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Old 02-23-2023, 06:13 AM
 
Location: SW Florida
15,199 posts, read 10,194,348 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.love006 View Post
I’m not opposed to Colorado Springs. Truth be told, I haven’t spend much time there ! I’ll do more research.
My son moved to Colorado Springs almost 2 years ago and loves it there.
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Old 02-23-2023, 10:52 PM
 
8 posts, read 4,910 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by M.love006 View Post
I’m not opposed to Colorado Springs. Truth be told, I haven’t spend much time there ! I’ll do more research.
I don't know if I'd consider it. You're from here so I'm sure you understand, but Colorado Springs and more so Fort Collins are very, very, very suburban in feel and lifestyle. It's all relative, but for example neither have much of a downtown area, these are more so giant newtown-type exurbs. For someone looking for a one-bed in Capitol Hill in Denver, I really don't think that Ft. Collins or Colorado Springs is comparable for what you are looking for. It is about 25% cheaper in terms of median rent (Denver is 1950, Colorado Springs is 1550), but given the 50k cushion you are coming with (and presumably the experience as a successful broker that made it so you were able to put away 50k to save), I don't think that this situation warrants choosing an area based on price alone. For a young professional who is planning to make her or his way in a new city, and is maybe planning on doing some part-time work on the side to get started, I don't think that settling an hour and change north or south of the city if you don't have to makes sense. 1400-1500 in central Denver in a decent place seems doable, you may even surprise yourself with what you can get. 1300 would be a stretch but it would be a stretch in FC or CS as well.

Also, maybe some people can chime in but in my experience moving around, it seems like a lot of the areas that are more affordable overall tend to have really skewed rental markets. From what I've seen it's not as extreme when comparing say Denver and FC or CS, but a lot of central cities while more expensive seem to have a genuine range and some great deals on offer (again, all relative, and this applies to people with above average incomes who have their pick, I don't know how lower or median wage workers can afford anything at this point practically anywhere), whereas some of the outlying "more affordable" areas seem to lean heavily upscale in terms of the rental market. Is this just a result of how wealthy some of these areas are and the high rate of home ownership, and the fact that some of these areas only started building apartments in the past 15 years (the new construction rental market is almost default luxury at this point)? I mean I had relatives spending 1600/month for a one bedroom in a far from luxury complex on the very edge of the Denver metro back in *2016* and they felt lucky to have found it, so that's one CO example where these places that are "affordable" for upper middle class people looking for something not as expensive to buy a house are still limited and more expensive in term of rentals.
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Old 02-24-2023, 07:36 AM
 
Location: Colorado
6,649 posts, read 9,201,779 times
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I like Fort Collins and it does have an original/old downtown. It’s not full of skyscrapers like downtown Denver, but it’s not an “artificial” downtown-like setting like Bel Mar (Lakewood).

For what it’s worth, if you want to come back to Colorado and want to live in the city, just bite the bullet and deal with the high COL in Denver. However, now that the COL here is similar to many other high cost areas, there’s not a lot of reason to be here anymore unless you’ve got a job here or have family here. It’s like, if I’m going to live in an expensive area, I might was well go to Southern California and live near the ocean, know what I mean?
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Old 02-24-2023, 09:45 AM
 
26,135 posts, read 48,779,992 times
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Colorado Springs does have a downtown, I spent plenty of time downtown in the 11 years we lived there.
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Old 02-24-2023, 12:37 PM
 
6,362 posts, read 11,815,982 times
Reputation: 6795
Quote:
Originally Posted by allpeopleunite View Post
I don't know if I'd consider it. You're from here so I'm sure you understand, but Colorado Springs and more so Fort Collins are very, very, very suburban in feel and lifestyle. It's all relative, but for example neither have much of a downtown area, these are more so giant newtown-type exurbs. For someone looking for a one-bed in Capitol Hill in Denver, I really don't think that Ft. Collins or Colorado Springs is comparable for what you are looking for. It is about 25% cheaper in terms of median rent (Denver is 1950, Colorado Springs is 1550), but given the 50k cushion you are coming with (and presumably the experience as a successful broker that made it so you were able to put away 50k to save), I don't think that this situation warrants choosing an area based on price alone. For a young professional who is planning to make her or his way in a new city, and is maybe planning on doing some part-time work on the side to get started, I don't think that settling an hour and change north or south of the city if you don't have to makes sense. 1400-1500 in central Denver in a decent place seems doable, you may even surprise yourself with what you can get. 1300 would be a stretch but it would be a stretch in FC or CS as well.

Also, maybe some people can chime in but in my experience moving around, it seems like a lot of the areas that are more affordable overall tend to have really skewed rental markets. From what I've seen it's not as extreme when comparing say Denver and FC or CS, but a lot of central cities while more expensive seem to have a genuine range and some great deals on offer (again, all relative, and this applies to people with above average incomes who have their pick, I don't know how lower or median wage workers can afford anything at this point practically anywhere), whereas some of the outlying "more affordable" areas seem to lean heavily upscale in terms of the rental market. Is this just a result of how wealthy some of these areas are and the high rate of home ownership, and the fact that some of these areas only started building apartments in the past 15 years (the new construction rental market is almost default luxury at this point)? I mean I had relatives spending 1600/month for a one bedroom in a far from luxury complex on the very edge of the Denver metro back in *2016* and they felt lucky to have found it, so that's one CO example where these places that are "affordable" for upper middle class people looking for something not as expensive to buy a house are still limited and more expensive in term of rentals.
All good thoughts. On your second point about rentals in the "affordable" areas, that's because apartments and condos were rarely built in recent years and still are mostly focused on transit hubs if there are any around. The fact was up until the prices and rates went up since 2020 these more affordable areas were so affordable that apartments were essentially the low income housing option because you could buy a house or condo for lower payments than rent provided you had a down payment. I do the math on my place now and am just amazed at how cheaply I can live now compared to the going rental or buy rate. People in my spot are limited in mobility now because we don't want to spend another $1000-1500 per month and its resulted in none of my neighbors changing except for one which has always been a rented house.

COL, especially housing, will definitely discourage newcomers to the area but that's price working its magic. I spend a lot of time on the road for work and can attest to how well people at the bottom of the scale are paid around Denver. Not saying it makes their lives easy in an inflationary environment with higher rents, but imagine how would you make it in expensive parts of South Florida where you see all kinds of signs saying "Now Hiring. Starting pay $11.50 per hour" as if they were being generous? Even parts of California seem to pay less for lower-level workers than Denver's minimum wage. And at the higher levels of wages I certainly have seen that this area's wages are about equal with areas otherwise seen as expensive markets such as DC, Miami and LA. The metro area's rents are just adjusting to the marketplace and how much people are paid and how much that pay is increasing. Home prices already had that adjustment and are now dealing with how much they might need to moderate to reflect increased interest rates.
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Old 05-07-2023, 10:19 PM
 
10 posts, read 8,103 times
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I kind of figure that if a person wants a fresh start, they should go live where they want to be and then build/re-build/re-tool their lives from there. I'm surprised that in a nomadic, hair-in-the-wind culture like America, more people don't pack up occasionally and re-create themselves in a desirable location. As someone who arrived on Denver's shores many years ago as a huddled mass yearning to breathe free, I was welcomed into the community and developed a great life here. Is it expensive? Yeah. But it's a land of great opportunity as well.
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