona's younger towns, built on land that was long known as Lonesome Valley, about 10 miles east of Prescott. In the mid-1960s a Phoenix real-estate company, Prescott Valley Inc., bought the land and began selling home lots — largely to Midwesterners looking for sunshine, mild weather, and scenery. The area grew from a few hundred residents to an incorporated town on August 22, 1978, and it has been one of the state's fastest-growing communities ever since.

Starting in 1966, representatives from Prescott Valley Inc. traveled to the Midwest to sell lots to people who wanted an affordable place in Arizona's high country. It was, from the beginning, a planned community rather than an old frontier settlement. By the early 1970s the population had grown to around 600 people — small, but climbing.

By 1978 more than 1,500 people lived in the area, and that August the residents voted overwhelmingly — about 80 percent in favor — to incorporate as a town. Growth accelerated from there. Today Prescott Valley is a full-fledged town with its own identity, generally more affordable than Prescott at many price points, and home to a lot of newer construction and master-planned neighborhoods.

Prescott Valley's relative newness is part of its appeal: newer homes, planned neighborhoods, and strong value compared with pricier nearby markets. A lot of the buyers we work with at Home Team Prescott choose Prescott Valley for exactly those reasons. If that sounds like your next chapter, explore Prescott Valley and see what fits.