What are the best Denver neighborhoods? (Greenwood Village, Cherry Hills Village: sale, mortgage, houses)

[hts]

And by best, I guess I mean generally considered to be the most desirable. I hate to use words like prestigious, but I suppose that's what I'm talking about as well. If money was no object, how would you rank the top 5 neighborhoods in the Denver metro, and if you can also give me a rough idea ($5m+, $1-$3m, $500k-$1m, etc.) of the price ranges in each of these neighborhoods, that'd be great as well.

As some of you know from my other posts, I'm really only interested in purchasing in the Cherry Creek High school district (within the official boundary map) and am not too keen on anything I've seen so far, so I may have to reluctantly increase our budget and was looking for some advice as to where to start--thanks!

[julian17033]

Old Cherry Creek
Cheeseman Park
Cherry hills & Cherry Hills Village.
Greenwood Village
Castle Pines

I moved away in 2009 so I'll let the locals key you in on prices.
The neighborhoods I have listed range from very nice large suburban homes, old stately mansions to multi acre properties with homes reaching into the 30 million dollar range.

[Snikt]

Best for what? Just because it's really expensive doesn't mean it's good

[hts]

Yes, for the purposes of my question, let's assume that best = most expensive which also = most desirable (we could argue that point as well as many others, ie, proximity to work or airport, school district, tax rates, etc.), but in an effort to keep this thread relatively straight-forward, let's just go with best = most expensive/desirable--thanks.

[mic111]

I peeked at your previous posts and I think you should look toward your idea of remodeling. I've lived in the mid-70s neighborhoods and the million plus neighborhood. The quality of people in the mid-70s neighborhoods is loads better on average. People who work for a living, aren't concerned with keeping up with the Jones and spend time with their kids. Your also concerned with public schools. Generally people in the million plus neighborhoods don't send their kids to public schools unless the kids are disabled. If your going to go for the super pricey neighborhood and you want your kids to have friends in the neighborhood budget in the schools these kids attend which are around $20K per year.

[hts]

Thanks Mic. I don't necessarily want to live in one of these top tier neighborhoods, I merely want to better understand where they are. I'd like to get into the nicest, most appropriate for us, neighborhood we can afford (who wouldn't?).

I think Cherry Hills Village is probably the nicest neighborhood within the Cherry Hills HS boundary. It's not for us. I also think that Greenwood Village might be the second nicest neighborhood within the high school's boundaries. I'm seeing some houses in there that might work for us (some already remodeled, others requiring some updating).

I saw some interesting remodeled ramblers online over around Orchard/Havana, but I'm just not sure of the neighborhood. It looks to me that this $500k redone rambler might be at/near the top of the price range there, which I obviously want to avoid.

We're sending our kids to public schools. We live well within our means and don't worry about the Joneses. My car is 10 years old and has 114k miles on it. That being said, I'd much rather purchase at the lower end of a neighborhood and fix it up rather than purchase at the higher end of the neighborhood or alternatively purchase around the median and then sinking money into a major reno. The thing about Cherry Creek is it appears that we could buy for around $700k there, invest $100-$200k and still be attractively priced relative to the competition. I don't necessarily want to invest that much in today's RE market (I'm a little gun-shy these days), but I'd like to find out where to buy for $400-$500k, invest $100-$150k to gut/reno, and at $500-$650k all-in, be attractively priced relative to the neighbors, while still living in a community of similar-minded folk. Make sense?

[mic111]

It makes sense. The reason I peeked at your previous post as this one made it seem like you though the neighborhood afforded status which in Denver it doesn't really because the culture is such that most people don't care about that sort of thing. Then by reading your previous posts it seemed you weren't that type so I decided to answer in a different way.

In terms of the market I completely agree that investing that much isn't smart. People have to qualify for mortgages today in a way that makes sense. They have to really be able to afford it. That means less people are capable of paying the high prices. And if mortgage rates go up even less people will be able to afford it. My advice would be to move into the cheapest home you can tolerate as opposed to the nicest you can afford. Especially since it appears you have moved around a bit and maybe this isn't your forever home. You want to be in something that a larger percentage of the population can afford.

I'm curious as to what things your finding objectionable in the houses your looking at?

[rushhournewb]

Wherever you buy, don't buy a fixer-upper, even if it's in good shape but you want to add on or whatever. Only look at homes that have already been remodeled. Come sale of your house time, you'll find all the money you spend "fixing up" won't return to you.