Considering Colorado Springs as a place to move to when DH retires (Denver: fit in, rentals)

[Kathy884]

I'd like to do a little looking at Colorado Springs as a possible place to retire to. We will be visiting Colorado this July, and I'd like to look around neighborhoods, maybe look at a few open houses, (We'll be staying overnight in Colorado Springs) on a Saturday nights, so will be there on Sunday and don't need to head to the mountains till Sunday evening.


Anyway, I was hoping you might be able to give me some recommendations as to neighborhoods to look around at while we are there that might be a good fit for us. Also where should I stay overnight while I am there?


We used to live in Denver back in the 80s and loved the climate, mountains in the distance, and mountain access. It was our favorite place that we've ever lived. We really love mountains. Denver, though, with heavier traffic and much higher housing prices is no longer in the running as a place to move to for us. It's gotten too popular and too expensive.


We like city amenities, so the size of Colorado Springs is very appealing for finding people to play tennis with (I play year round -- indoors Labor Day to Memorial Day -- USTA 4.0 rating), volunteer opportunities, book clubs, church, theatre, job possibilities for DS who may move out with us (He is 21 right now, living at home.) We aren't into skiing anymore, but like the idea of being able to get to a beautiful family friendly easy to moderate walking/hiking trail. That would be heavenly.


Not that this really matters, but if you were to put us somewhere on the political spectrum, we'd probably be classified as moderate republicans who don't vote a straight republican ticket. And that's really more my husband. I'm probably more of an independent. We are big NPR listeners. My church is a United Methodist one, and I attend what would be a fairly ecumenical / liberal adult education class/life group. We definitely are not of the same mind set with the more fundamentalist sects that I understand are pretty big in the area, and I get the impression that we aren't as conservative politically as many in the area too, but I think we'd get along fine as neighbors. Most of our friends and family are more conservative than we are. Also our son is gay -- not an out there looking person -- a handsome, conservative, well mannered young person who gets along well with all age groups -- good customer service skills and a good worker. He's a really kind person with a big heart and wonderful sense of humor. He is a total joy to us. He's a photographer working two part time jobs and going to school at the moment. As to our professions, DH is a Property / Casualty Actuary. I work in IT, and if DH wants to move to Colorado in 3 years when he retires, it is very likely that I could take my job with me and telecommute.


We currently live in St. Louis County, in a close in suburb. We have a 1900 square foot home built in 1947 with the 1980s addition. The house has three bedrooms and two baths. We also have a nice 600 square foot finished area in our basement in addition to the other 1900 square feet that is a great hang out area for DS with friends. Our house is in a charming older neighborhood with large trees that's close to everything. Our house would probably sell somewhere between $325,00 and $350,000, and in Colorado Springs we would be looking for something that is a similar size and would like to keep costs of any property we buy including any projects required under $350,000. We have one large dog, so a small to medium sized yard would be nice. We don't need a three car garage or anything like that, but we do have three cars, so would need a place where three cars could be parked in a garage, drive way, or on the street. We would love a neighborhood that is good for taking walks. We are open to older or newer. We tend, though, to prefer an area that's not super cookie cutter, where all the houses look pretty much the same. And the more move in ready the better, as we aren't handy and would need to hire people to make any improvements we would want. We like open floor plans too. We don't need huge bathrooms, closets, things like that.


I am guessing a house would be our best bet, but I am not opposed to a town home or condo either if it would meet our requirements.


Sperlings Best places rates says Colorado Springs in general is 17% cheaper than where we live, and rates housing costs as 32% cheaper than where we live, so I'm guessing, but I don't know for sure, that we could find something that would work for us in our price range.


Also as well as neighborhood recommendations of places for us to look at, I'd love your take on from what I've listed about us you think Colorado Springs would or would not be a good fit for us and why.


I really appreciate any and all advice.

[Mike from back east]

You can a nicely decent home in COLO SPGS for $350k as well as all the other stuff you seek. I suggest looking in the Briargate area, zip 80920 (Briargate) and 80924 (Cordera). There's a Lifetime Fitness there with 8 indoor tennis courts and a mammoth gym with all the trimmings. Realtor.com or ppar.com for housing and/or rentals.

[Kathy884]

Thanks so much for the suggestions Mike! I will look at those zip codes.

[otowi]

You might also like the West side of town or near downtown - are you wanting newer, or character/established, etc.?

[Mike Ryan]

Taking in everything you said, I would suggest Pleasant Valley/Westmoor Park on the west side.

[StarrySkiesAbove]

The areas that Mike suggested (Briargate and Cordera) are very nice newer areas but they are definitely on the cookie cutter suburb side. For great walking neighborhoods you might want to look at central neighborhoods north or east of the downtown area. These will offer great walking both on quaint neighborhood streets and also along trails and parks. These are established older neighborhoods with character, there is an attractive mix of architecture, good size lots with big trees. I would consider Patty Jewett, East End Addition, Bonnyville, Divine Redeemer, and Shooks Run neighborhoods. You can also consider the Old North End but budget will not go far in that neighborhood.

This area is swimming in tennis courts. In the immediate vicinity there are really nice well maintained free tennis courts in Memorial Park (15 courts, 11 with lights for night use), in Mid Shooks Run Park (2 courts which are also striped for pickle ball; I don't remember if these are lit) and in Monument Valley Park there are 13 lit courts, with two striped for pickle ball. Bonforte Park in the Bonnyville neighborhood has 2 tennis courts also lit. There are two courts in Boulder Park next to Memorial Hospital and Palmer High School downtown has four lit courts open to the public on the corner of Boulder and Weber streets.

The YMCA downtown is a very nice large facility with many amenities including pools. The YMCA also operates the swimming pools and indoor splash park Memorial Park. Memorial Park also has an ice arena.

You will find Colorado Springs has many different micro climates and the weather can vary quite a bit across town. The further north you are in the city the more snow you tend to get. Typically the downtown area is a bit more protected.

There is a First United Methodist Church downtown on the corner of Nevada and Boulder that has a beautiful historic building.

For house hunting these neighborhoods encompass three zipcodes: 80903, 80907 and 80909.

80907 and 80909 are large zipcodes geographically which include many different neighborhoods. 80909 in particular is a huge zipcode and it has some areas that are less desirable so when researching the central core do not search by zipcode alone.

My recommended search boundaries for these central neighborhoods would be roughly east of Cascade Ave (there are some gorgeous historic properties west of this street between Cascade and Monument Valley Park i.e. Wood Avenue, Cuelbra Street etc but they are at a much higher price point).

Pikes Peak Avenue to the south (stay north of Memorial Park, the neighborhoods on the other side of the park along the Prospect Lake side can be a little run down but the neighborhood just to the north of the park is part of East End Addition and is nice and under a 5 minute walk to the tennis facilities).

Union Boulevard to the east

And the Rock Island Trail to the North.

As others have mentioned you may also want to look at some westside neighborhoods and maybe even the Rockrimmon or Mountain Shadows area near Ute Valley Park.

[StarrySkiesAbove]

Oh and I forgot to mention that you should fit into Colorado Springs just fine. There is a bit of everything here and people seem to coexist here better than many other areas, overall it is very live and live. It's also a very outdoor oriented and dog friendly city. Great access to medical facilities too, which can be important in retirement years.

There is a small but strong art scene, an insane amount of craft beer, some great local restaurants as well as the usual chains and some quality local theater with bigger shows and productions coming to the Pikes Peak Center and World Arena. Your son will find a lot of fellow photographers here as well. Our neighbors and friends across the street from us are a gay couple, our age (mid 40's) with a teenage son; they moved here in 2006 and they are very happy here. We live in one of those areas just east of downtown. They have a 1930's brick bungalow, and our house is a 1950 mid century modern brick ranch.

Be prepared for dry (lots of chapstick needed), intense sun and browner landscape but if you lived in Denver you already know what that entails. I think our mountain views are much better than Denver's and mountain access is not as congested (yet).

[juniper johnson]

What sold me finally on Springs for retirement was the property taxes. Back in TX, $8200 for 2016 had we stayed. Just got our statement for here and it was $783.00. Of course, there are state taxes but shouldn't be an issue as we are retired with a lower income. We were warned that it was a very conservative place (which we are not) but we have found a wide variety of beliefs and most importantly, charity and tolerance, for those with different beliefs. We bought just north of central (80907) and are good with that. The house we bought here would have been at least $200K more in Tx. The only thing we have trouble with is the dryness - a whole lot of new wrinkles in a short amount of time Loving the cold though...

[Kathy884]

Thanks so much for all the suggestions. You have given me a lot to look at / consider. On paper Colorado Springs sounds perfect, so I'm really looking forward to visiting. // As to the question about newer vs. established neighborhood, we are open to looking at both. To date, though, in the three cities that we have lived in since 1985, we ended up going for older neighborhoods (I'm a sucker for big trees and character and so is DH.) But sometimes with limited inventory, older neighborhoods are just too expensive. Also, not being up for major renovations can make newer appealing sometimes.


In Denver we lived in a cute little house in a neighborhood called Washington Park that was three blocks from that nice park, but now that is a really hot area and prices are just out of site. I sold that place for $89,000 in 1989. It would be way too small for us now too, but per Zillow is actually worth over $500,000 now -- crazy. Actually, though, as I said in the initial post, Denver and suburbs get you so little for your money that we'd stay put in St. Louis vs. move there.

[DrDog]

Dh?