Overall, it was a reasonable stay, but I do not expect we will be back.
The most frustrating issue is the undisclosed lease. We booked 19 days before arrival; the landlord told us to expect the lease "in the next few days", but we didn't get it until 8 days prior. It requires driver's license number for all adults as well as all childrens' names; this is private info not needed for a short-term rental. If the landlord wishes to verify tenants, he should use VRBO traveler verification feature.
I assume the landlord will complain we didn't raise this beforehand. This is because we were stuck. The odds of modification were nil. With 8 days before arrival, complaining, getting a refund, and re-booking elsewhere wasn't practical. So, we were stuck signing a lease that made us uncomfortable.
Arrival after dark was not pleasant. The address is illegible from the street, and I had to find an unfamiliar alarm panel quickly in an unfamiliar pitch-dark house.
The location is fine. The gated community is a hassle, but it's a diverse, non-pretentious neighborhood. No services within walking distance. Pool is pretty nice (note, fob is smaller than you might expect), and the playground is also quite nice. They are not quite as close as you might expect from the photos, because the back yard has no gate, but it's not a problem.
The place was clean and ready for our arrival. The closets contain a lot of extra supplies of various types. It's a nice layout and well equipped. The landlord provided various contact information but stayed out of the way.
It is well equipped for kids, but there are gaps. For example, there is a surprisingly large number of toys, but all the balls were flat (perhaps there is an inflator; we didn't need to look). There is a lot of the head-cracking tile seemingly inescapable in Phoenix (including at the bottom of the stairs), though less than other VRBOs we've stayed in. There is also a wine glass rack in the kitchen at the perfect height for toddler mischief.
The thermostats are "smart" and try to "learn" your daily habits, which of course do not exist in a short-term rental, so the schedule they had learned was ludicrous (e.g. increase the heat from the cool sleeping temperature we'd set to 73 degrees at 2am on some, but not all, days of the week). Also, there is no hold feature, so if you adjust the temperature, it only stays that way until the next random scheduled adjustment.
