Final answer:
Homes in Arizona are commonly sold based on the township and range system, which is more standardized and better suited to the local climate than the older metes and bounds system.
Step-by-step explanation:
Most homes in Arizona are sold with legal descriptions based on the township and range system. This system, introduced by Thomas Jefferson, is a grid-based cadastral system used to simplify land transactions and describe property lines in a standardized way. Unlike the metes and bounds system used by English settlers in the colonial period, which had irregular parcel shapes and used local landmarks like trees and boulders for description, the township and range system uses a grid with townships as the basic unit, divided into square sections. In Arizona, the drier climate and the need for larger parcels for ranching were better suited to this more organized system of land division, which avoids the issues of movable landmarks encountered with metes and bounds.