Nevada...Arizona...Possibly somewhere else??

[CLSpider]

I currently live in southern California....and the prices of houses here are ridiculous. I can't afford it. So for a while now, I've been looking at houses in Las Vegas (preferably not close to the strip). I can get a reeally nice house for under $100,000!! I did feel somewhat uneasy about going to Vegas. I didn't want to be near all of the casinos, gambling, alcohol, drunk people(all the time), prostitutes, never sleeping city, etc....but I figured, eh, I won't be that close. I started looking there because it's a place I've been to, I want to get out of California, and I didn't know where else to look. I have zero clue as to what are nice cities to live in.
But I kept hearing over and over about a lot of crime and gangs over there....I have a family and hearing that over and over has made me have a complete change of mind. I don't want to go there.
So, I'm stuck again. Trying to find nice cities to live in.
And then I came upon a city in Arizona called Tolleson. So far after doing a little bit of research, it seems really nice....and the houses, I love them! But I've never been there and can't say it's nice from personal experience.

Does anyone have anything to say about Tolleson? Or what are some other places I can look into? I would prefer to stay on the west...I don't really want to go any further east than Arizona or Nevada. And I would love to be able to live in a really nice neighborhood in a large house that is under $100k.

[Soterios]

As someone who's house is worth nothing now, I can tell you the market in Phoenix is cheap as all get out right now. How far you have to go depends on how 'big' you want for your budget.