luckysam (Denver, Fort Collins, Loveland: best cities, for sale, houses)

[calitoFC]

Thanks luckysam! I appreciate all of your input!! Having never been there I have no idea about any of these towns other than it was rated several time as one of the best cities to live! My husband is a painting contractor in CA so we would be starting up a business there doing the same thing. With that in mind we would need to be where it is a bit more populated, thus producing more leads for work. I hear the weather in Loveland/Fort Collins area is more mild than Denver so that is appealing. More work days available if the weather is mild. With 3 young children I am most interested in recreation, biking, hiking, swimming, horseback riding and a good public school. They are in a great school hear and really doing well and I would like to keep up with that momentum and keep them challenged academically. I am not opposed to be "just outside" of town but I don't want to be far from groceries or recreation or the kids' school. My father is retiring and going to come with us so I am trying to please both worlds here by being in or very close to a well populated area and perhaps a little tiny bit rural for my Dad....who doesn't want to be far from those things either. If we had to drive 10 min to town that would be fine. We plan to come and scope out the area, but we are trying to put together a plan of exactly where we want to look. Thank you again for your input!!!

P.S. It seems the housing in Fort Collins is all over the map! Our budget is around 300K. Do you think we could be in a specific area with a decent home near a good school for that? Do you know names of specific elementary schools that I should look into the ratings of?

[Tom Emmerling]

I would look at towns like Timnath, Severance,Wellington,and Bellvue. They are all smaller towns that are within 10 minutes of Fort Collins. My granddaughter attends Timnath Elementary and loves it there. I live in Wellington. They just built a new grade school last year. Pretty much anywhere you go you will be able to find outdoor activities. This is a very friendly Bike Trail and outdoor activity area. You could also find houses inside Fort Collins in your price range but with less land.

[luckysam]

I think your best bet is in Ft. Collins if you're looking for a lot of business, good schools and activities. The other places you listed have populations in the 5,000 range and Ft. Collins is about 150,000 (I think). I think one great thing about Ft. Collins is there aren't really any terrible areas to live. I would just advise you as a family to stay away from campus which is toward the north end of town. I lived there for four years during college and my husband works there now (I'm up there quite a bit) but we don't have kids yet so I don't know anything about the schools.

I have a friend who lives in the middle of town (I believe she is off of Horsetooth between College and Shields - these are popular streets in Ft. Collins) and she has half an acre of land with a horse on it. You can find rural right in the middle of town.

The other neat thing (at least I think it's cool) about Ft. Collins is there are tons of houses on the west side of town that have yards that back to open space and have great views of the mountains. Although you're in a neighborhood you still have open space behind you. I've been looking online for houses in case we ever get to move up there and I've noticed there are lots of houses for sale that have great lots with space behind them.

If there are any houses in particular that you find let me know where they are. I'd be happy to give you my two cents on where their location. I'm sure others can help as well.