Moving to Colorado Springs (Meridian: short sales, foreclosure, lease)
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thanks, I didn't know Monument was that close, that's comforting. I will be working at the USAFA and debate should I get a home in Monument or not, I like the area because you seem to get more house for the money and space.
are there lots of shopping the area or is it still developing?
From a my point of view the essentials are here> Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Discount Tire, and O'Reilley's Auto. But my wife and daughter have higher standards. But there is a Kohl's and numerous small clothing and gift shops. There are also Safeway and King's Sooper for groceries. There are 2 indoor malls in COS, Chapel Hills is the closest, about 20 minutes away.The Outlet Mall in Castle Rock is about a half hour drive and Park Meadows on the south side of Denver that's 45 minutes away.
I forgot add that we live in Woodmoor and my drive to the USAFA Airfield, which is on the far south end of the Academy, is about 13 miles. If you work anywhere else on the Academy it will probably be less. The North Gate entrance is the second exit south of SH105, the main Monument exit(there's only 2). One of the reasons we moved to Monument was the proximity to the USAFA.
My family just got back from a house hunting trip. We looked in Cordera at one point. You are right, the HOA fees are not small, but they seem to offer a lot to go with those fees. The area was very nice, but the homes are very close together and look alike. We wanted very much to get out of the cookie cutter neighborhoods this move, (my husband in in the Air Force), and decided at the end of our trip to look at Monument. Before that, we looked in the Northeast side of Colorado Springs, including Black Forest. Not finding anything that we loved, we finally looked in Monument. We bought a home in the Woodmoor subdivision. The homes are on about 3/4 of an acre each, allowing some elbow room. We also looked at some homes on 5 and 6 acres in Black Forest, but didn't find anything with both the land we loved with the house we loved attached. We drove through other areas of Monument and could not find anything we didn't like. It's a pretty small town, and it seems to be growing. The area has a lot of retired military. In fact, the three homes we liked all belonged to retired military families.
Like you said, the homes all look good on the Internet, thanks to the skills of the realtor. We found many such homes that did not match the photos. You won't really get a good feel for any area until you take that trip out to see for yourself.
Good luck with your search!
Last edited by ladyjag45; 04-24-2011 at 10:59 AM..
Hello Mike from back east .... snip .... can you shed some insight? Thanks in advance
Tons of active and retired USAF types all over these northern locations.
Monument is a bit too north for my likes and gets more snow due to higher elevation. Major highway is I-25 and in the Monument area it has to climb up Monument Hill, always a trouble spot when it snows.
Looking at realtor.com there are 198 SF homes for sale in zip 80921, which covers Glen Eagles and Flying Horse. That's a sizable inventory to choose from.
Flying Horse has definitely dropped in prices. Using the map search on PPAR shows at least 45 homes in there for sale, with prices starting at $319k which is way down from 3-4 years ago. I just looked at one bank owned home at $439k that is down $90k from it's selling price in 2006. MLS # 607040.
Cordera is closer to tons of shopping along the Powers corridor and in the Briargate area. FH means a 5-10 minute longer drive to all of these things.
Glen Eagles is less attractive to me, especially those homes along Struthers that are right on I-25 and get way too much highway noise with the windows open, but they ARE cheaper by a long shot. We lived for six months in one of those homes along Struthers, built by Richmond American as cheep-cheep investor or starter homes, and it showed, we had wiring issues and there was no basement. Okay for a short term rental but I'd not like living right there in that subset of homes as I like keeping the windows open. The rest of GE isn't bad though, with slightly older homes.
There is also the site called militarybyowner and I'm sure there's a bunch of homes there that add to the 198 on realtor.com / ppar.com
Local realtor site ppar.com has a more finite search capability, allowing you to name some housing areas, but BEST feature allows you to draw a map box and then see what's available inside of that map box.
PPAR has the same listings as realtor.com as realtor pulls from the PPAR mls site to populate the realtor.com database. PPAR also has a zip code search, but be sure to hit the search button that is right under the zip code box, else it searches the entire city.
Both sites allow you to search on various levels of pricing and many other characteristics.
Cordera is along the Powers Blvd corridor, zip code for Cordera is 80924. But note too that 80924 includes Wolf Ranch (adjacent to Cordera) and a few other areas. The map search on PPAR shows me about 25 existing SF homes in Cordera, again with prices that show some softening since the bubble.
With FH and Cordera the homes are built by better builders in the area, Keller, Classic and a few others. Not sure about GE.
Lots to choose from around here.
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thanks, just what I wanted to hear. I'll have to see Cordera to gauge if it is worth the price. Was there lots of traffic coming to and from Cordera to USAFA?
I like the Woodmoor & Monument just as you mentioned about the "elbow room" and not cookie cutter homes. It seem like a good longterm buy and potential keeper.
Is Woodmoor pretty quiet? are there lots of home for sale in that area?
Andre
Quote:
Originally Posted by ladyjag45
Machrx,
My family just got back from a house hunting trip. We looked in Cordera at one point. You are right, the HOA fees are not small, but they seem to offer a lot to go with those fees. The area was very nice, but the homes are very close together and look alike. We wanted very much to get out of the cookie cutter neighborhoods this move, (my husband in in the Air Force), and decided at the end of our trip to look at Monument. Before that, we looked in the Northeast side of Colorado Springs, including Black Forest. Not finding anything that we loved, we finally looked in Monument. We bought a home in the Woodmoor subdivision. The homes are on about 3/4 of an acre each, allowing some elbow room. We also looked at some homes on 5 and 6 acres in Black Forest, but didn't find anything with both the land we loved with the house we loved attached. We drove through other areas of Monument and could not find anything we didn't like. It's a pretty small town, and it seems to be growing. The area has a lot of retired military. In fact, the three homes we liked all belonged to retired military families.
Like you said, the homes all look good on the Internet, thanks to the skills of the realtor. We found many such homes that did not match the photos. You won't really get a good feel for any area until you take that trip out to see for yourself.
Does anyone have anymore information on the initial question about schools in these two districts or which schools are better in these districts????
You will see on GreatSchools.com that 20 is generally ranked higher than 49. But we only have experience with 38, which is ranked higher than 20. But as with just about anything, your individual experience can vary from year to year. Our daughter has been in District 38 schools, K-5, and has had a couple of forgettable teachers. But the rest have been good and overall her education has been very good. I'm sure there are folks who are familiar with those 2 districts that can add some personal experience.
Woodmoor is a very large subdivision, with homes varying in age. They are still building, but from my understanding, they will be built out soon. There are 3,000 homes in Woodmoor, and a lot of retired military, as I said. We drove around the neighborhood and did not see many for sale signs, which I liked. Some neighborhoods we saw had quite a few, especially the cookie cutter neighborhoods. Of course, if Woodmoor, and Monument attracts so many retired military it makes sense that it would be a bit less transient. Woodmoor seems like a quiet neighborhood, or at least where we looked and bought during the times we were there. We looked at the house on a Sunday afternoon. The homeowner's association is pretty strict about parking on the side of the road, which I like. It seems to be enforced, unlike so many homeowner's associations. You can get a permit for guests who will be staying with you for longer than a certain period of time. It also appeared the neighborhood was not going downhill, so to speak. I did not see any rundown areas on our drive. Woodmoor itself just appealed to our family and seemed a bit more settled than other areas we saw. We are hoping to retire there. Good luck on your search. I think, like us, when you find an area that suits you, you will know.
When we looked at a home in Cordera, (one of the few foreclosures we looked at), it was during the week, when most people are at work, so I'm not sure what the traffic might be after hours. It's nice for that sort of housing, but it reminded me a lot of Las Vegas with the houses so close together. The house was nice, but there was no privacy. There are also VERY few trees in Colorado Springs, except for Black Forest, and Monument, which is it's own town. The trees that are there have been planted when the house was built. Cordera, being new, had smaller trees and some had desert landscaping. It's interesting, even in Monument and Black Forest, there are areas with large pines and other areas with not a tree around. We found a house with trees, which was important to us.
Last edited by ladyjag45; 04-26-2011 at 07:20 PM..
Yes, for trees you need older neighborhoods, which there are many, and they are nice.
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. But there is a Kohl's and numerous small clothing and gift shops. There are also Safeway and King's Sooper for groceries. There are 2 indoor malls in COS, Chapel Hills is the closest, about 20 minutes away.The Outlet Mall in Castle Rock is about a half hour drive and Park Meadows on the south side of Denver that's 45 minutes away.
