Rio Rancho development history (Albuquerque, Hope: real estate market, new home, buy)

[Tim Rankin]

If anyone's interested, this blog Francis Coffee on Albuquerque Real Estate has a good summary on the development & growth of RR.

There are also several good articles on the Albuq area real estate market, all written within the last 10 days.

[red46]

In the late 60's, I spent a couple years away from home, living in L.A. I'll never forget the day, I opened the Parade magazine, in the Sunday paper and saw my baby mountains, the Sandia's. There was a blurb about Rio Rancho, portraying it as a little wonder land for retirees.

I laughed out loud, realizing what a great impression the pictures would make on those who weren't from Albuquerque. Little would they know, until they arrived in Rio Rancho that that view was across a valley and a whole city away. Rio Rancho, however, was nothing but sand and prairie grass. There was nothing to protect from the annual sand storms, until Rio Rancho grew big enough to replace all that sand with pavement and concrete.

From the perspective of the locals, the beginnings of Rio Rancho was nothing more than another fly-by-night, rip off that would skip town, as soon as they had a wad of down payments. We were amazed when it actually stuck around.

In the early 80's, what is now Rio Rancho, was still showing it's first model homes. They soon had a reputation of bait and switch, which they did on almost every home sale. Regardless of colors and tiles, you might pick out, they had a truck of rejects to use in your new home and that's what you were getting.

Then sometime in the early 80's, can't really remember the time, it was discovered they were using 2nd grade lumber, which was against city codes so Rio Rancho set about to become a separate city. They didn't like Albuquerque, snooping into their housing practices.

All I have to say, today, is good luck. Hopefully, you'll buy a house that is up to code and that will hold up under a hard rain. Not all were so lucky.