Black Forest commute to Schriever district 49/20 (Colorado Springs, Woodmoor: new home, neighborhoods, buy)

[artbyheather]

We are moving to Colorado Springs this summer we plan on retiring in COS. We have been working with a realtor and looking for homes. (we are in Germany now) We want land and a treed property so we are house hunting in the Black Forest. My husband will be working at Schriever AFB (we are military). We are familiar with Colorado Springs as we lived there from 96-01.. At that time we lived near Austin Bluff/Templeton Gap area.. We lived in a new Hallmark home and I'd never buy a home like that again. The house literally shook when the washer went to spin cycle! (upstairs laundry).. I know not all new homes are bad. as I've read here about the Keller homes.. but we want to stay away from too much of the cookie cutter homes.. and find a home with trees land. we are looking at the high end price range of 425k

Ok.. so I guess some of my ? are .. are there areas in Black Forest that aren't so great?? We'd like to get in district 20 schools.. but some of Black Forest is in district 49 schools.. I've read that district 49 is not bad.. but I know district 20 schools are excellent.. We are hoping to find a property in the southern part of Black forest and when I find a property that looks good.. i'm excited .. then I'll see that the district is 49 and then I'm a bit bummed.. Is district 49 improving? I had read about new schools going up?

And where is the super Target? Is it on Powers?

Hubby goes in April on a TDY and will take a few days to look around in Colorado springs with our realtor to get a feel for the Black forest and areas within it.

[Charles]

Sounds like you are doing everything right. You are working with a realtor, you are telling him what you want. In this economy realtors are hungry, make him work.

You can download D20, D49 boundary maps off the internet and look at homes online and see which district they are in. Actually you can do almost everything online. The realtor can open the door but almost everything else is available online.

Black Forest is a little hodge podge with some older homes here and there and some newer homes here and there. There is a new development called Black Forest Reserve.

I work at Schriever too.

If you want trees there are some other fine neighborhoods: Bent Tree, Fox Run, Higby Estates, High Forest Ranch, Tall Pines, Kings Deer, Woodmoor, ..though these areas are a little farther away and some of them are in D38.

[artbyheather]

Thanks Charles! Do you do a long commute to work? Friends of ours are about to close on a house in the SD38 area..(our friend also working at Schriever) Actually I saw her posting her too .. Small world!.. She also mentioned Woodmoor as a really nice area.. but I'm not sure about commute time.. we'd like to keep the commute to work about a 30minute time frame.. I know that we need to keep in mind that we'll retire there and my husband won't always work at Schriever.. hmmm??

What zipcode are those neighborhoods in so I can search?

[Charles]

My commute from Kings Deer is 50 minutes. 80132.

[Moman1]

I can't speak for the schools, but I lived in Falcon Hills which is about 2 miles north of Woodman and HWY24 and 2 miles south of the edge of Black Forest. I have commuted many times to Schriever (I'm Air Force myself) and it only takes about 20 minutes from there, obviously a little longer in bad weather. However, there are many really nice homes in Black Forest. If I ever move back to COS, I would consider Black Forest myself.

Falcon (again, about 4 miles south of Black Forest on Meridian) is where they just put in a Super Walmart. I also hear they are going to put in a Lowes or Home Depot there too. It's growing leaps and bounds out there so you should be able to get into a nice property that can continue to rise in value. With this rise in business in the area and the increase revenue from it, you can only imagine how that money will find it's way into to school system too.

Hope this helps.

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Moman1

I also hear they are going to put in a Lowes or Home Depot there too.

I think it is a Lowes and it is supposed to be near Meridian and 24.