Urban Denver or Foothills? (Boulder, Parker: mortgage, loan, houses)

[High Altitude]

The commute does not have to be horrible. For 700k they can be living in North Evergreen and have a 30 min commute to Downtown Denver. Not only that but you won't hit any traffic until right before downtown.

Originally Posted by denver_hacker

=I don't know the foothills that well, but I know people who live in Evergreen and Conifer and love it. The main drawback being the winters are actual Winters and the commute into Denver is horrible. You might also want to check out Morrison, and the Littleton areas of Ken Caryl Ranch, Chatfield, and Waterton. Boulder is also nice, but $700K doesn't go very far there.

[tfox]

I'm not sure I agree with some of the other posters about Washington Park. From my vantage point, 700k will get you in a nice house indeed in that neighborhood -- not a mansion of course, but a nice house. A reasonably sized "starter" home of about 1600 SF+ in Washington Park starts closer to 400k. Still frightfully expensive, but not quite as bad as some of the previous posts made it sound.

However, Washington Park is the among the more expensive Denver neighborhoods which also includes Country Club North, Hilltop, Cherry Creek, Belcaro, etc. Some of the latter are far more expensive even than Washington Park. Your 700k budget should get you something in any of them, but as mentioned not a lot in some cases.

There are other, more "affordable" (relatively speaking, anyway) alternatives to Washington Park, all of which will be not quite as far into the cycle of gentrification, but mostly rapidly moving that direction. Check out Platt Park or University, for example, which is to the south of Washington Park. To the north, you'll get into the Congress Park area, which is more mixed-income than Washington Park but with great access to the namesake park as well as Cheesman Park. North Denver (including Highlands, Berkeley, etc) is also a nice neighborhood, though the price tags are increasing rapidly in those neighbohoods also.

Of course, there are some urban neighborhoods that likely aren't moving in that direction. For example, is southwest Denver on the up-and-up? No, probably not.

The thing I've noticed about urban neighborhoods in Denver is that prices are usually only affordable to the average American when they're a little run-down and "scary". Once they get "discovered", the price will skyrocket and lead to a demographic earthquake in the neighborhood, where most of the old-time tenants get displaced for new homeowners -- textbook gentrification. Neighborhoods like Washington Park or Hilltop are already beyond expensive, and that's likely to continue. Highlands is getting there, neighboring Berkeley and Sloans Lake are a little behind Highlands but will rapidly follow.

As for schools, don't assume that living in a neighborhood of entirely urban professionals automatically means sending kids to good schools. Not so. There are some excellent Denver schools, but many are not excellent. You can, of course, open-enroll your kids into schools both in an out of the district, but doing so requires you to be proactive and creative, as well as act as a taxi service for your kids.

So why do people choose these expensive Denver neighborhoods when you could get a perfectly nice 3br/2bath home in the suburbs for less than 200k (and falling...) Well, that's a good point -- I don't want to push this too far because I'm liable to offend some suburban posters. However, I think it's fair to say that urban Denver offers an experience that the suburbs don't. Maybe good, maybe bad, but it's a different experience.

The foothills certainly offer a great experience as well. I personally could never live in Evergreen because I need proximity to my customers, but I can appreciate that sort of lifestyle as well. I'm with you on your desire to choose either urban Denver or foothills.

[dj32]

good post tfox. I too think Wash Park is more "affordable" than neighboring bonnie brae, country club, hilltop and to me has much more diversity and character (at this point anyway).

I just read yesterday that Jefferson Park (near berkeley and highlands) increased 27% over last year. No downtown in this market. But, they are scraping and building 4-plexes... soon will be unaffordable to most.

[steveco.]

I heard somwhere that the city was going to try and do away with the scrape type of development. Its sad to see so many historic homes get demo for these huge triplexes that are going for 600k a piece.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by steveco.

I heard somwhere that the city was going to try and do away with the scrape type of development. Its sad to see so many historic homes get demo for these huge triplexes that are going for 600k a piece.

I think there is some talk about it, but nothing concrete. Many of these homes are only historic in the sense that they are old. I've been in a number of them, back in the day when I was a Visiting Nurse for Lutheran Hospital.

[steveco.]

I was under the impression that historic meant old? Considering there is so few of those areas you would think that they would want to make as much effort as possible to preserve them and possibly restore them. The junk that they replace them with is just pathetic. I know because I worked on one. For as much as the ask in price for those is totally not worth the money IMO. Oh and even in evergreen you can get a very nice place in a very good location for 700k

[tfox]

Originally Posted by steveco.

I was under the impression that historic meant old? Considering there is so few of those areas you would think that they would want to make as much effort as possible to preserve them and possibly restore them. The junk that they replace them with is just pathetic. I know because I worked on one. For as much as the ask in price for those is totally not worth the money IMO. Oh and even in evergreen you can get a very nice place in a very good location for 700k

There are good scrapes and bad scrapes.

I'm all about preservation, but some of the structures being replaced are not historic any more due to years of architectural muddling. Some have such serious structural deficiencies that no amount of money can practically salvage them. Of course, there's been some architectural treasures scraped too. I think that the guidelines should be tightened, but I don't think that scrapes should be wholesale banned. However, I do think the property owner should have a compelling reason to get a demolition permit.

On the other hand, I do think that the replacement structures should be more tightly controlled. I don't know why the city gives out variances willy-nilly to allow the new homes to be built right up to the property line. Neighbors also dislike when the new buildings are given height variances which make them tower over the buildings. The guidelines are all there for a reason; if the city gave out fewer variances we wouldn't get as many of the architectural monsters in the historic neighborhoods.

[steveco.]

Most classic example of what you mentioned is the highlands neighborhood. There are some triplexes over there that dwarf the homes and are insanely pricey

[dj32]

I live in a scrape.... I'll admit it. But I'll be the first person to tell you that it was 2nd choice. I wish we have more controls like Country Club where you had to leave a wall standing, or had to be in keeping with the neighborhood. I'm glad they do. However, we looked seriously at 3 different homes there that would hve required extensive remodeling... and we couldn't afford it. Building new is always cheaper than remodeling and that is why you see it happening in many cases. I think we did a good job of making our new home blend in and unlike the majority of the new ones, we did not maximize the lot line and have a greta deal of backyard. Hopefully this will not hinder us when we go to sell- sadly. Also, I agree jsut because things are "historic" does not bmean they should not necessarily be touched- with improvements they could actually be much more energy efficient and visually attractive to the neighborhoods. I still wish we had a little more control... as some of the newer scrapes do not blend in, but many of them are very well done. Not sure if anyone has seen the (insanely priced) development at the old international school but they are very well done and although large, in keeping withthe neighborhood.

It is just sad so many are priced out. when we moved here 8 years ago, we could easily rent or own in Wash Park as young professionals in a decent place. Not so sure how true that is these days.

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by steveco.

I was under the impression that historic meant old?

I do not think that everything old has historic value, that is, as history. I have seen some old dumps.