Why Choose Colorado Springs? (Denver, Longmont: rental homes, mover, low crime)

[lookingfortheperfectplace]

Thanks Mike for all your info. We are planning to move to Colorado, the sooner the better. It has been 9 years since I have visited Colorado. We fell in love with Fort Collins & Loveland. We did not get a chance to go to colorado Springs. We started in Durango and went north thru the rockys and back down to Golden and headed home (to smelly CA) thru Grand Juntion. It sounds like Loveland has gotten crowded. Is the scenery in Colorado springs simular to Loveland? Would you happen to know which Ford dealership is the biggest in either areas? Like San Francisco, the middle class are being pushed out of southern Ca. $300,000 buys you a house in the ghetto or the desert. thanks for any help.

[oana t]

Thanks Mike. Besides Oracle, FedEx, Lockheed Martin... any other big companies you or anyone else has in mind? Thanks again

[Mike from back east]

[quote=lookingfortheperfectplace]Thanks Mike....We are planning to move to Colorado, the sooner the better...snip...Is the scenery in Colorado springs similar to Loveland? Would you happen to know which Ford dealership is the biggest in either areas? ...snip...QUOTE]

There are quite a few Ford dealers in the springs, but the big one is Phil Long, at least two locations. He runs a big expo center for trade shows too, next to his location here in the north end of town. Loveland has only one dealer, Heritage Ford, don't know a thing about them.

Scenery here is wonderful. Most homes on the east side have a great view of Pikes Peak, Cheyenne Mountain and the Front Range. A short drive out Rte 24 gets you into the mountains with great scenery.

Development here tends to be a bit linear, along I-25, rather than the huge mass of development that is Denver. I can go a few miles either was off of I-25 and be in either the mountains or the prairie. The springs, and areas like Palmer Lake, Tri-Lakes, Monument and Black Forest all deserve a look before you decide. To see various views of Pikes Peak, visit http://www.pikespeakcam.com/ for the current view of the mountain. I think one of my pix is on that site, a shot taken from a motel window just before darkness.

Let us know how you do with your search.

s/Mike

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by oana t

Thanks Mike. Besides Oracle, FedEx, Lockheed Martin... any other big companies you or anyone else has in mind? Thanks again

Yes indeed. Here are some more: Agilent, Allied Systems, Anser, Aptek, AT&T, ATK Mission Research, AVX Corp, Boeing, Booz-Allen Hamilton, Busch Semi, CACI, CCI Systems, Celis Semi, CH2M Hill, CompuCom Federal, CSC, Cypress Semi, DRS Signal, Dynamics Research, Fairchild Semi, Falcon Labs, Fluke Networks, Foss, Den Dynamics, H-P, Honeywell, Intel, Inter-Link, ITT, L-3 Comm Holdings, Lexis Nexis, MCI, Northrup Grumman, SAIC, Titan and many many more smaller firms.

If you have access to www.hightechdirectories.com you can see the full listing under "Rocky Mountain High Tech Directory, 2005." There Pikes Peak Library District has a business reference section that has the hardcopy of this. The Business Reference desk is at 719-531-6333, ext 2308 and the website is at www.ppld.org

Gotta be something here for you.

s/Mike

[mrwumpus]

Kudos to Mike for great info and enthusiasm, but I think someone needs to mention the huge property crime problem in CS. I'm actually sitting in CS right now after interviewing for a job yesterday. My wife and I are seriously considering moving to CS from Orange County, CA, for many of the reasons Mike mentioned, especially affordability and overall pace of life. However, the crime problems here concern me.

CS is way above the national average for property crime. That includes burglarly, auto theft and stealing from inside autos, and theft in general. In fact, CS is 10 times the national average for larceny/theft(!) On the good side, CS is lower than the national average for violent crime. So when you read about the home invasion burglaries on the police blotter, 9 times out of 10 the robbers just tie you up and take your stuff without assaulting you.

What has concerned me is that these crimes occur almost everywhere in the city. See for yourself by viewing the weekly crime maps at the excellent CS police department here: http://www.springsgov.com/SectionIndex.asp?SectionID=7 (broken link)

It seems the only areas these don't occur regularly are a small pocket in the northwest and up in the extreme north. I'm sure there's a reason why it's lower there. Probably gated communities or just new construction. Can anyone give me a reason, barring gates, that these crimes aren't going to extend to all new growth areas since it clearly is not localized to ghettos?

I am not simply being negative here. I really want to move here. It's close enough to my family in California and offers a lot of beauty and outdoors activities, but for whatever reason they have a definite crime problem.

I recommend anyone who is considering moving here research this and visit the excellent CS police department website. Realtors and locals (decent people in general) tend to deny or downplay the issue for obvious reasons, so go straight to the source and check the stats and weigh it on your list of priorities.

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by mrwumpus

....someone needs to mention the huge property crime problem....CS is way above the national average for property crime....CS is 10 times the national average for larceny/theft .

I think you might be comparing different stats here on city-data, drawing invalid conclusions, and becoming needlessly worried. I just double checked the figures. City-data shows a larceny rate of 3695.9 crimes per 100,000. My book source "Cities Ranked and Rated" shows CS as having a rate of 3930.1 property crimes, against an average national rate of 3950.0 property crimes, putting the rate of CS right at the national average, not ten times higher. Both sources are nearly identical in their numbers, lending credence to the data of both sources.

On further review of the numbers, I suspect you saw the property crime rate here on city-data (3695.9) and compare that to the total crime index number shown at the base of the column (377.8) and assumed our property crime rate is 10 times higher. Yes, 3695 is about ten times higher than 377, but the two numbers are apples and oranges. The number 377.8 is the average of all crimes in CS. If you look at other cities, you'll see that property crimes are typically 5-10 times higher than the total of all crimes, as in the city of Orange, CA (ten times). Much of Orange County, CA has a lower rate of larcenies, which is certainly good, but I'd hate to have to buy a house there at current prices or drive in their traffic. Overall, Colorado Springs is not really a hotbed of property crimes, albeit higher than some cities.

Other cities people favor actually have higher larceny rates. Using data here on city-data we find that Tuscon-AZ has a rate of 7000, Mesa-AZ 5150, and Albuquerque-NM, 4400.

Thanks for the link to the local crime map. I see my area, north of Research Parkway, is almost totally crime free. Partly because this is a more well to do area, but also many subdivisions have covenants that we will keep our cars in our garages and keep our garages closed. Open garages are open invitations to walk off with something. Thus, we have no vehicles on the street to be stolen or broken into. There are almost no areas up here of gated communities, we're wide open, 24x7.

Hope these explanations make sense and that you have a good outcome on your job hunting here. It really is a great place to live. We rarely see a policeman in emergency mode, hardly ever hear sirens or see ambulances or fire trucks. This place is solid.

[mrwumpus]

You're right, I was definitely off on the larceny rates. It is higher but not ten times higher. My mistake. (A good mistake, since it encourages me!).

Also, I studied the CS sheriff's site and learned that about half of the burglaries in new construction areas occur on actual construction sites rather than occupied houses. This link is a must to visit as well, and be sure to scroll down to the very bottom for more details:

http://shr.elpasoco.com/crime_stats.asp (broken link)

It really does come down to weighing the good and the bad and just going for it. For example, we visited Charlotte, NC and thought the people and the houses were terrific. Humidity was bad but ultimately we decided it was too far from our relatives.

Yesterday I had a chance to drive out to Woodland Park from CS and in a matter of 30 minutes I was almost at 9,000 feet. I went 20 minutes further to Cripple Creek and the scenery on the way was some of the most majestic I have seen. Easy access to that beauty and all of its related activities is a huge plus for my family.

If the company I interviewed with offers me the position I will probably take it and let the adventure begin!

[Mike from back east]

Mr Wumpus: Thanks for double checking the numbers with me. We did the drive up to Cripple Creek last fall when the Aspen trees were bright yellow. I've never seen color like that back east, even on Skyline Drive. Of course, I've a ton of pix of that drive. Hopefully, you'll get the job and be here this coming fall to see that area.

Regarding crime stats, theft from construction sites is a huge problem. As they built our new home, there were no locks on the doors until very late in the process. About two weeks out they did put deadbolts on the doors, but the workers often left windows open. About the last thing they put in the house were the built-in speakers, appliances, light and plumbing fixtures, as that stuff will walk off in a hurry. Even kitchen cabinets will disappear. Most workmen take their tools home with them each night, or else they may walk away too. They didn't bring the tools for the central vacuum until after we moved in. But it was worth it.

s/Mike

[Heading West from VA]

Hi Mike~

We're stuck in the quagmire of Northern Virginia (Warrenton, which is about 20 miles west of Fairfax) and have been scouring the net for information about Colorado. Though we're most interest in the area north of Denver (Longmont...we have relatives close by in Erie), we came upon this forum and your excellent post about Colorado Springs which is so informative and encouraging about our planned relocation to Colorado.

We couldn't agree more with you about the DC/Northern VA area and can't WAIT to get out of here. We're going out to visit our neice in Erie sometime in the next few months and want to take a look around. We were wondering if in your obviously vast research of the area you have any tidbits about the Longmont area?

We are in our early 60's and living on Social Security. We do, however, own our home and plan to use the proceeds from it's sale to finance our move and hopefully find a small (one story) home. We've considered retirement communities (haven't researched them yet), but have a dog we can't part with and don't know if these type of communities allow pets. We both have some health issues and feel that the climate in Colorado would be so much better for us than here in crowded/humid/expensive Northern Virginia.

In any event, thanks so much for the wonderful information you provided and it's great to know that there really is an escape plan to such a wonderful sounding area.

Congratulations to you for being "outta here"!

Linda & Clark

[Mike from back east]

Linda & Clark: Good for you, take the money and run. Northern Virginia is flat-out unlivable due to the roads mess. I have no great tidbits on Longmont, we were up there a year ago. Lots of building going on. The big builders up there don't do finished basements, you have to get a sub to do that later. It's a nice area with good views of mountains, near Boulder and Golden, both really nice towns. Longmont is a short drive from Estes Park, gateway to some of the most beautiful mountain scenery in the West (Roosevelt National Forest?). There are few classic retirement towns here, like Del Webb (Pulte) historically builds in Arizona (Sun City), one is planned near Denver Intl Airport (we saw a sign a few weeks ago while heading to a model horse show). The Del Webb website is: http://delwebb.com/ Also, be sure to see my tips for how to research real estate in the "other" section of this website. By all means get a realtor to help you, it won't cost you a thing extra. You will absolutely love it here in Colorado.

s/Mike