Looking for a place to live - I am an Immigrant (Denver: apartment, rental)

[ShahramTaba]

Hi :
My Green Card will be ready in the next 6 to 9 months.
I am a single male 32 years old technical engineer and dreaming for a place where is ideal for study and work and start a family.
I love cold snowy weather and hate hot summers.I afford to buy a house for around 40000 dollar and near a relevant good college to continue study.
I have 5 years of experience in managing factory utilities and machineries.
So where do you think is suitable for me?
Any suggestions is appreciated.
Thanx.

[Crematia]

I've seen some trailers on craigslist.org that cheap. You won't find a house that cheap anywhere except maybe Detroit.

[tfox]

Perhaps you meant 400k? In any case, I wouldn't worry so much about buying a house right now. I'd suggest instead that you look at an apartment rental for a couple years while you discover Denver and determine if this is where you truly want to live.

As for colleges, there are several in the area: University of Denver, University of Colorado - Denver, Metro State College of Denver, and Regis University (all in Denver), plus the Colorado School of Mines (Golden), or the University of Colorado (Boulder). You will have to meet some residency requirements to attend the public universities at subsidized in-state tuition, though for graduate school this often can be overcome by getting an assistantship, a realistic option if you are an engineering student.

[oceankidz]

Not sure where you are now but have a look at Durango !

[ShahramTaba]

Thank you tfox.That is a good advice.For the Money I should say 40k is right, If it's too little,How much is the minimum?
Actually, Michigan and MichiganTech is the other state and university I am looking at right now.
By the way, Where has more snow fall, Colorado or Michigan?
For the record, I am from Tehran,Iran.

[CosmicWizard]

Neither Colorado nor Michigan gets as much snowfall as Tehran. Just testing your sense of humor.

[ShahramTaba]

Thanx for your testing,but I could use a simple answer.
By the way,Tehran gets only one or two snowfalls a year.

[tfox]

Originally Posted by ShahramTaba

Thank you tfox.That is a good advice.For the Money I should say 40k is right, If it's too little,How much is the minimum?
Actually, Michigan and MichiganTech is the other state and university I am looking at right now.
By the way, Where has more snow fall, Colorado or Michigan?
For the record, I am from Tehran,Iran.

Shahram, Khosh Amadeed!

40k is maybe doable for a small condominium, but I'd say single family residences are starting more in the mid 100k range. The average price is more in the lower 200k range. But as I said, you're probably better off renting an apartment at first.

As for comparing Colorado snowfall and Michigan, you can probably look that up here on city-data. My guess would be that snowfall totals between Denver and Ann Arbor, MI would be similar, though Denver would have much higher average temperatures in winter and a lot more sun. Actually I think you'll find that Denver and Tehran are fairly similar in terms of annual temperatures and climate, though Denver does get more snowfall in winter and rainfall in summer than Tehran does.

As you probably know, there is an Iranian community in Denver, but not a particularly large one compared to the larger cities like NY, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles. We have a few Iranian restaurants here, and several Iranian-run grocery stores. I really don't know about Michigan -- parts of the Detroit suburbs have many Arab-Americans, but not sure about Iranians.

[I_Want_Snow]

Michigan Tech is in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan real close to Canada in the Keweenaw Peninsula. It gets really cold there and they have abundant snowfall. I googled "Keweenaw Peninsula" and found that it gets anywhere from 200-300 inches of snow every year. And I would guess that homes prices are cheaper up there compared to Colorado. My parents bought a cabin close to Alpena which is about 3/4 of the way up the state. It was a 2 bed 1 bath with a 2 car detached garage and they paid $21,300 for it back in 05'.

One of my best friends from High School graduated from Michigan Tech and got a pretty good job as a Mechanical Engineer when he got out working for John Deere.

Ann Arbor MI is about 540 miles south of where Michigan Tech is located at in Houghton, MI. Ann Arbor gets about 15-20 inches less of snow a year then Denver, right around 40-45 inches a year. I grew up and lived around the Ann Arbor area for 30 yrs.

[Umbria]

DO NOT look at Detroit - high, high crime - housing is low, but, the high crime, no jobs situation is the reason.