Possible move to C.Springs, housing and school?? (Grand Junction: 2013, foreclosure)

[5stones]

We have a possible move to the Springs coming in early 2013.
We have 2 daughters that will be 8th and 11th for the 2013-14 school year so a good solid HS is very important.
They are currently on the AP track here in TX. I know that D20 schools are rated high, but not sure they will work for commute.
The older one plays select club and HS soccer here and we would like to continure that as well.
Other one is in band and runs cross country.

Job: located at Peterson AFB would like under 30minute commute

Housing price would be 400k TOPs (only if we can tick off most of the wants) Ideally would like to stay aright around 300k (under would be awesome!!)
3-4 bedrooms (since we have one away at college)
3 bathrooms
3+ car garage
basement (finished would be great)
Heres the biggie... would like .5 acre or more. Curretnly we are in an HOA type neighborhood and have .33acre corner lot. Would consider that, but ideally would like to be in an "acreage" type neighborhood. DO NOT want to live on a .17acre lot jammed in. Did that in the Metro DC area and since we have family in CO (I am a native ) would like this to be our last move.
Can be new build or older, we don't mind gutting kitchen and baths etc... (doing 3 baths right now in this house!) As long as location is good and SCHOOLS are solid!

Help please...

[beezle1]

The Falcon area may work for you. Bigger lots there, more of a rural feel. District 49 schools, looks like about 15-20 minutes to Petersen down Highway 24. Quite a few homes there that meet your criteria, even under 300k.

I am sure others will weigh in here with more info and other ideas.

[Mike from back east]

I'm in the Pine Creek / Briargate area along Powers Blvd and I've TONS of neighbors who live in this area and work at Peterson AFB. D20 schools are excellent, as are D38 (further north) and D12 on the other end of town.

There are tons of houses around here that really fit your needs, at your price level; find them on ppar.com which has a neat map-based search.

We live near Pine Creek HS and often see the cross-country students running around our streets and we attend the band concerts every year.

[MrsMac]

I would avoid the Falcon area (we lived there for a few years when we first moved here). The D49 schools are nowhere near as good as the D20 schools my kids are in now (I have middle and high school age kids), the commute to Peterson is shorter (about 15 minutes as opposed to a little over half an hour now that we live in Northgate by the Academy) but you make up for it by having to drive into town for decent shopping and food, and the wind out there is brutal. We literally put away our patio furniture because we were tired of having to retrieve it from the neighbours' yards and kept the grill on the garage because we were tired of buying new covers for it (even weighing it down with two full bags of mulch didn't help). I still remember the day I watched my left hand neighbour's trampoline fly across my back yard and take out part of my right hand neighbour's deck; luckily there was minimal damage when it clipped the side of our house. My house here cost $50,000 more to build than if we had stayed in Falcon (and I don't have a golf course view here) but it was totally worth it and will continue to be thanks to stronger resale in this area. (There is a reason only the housing developments in D20 and D38 have big signs advertising what school district they are in.)

D38 will be too much of a commute and D12 will probably have few houses in your price range so I would look in D20. We live all the way up on Northgate and tons of people commute to Peterson from here. We've found that the north/south commute isn't really an issue time wise; it's the east/west commute across COS that gets snarly and takes more time. (of course, compared to CA, HI and DC, there are no real traffic jams here. Traffic almost always moves, just slowly.) I don't know what the lot sizes are but there are homes in Flying Horse that meet your criteria and there is a new development starting on Voyager and Middle Creek Parkways that may work.

[5stones]

Thanks so much for getting back to me so quickly and cementing in my mind what I already figured reguarding schools, D20 is strong. We have family that live North by county line Rd and they attended D38 and had told us 5 years ago when we thought a move might come that D20 was very good. (they have horses and needed the land up near Palmer Divide)
Knew D12 would be out of our price for what we want.

Ok so now to concentrate on areas of D20. Thanks for the RE link Mike.
Any neighborhoods/areas with larger lots please post them for me, I am familiar with a few but not too many.

This move has been a long time coming and only wish it could have happened earlier so that we could have spent more time with my mom before she passed away. But being 5 hours from my Dad (82) in Grand Junction will be a blessing!! Now keeping our fingers crossed that the job goes through, because I do not I will survive another North Texas summer!!

[lurtsman]

I'm not a realtor, but I'm also searching for a house. I've become VERY good with using the realtor .com database. The hardest things in your search are finding a property with over .5 acres in D20. They exist, but they are limited. I ran a search for 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, 3 car garage, minimum half acre lot, and centered on the D20 area and verified within the results the listed school district since I can't make that a parameter for searching. (This may sound like a lot but it took about 15 minutes)]
Houses are sorted by price, descending.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...0_M17632-43499

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...8_M17230-17253

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...9_M27358-39382

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...8_M19159-05955

That is the end of the list. The lot size requirement is tough to find within D20. However, I'm cutting out any listing that only has .49 acres, so if there is any flexibility it may dramatically increase the number of possibilities. Yes, you may notice several of these have multiple acres. Once you pass .5 acres in this district you end up with some pretty huge pieces of land.

[Mike from back east]

I know that last house listed, the one on Summer Rain.

It sold earlier this year at foreclosure auction for $285k and now the seller wants to flip it for $389k, which is still a decent price, but there is room to haggle.

The lot is larger because it is irregularly shaped, backs to Powers Blvd, and is walking distance to Pine Creek HS and very close to the elem and middle schools over in Pine Creek.

[lurtsman]

Do you have to be paying cash to buy a house at one of those auctions? It seems like a good way to get a decent deal on the house, but when I buy I'd need to have a mortgage.

[5stones]

Thanks!
that one on Summer Rain looks very nice, but baking up to Powers I am not too thrilled about!!

We may have to push the commute a bit, since there are many more properties with land in D38. I found a great house in Kings deer area, unfortunately it was just about 1/2 mile from my brother and sister in law...TOO close!!

We wont find out job situation for another couple of months, we are in for both C.springs and Hawaii.

Thanks for the feedback...
Anyone have insight on the club soccer situation U16 girls?

[otowi]

D11 may be a little closer than D20 - you might consider the IB program at Palmer or AP program at Doherty. Coronado is strong but maybe a little far from Peterson - not sure.