Work in Denver, family lives where?

[LeavinMI]

We currently live in a 3 bedroom and sort of planned to stay in a 3 bedroom. Our youngest two boys are very close in age and share a room and we intend to keep it that way for a while. We'd like a larger 3 bedroom (currently ours is 1400 sq ft, we'd like 1600-2000) with 2 bathrooms.

I found a few in Stapleton thanks to your help that look very nice and reasonably priced but it looks like on our budget we would be QUITE limited in Stapleton!

[2bindenver]

What else is important to you and your family?
Are you trying to find a rental or a purchase property?
If he will be working downtown, what about you?

I found 7 properties in Denver, Englewood, Centennial & Aurora that are more than 1800 sq ft, 3 bed, 3 baths, all in CCSD, built since 1990.

[LeavinMI]

I haven't looked into this yet but am hoping there's a large network of community colleges in the area as I currently teach part time Composition here, and work as a freelance photographer on weekends.

We would like to rent for a year and then purchase. We currently own a home but will have renters here for when we move. Ideally (and I realize this is possibly asking a lot) I'd like to find a rental in the same area that we may look to buy. I'd like to keep the kids in the same school district when we transition from renting to buying. But, I do realize that once we are there we may find that our own opinions of some areas vary greatly.

(Which, of course, is why we'd like to rent first!)

That's a bit of a ramble, but I hope it made sense! As for my commute, I can adapt to just about anything. My main source of income here is my photography which involves a lot of travel either way.

[Bradburn1]

If you liked Stapleton but find the prices high, my neighborhood is similar (walkable, mixed-use, new urbanist) but smaller and cheaper. Bradburn Village in Westminster. Many people here work downtown and many take the bus from a great close park and ride. To downtown it's about a 30-40 minute commute (by bus in rush hour). It would be great for everyone to live closer to where they work (I hate long commutes), but the fact is you get more house for your money in the suburbs. In non rush hour traffic, it's a 20 minute drive to downtown from here. Neighborhood has great schools, great access to recreation and open areas, filled with kids (mostly kids under 10), and is super, super social (this weekend we have 3 different neighborhood events to give you an idea). We are also walking distance (though an open space) to a very large Front Range Community College campus. I've posted about Bradburn a lot on this forum so if you want to get a better idea, you can search "Bradburn Village" and find the postings.

You can also rent in this neighborhood and buy later. There are several houses and townhouses for rent currently and we have a very nice apartment complex as part of the development--a lot of people have rented there before buying a house. Not sure what your price range is, but you can get a 3/4 bedroom house from 1800-2400 sq feet here in the $380-$440 range and they are all new (you can also build new in a similar range).

Other places that might work for you guys: areas of Broomfield, Northglenn, Thornton (these are all north of downtown). To the south of Downtown: Lakewood is a nice suburb.

[LeavinMI]

Bradburn that sounds like my cup of tea. It sounds like though that you can't really search for "Lakewood" in general because you get a lot of variety in nice areas and not as nice areas? Am I right about that? We don't really want a newly built home, not looking to pay the premium for that. Any home built in the last 10-20 years is fine. We just aren't really looking for an old historic home or vintage 50's deal. I'm looking back to check out some of the Bradburn posts and will search a bit more.

DH is only interviewing on Tuesday so I'm sure the company can also help us research things a bit more. Specifically I am wondering what sort of income we'd want to live in a moderately "nice" suburb. Clean, well kept, good schools. Doesn't need to be downtown, we're used to a commute anyways. Downtown sounds appealing but I'm not sure the price difference is something I'm interested in accomodating. So to live in one of the suburbs you mention what would say average income is? Or do you know of a link where I might find statistics specific to these areas?

[Katiana]

Originally Posted by LeavinMI

So to live in one of the suburbs you mention what would say average income is? Or do you know of a link where I might find statistics specific to these areas?

I think you can find this information on the Colorado main page of City-Data, with links to each city. I believe those stats include median income.

[LMR422]

Douglas County is south of Denver, and is a wonderful place to raise a family. We lived in Castle Rock for six years, and were forced to leave in 2002 when my husband's company closed their CO location. If it wasn't for that, we'd still be there today. We absolutely LOVED Colorado and EVERYTHING about it.