Lakewood/Englewood...central enough? (Denver, Boulder: houses, neighborhoods, purchase)

[icky2000]

For personal reasons I'm moving to Denver in about 6 months and starting to narrow down neighborhoods in which to by a house for $250-300,000. My situation is unique because I currently have a good job and my employer has agreed to let me permanently telecommute (we have others in the company who do this so there are a number of successful precedents and I already work from home 2 days a week). So, distance to work isn't an issue for my initial home purchase but I'm keen to find a location that is relatively central so a future new job in Denver wouldn't come with a commute nightmare. I work in the IT industry and have no plan to look for a new job now - but perhaps someday.

So far I've been looking at neighborhoods closer in to Denver in Lakewood and Edgewater and have found some modest but ok homes in those areas in my price range. I'll be visiting in a couple months to start investigating neighborhoods and commute times - any suggestions for central locations in my price range? Thanks.

(oops, I said Englewood in the subject of this thread but meant to say Edgewater...Englewood seems a tad too south...)

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

If you plan to work from home, and you don't know the location of any future job, it's hard to say where a "central location" would be. While Lakewood and Edgewater would be a quick commute to downtown, there are lots of IT jobs in the Tech Center, too. I'd say if you find a neighborhood that you like, go for it.

You should be able to find some really nice homes in your price range in Edgewater. Most of the houses there are small and old. I would not recommend living there is you have kids because the schools are pretty bad.

[2bindenver]

Englewood might be "more" central if you work in the DTC/Downtown Denver. Edgewater might be "more" central if you work Downtown or along the Boulder/Broomfield corridor.

[vegaspilgrim]

Unfortunately like all big cities the jobs in the Denver metro area are spread out in different sectors of town and are not all centralized in one spot. IMO the most advantageous suburban location (short of living right in downtown itself in walking distance to Union Station/ Market St Station) would be somewhere in between the south part of Denver and the south suburbs. I'd look at south/southeast Denver, Englewood, Centennial, Greenwood Village, or even Lone Tree. The amount of jobs-- especially corporate jobs-- located in the Denver Tech Center, Centennial Airport area, and Meridian (which usually has an "Englewood" address for some reason even though it's nowhere near Englewood) is staggering. Plus with light rail or a somewhat reverse commute on I-25 in the morning, you have easy access to downtown. Of course if you had to commute to Boulder or the northwest metro area it would not be fun. You have to pick your poison.

Lakewood is good for access to the Federal Center, Golden (a handful of companies are there), downtown Denver. You'd be really close to mountains if you plan on going up there a lot. There's not really any good way to get from Lakewood (unless if you want to brave the often extremely windy hwy 93) to Boulder or Broomfield though.