A few general questions about living in the Denver area (Grand Junction: sale, real estate)

[denver dude]

Originally Posted by pretendingtowork

I've heard things like that, which makes me wonder about the results. Do you have another source for accurate school ratings?

Find Colorado's best schools

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[pretendingtowork]

Just wanted to update you guys and recap our trip.

First of all, we didn't go to the ice cream place. But I did have a great prime rib and an amazing cup of clam chowder. The name of the place escapes me but it was in Centennial near the Ikea.

We did a lot of exploring over the past few days and fell in love with Denver all over again. It was nice having the beautiful weather, but then again we enjoyed the snow since we haven't seen it all winter.

Driving times were much better than expected. A lot of people talk about traffic and we decided to see what traffic was like in Denver and tried to sit on the 25 during rush hour. While there is traffic, it wasn't anything like Los Angeles traffic so I wasn't as scared by it. I was mainly worried about it because I wasn't sure if we wanted to look for a place in Castle Rock or not. We did look, but didn't find anything we liked in Castle Rock.

We rented a Subaru XV Crosstrek and while I am a subaru fan, this didn't do it for me. Way under powered, at least it got decent MPG. I haven't flown Southwest before and probably won't again. They are super cheap, for a reason. no customer service, I couldn't even sit with my wife on the flight out. The Ramada we stayed it was just okay. While we were on a non-smoking floor, our room smelled of cigarette smoke, the tv worked only part of the time and remote sucked. But we had a nice view and the service staff was very good.

One final bit of news, we ended up buying a house. It had everything we wanted, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, good schools, a basement and nice kitchen. We also didn't want a house that was too old since the one we are living in now was built in 1949 and have had to do tons of work to keep it being livable. This one was built in the 90s with a 1 year old roof, so that helped a lot. Pending an inspection, sewer scope and foundation analysis (expansive soils) we are good to go. That will be scheduled by weeks end or early next. It currently has tenants, but they are moving out on June 6th which works perfect for us. Our oldest gets out of school on the 10th and we plan on moving shortly after that. This way the house isn't just sitting. While I would have liked closer to the mountains, this wasn't bad, especially considering I am already used to driving far to get to some good places to go hiking or skiing here in Southern California. Oh, I guess I should mention we bought in Centennial.

Still looking for a full time job for myself, but I have other things up my sleeve that will keep money rolling in for the time being. Anyway, thanks all of you for great information, both in my thread and all over this site. See you guys soon.

[SkyDog77]

Congrats!! Welcome to Denver.

[stricklandia]

Originally Posted by pretendingtowork

Just wanted to update you guys and recap our trip.

First of all, we didn't go to the ice cream place. But I did have a great prime rib and an amazing cup of clam chowder. The name of the place escapes me but it was in Centennial near the Ikea.

We did a lot of exploring over the past few days and fell in love with Denver all over again. It was nice having the beautiful weather, but then again we enjoyed the snow since we haven't seen it all winter.

Driving times were much better than expected. A lot of people talk about traffic and we decided to see what traffic was like in Denver and tried to sit on the 25 during rush hour. While there is traffic, it wasn't anything like Los Angeles traffic so I wasn't as scared by it. I was mainly worried about it because I wasn't sure if we wanted to look for a place in Castle Rock or not. We did look, but didn't find anything we liked in Castle Rock.

We rented a Subaru XV Crosstrek and while I am a subaru fan, this didn't do it for me. Way under powered, at least it got decent MPG. I haven't flown Southwest before and probably won't again. They are super cheap, for a reason. no customer service, I couldn't even sit with my wife on the flight out. The Ramada we stayed it was just okay. While we were on a non-smoking floor, our room smelled of cigarette smoke, the tv worked only part of the time and remote sucked. But we had a nice view and the service staff was very good.

One final bit of news, we ended up buying a house. It had everything we wanted, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, good schools, a basement and nice kitchen. We also didn't want a house that was too old since the one we are living in now was built in 1949 and have had to do tons of work to keep it being livable. This one was built in the 90s with a 1 year old roof, so that helped a lot. Pending an inspection, sewer scope and foundation analysis (expansive soils) we are good to go. That will be scheduled by weeks end or early next. It currently has tenants, but they are moving out on June 6th which works perfect for us. Our oldest gets out of school on the 10th and we plan on moving shortly after that. This way the house isn't just sitting. While I would have liked closer to the mountains, this wasn't bad, especially considering I am already used to driving far to get to some good places to go hiking or skiing here in Southern California. Oh, I guess I should mention we bought in Centennial.

Still looking for a full time job for myself, but I have other things up my sleeve that will keep money rolling in for the time being. Anyway, thanks all of you for great information, both in my thread and all over this site. See you guys soon.

Congrats! We are making the move sans job next month also from SoCal. Was it your plan all along to buy a home? Or did you find the rental market just too meager? I keep seeing mentions of the rental inventory being at all-time lows. Our plan is to rent first, because I don't have a job there yet, and who knows what part of the area I'll end up working.

Good luck on the move, and maybe we'll see you out there. We only have a couple of friends in the area, so are going to work hard to rebuild our social circle.

[pretendingtowork]

I wanted to buy a house...didn't know if it was going to happen on this trip or not though. The home prices seem to be going up, so I wanted to buy now as opposed to waiting. We just happened to come across a home that we really liked in our price range and they accepted our offer. The rental market and the real estate market are both at record lows. But I think we really lucked out.

As for friends, rebuilding the social circle will have to be done. That being said, everybody was more than friendly and out going compared to most places out here in So Cal. On top of that, back in the day I used to work up in Crested Butte and still have some buddies I keep in touch that moved in to the Denver area. Funny enough one of them lives about 2 miles away, so I do have a buddy close already. But hit me up when you are out there so I am not the only California transplant.

[denverian]

Originally Posted by pretendingtowork

Just wanted to update you guys and recap our trip.

First of all, we didn't go to the ice cream place. But I did have a great prime rib and an amazing cup of clam chowder. The name of the place escapes me but it was in Centennial near the Ikea.

We did a lot of exploring over the past few days and fell in love with Denver all over again. It was nice having the beautiful weather, but then again we enjoyed the snow since we haven't seen it all winter.

Driving times were much better than expected. A lot of people talk about traffic and we decided to see what traffic was like in Denver and tried to sit on the 25 during rush hour. While there is traffic, it wasn't anything like Los Angeles traffic so I wasn't as scared by it. I was mainly worried about it because I wasn't sure if we wanted to look for a place in Castle Rock or not. We did look, but didn't find anything we liked in Castle Rock.

We rented a Subaru XV Crosstrek and while I am a subaru fan, this didn't do it for me. Way under powered, at least it got decent MPG. I haven't flown Southwest before and probably won't again. They are super cheap, for a reason. no customer service, I couldn't even sit with my wife on the flight out. The Ramada we stayed it was just okay. While we were on a non-smoking floor, our room smelled of cigarette smoke, the tv worked only part of the time and remote sucked. But we had a nice view and the service staff was very good.

One final bit of news, we ended up buying a house. It had everything we wanted, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, good schools, a basement and nice kitchen. We also didn't want a house that was too old since the one we are living in now was built in 1949 and have had to do tons of work to keep it being livable. This one was built in the 90s with a 1 year old roof, so that helped a lot. Pending an inspection, sewer scope and foundation analysis (expansive soils) we are good to go. That will be scheduled by weeks end or early next. It currently has tenants, but they are moving out on June 6th which works perfect for us. Our oldest gets out of school on the 10th and we plan on moving shortly after that. This way the house isn't just sitting. While I would have liked closer to the mountains, this wasn't bad, especially considering I am already used to driving far to get to some good places to go hiking or skiing here in Southern California. Oh, I guess I should mention we bought in Centennial.

Still looking for a full time job for myself, but I have other things up my sleeve that will keep money rolling in for the time being. Anyway, thanks all of you for great information, both in my thread and all over this site. See you guys soon.

I had hoped to avoid traffic moving here from Orange County. But I'm 17 mi. from the office, and the 25 can be miserable at times. Not as bad as L.A., but there are days when it takes me over an hour to get home.

[stricklandia]

Originally Posted by pretendingtowork

The rental market and the real estate market are both at record lows.

Ugghh... I hope we are able to find something we like. I can understand how the rental market is tight, if homeowners previously rented out their homes to weather the housing market slump, and are now putting them on the market. But how can the rental AND real estate market both be tight?? That suggests a huge one-way migration into Denver.

[davebarnes]

Originally Posted by stricklandia

But how can the rental AND real estate market both be tight?? That suggests a huge one-way migration into Denver.

1. The rental market is tight as not enough units have been built in the last few years and those that have are targeting the higher end of the market.
2. I think one reason that for sale inventory is low is that rational people understand:
a. a 3.5% mortgage is a screaming deal
b. selling/buying costs at least 10% of the home price.

There is migration into Denver.
The City & County of Denver (not greater Denver) has gained 50K people in the last 4 years. Going from 600K to 650K. That is a big deal.

Spend a few hours at Colorado Division of Housing and you will gain some insights.

[philberf]

Originally Posted by stricklandia

Ugghh... I hope we are able to find something we like. I can understand how the rental market is tight, if homeowners previously rented out their homes to weather the housing market slump, and are now putting them on the market. But how can the rental AND real estate market both be tight?? That suggests a huge one-way migration into Denver.

The Census data shows that Denver, just the city, has added about 200k people in the last 20ish years.

Denver metro (and the entire front range) has grown significantly just since I started visiting my wife and her family back when we started dating in 2002. The traffic is noticeably worse and the suburbs have built up a lot more.

so yes, a decent bit of one way movement into the denver area.

[pretendingtowork]

As far as the real estate market being tight. We looked at a bunch of homes over the weekend. Out of those we considered putting an offer on 3 of them. By Sunday all 3 had offers on the table and by Monday all 3 were under contract. I read somewhere if you are shopping for a home in Denver, be ready to tour the home at 8 and put an offer on the table by 8:30. I can't stress enough that this was very much the case. Luckily for us we were able to get the house we wanted.