Opinions on a neighborhood and how quiet the area is? (Denver: sale, apartment complexes)

[androidfun]

I'm from Denver and we are looking at a house in Park Ln and May Drive Colorado Springs 80905.

Basically, we saw it during the day and sometimes it's hard to get a sense when you don't spend the night. We see some apartment complexes that worry me a little as far as noise control. We cannot take anymore loud parties/car stereos.

We live in Denver now but some of the neighborhoods that are within our price range have been over taken by people who blast their car stereos at all hours of the night. The street we've been living on is so bad that people will literally park their cars and just blast music during any time of the day/night. We cannot take the bass anymore and the police do nothing about it. We cannot live in another neighborhood like this and need to make sure we can sleep at night.

How is this area in Colorado Springs for things like this? I'm really hoping someone is from around there or is familiar with it. I realize it is near D2 which from what I hear is really bad. But I'm hoping this is one of those pockets that is at least decent.

[mogon]

I would definitely be a little leery, and even go spend a couple of hours on a warmish night parked nearby and listening. The noise from Nevada will be steady. You might also want to check the online crime reports map, as well as do some "walking around" using Google Maps Street View

[lurtsman]

Did some walking around on google maps and realized I recognized the area. I went through there for work. I would expect it to be loud. I was there during the day doing some work for the school, but I love peace and quiet at night so I picked a suburb with 0 apartment buildings. There is now an apartment building around a half mile from my house, but half a mile with many houses in the way is enough that we have never heard sound from it.

The apartments I saw near Park & May were the kinds I would expect to have the potential for loud drunk fights in the middle of the night. I'm guessing you want a quiet area on a budget? If so, cookie cutter suburbs are your best bet. Older areas tend to have beautiful developed trees, but they also cost significantly more for the same quality/condition of house, which means on the same budget you can get more by looking for a cookie cutter suburb. If "quiet" is at the top of your list, the importance of looking at actual suburbs is compounded dramatically.

[androidfun]

Good idea about checking it out on a warm night. We plan to do that if the house doesn't sell before then. Unfortunately I'm worried that tonight won't be warm enough that hanging out at night will tell us much. Those yellow apts that you see I can't figure out their name and what kind of rent they have, but they make me very nervous.

Unfortunately, the houses in the suburbs appear to be above our budget. I was really hoping Colorado Springs would be better than Denver but now I'm not too sure. The house we are looking at is far enough away from Nevada I think but it's those apartments that make me nervous. Also, I'm a little worried that the houses on Park Ln might be mostly rented out.

On the other hand the street still looks nicer than where we are living in Denver. It's very run down here with an apt nearby that was a large source of noise. However, even the houses are a huge source of noise since they are all rented out to people that really don't care at all.

Only a couple people that live on this block actually own their homes and large parties where people hover around a car blasting music is very common on this street. Definitely don't want to live on another street like that. We'll move to Brush if we have to.

Will still be happy for more feedback if anyone has any.

[otowi]

Did you look in Widefield/Security/Fountain? I'd prefer that to D2. And yes, there are fine pockets in D2 - it isn't like it is true ghetto anywhere in Colorado Springs.

[dr.frog]

I'd definitely be more than a "little" leery of that particular neighborhood. That stretch of Nevada is one of the scariest parts of town -- those cheap motels are a magnet for transients, drug addicts, and prostitutes. And you'll get constant noise from I-25 and the train tracks there too.

If you can get something west of Nevada and farther away from it, in the Ivywild or Lower Skyway neighborhoods, you'll be much better off. Those are older neighborhoods and the houses tend to be smaller and more affordable than many other parts of town.

[lurtsman]

Androidfun,

I understand your concerns about finding something within your budget. So I looked up the property on park/may for price, bedrooms and bathrooms so I could understand what you might be looking for.

Are you open to considering condos? I know your goal is to find a quite place to live and that houses are regarded as quieter than apartments, but as you've learned the wrong neighbors can ruin everything. I did a little bit of searching for similar priced properties in areas that I felt might better represent your desires for lack of noise.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...l_PhotoGallery

^ That's a 3 bed, 2 bath, with a one car garage (very nice for the snow) for 66,000.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...54-68377?row=1

^ That one is sale pending, but it was a 60,000 house (3 bed, 1 bath) in Fountain. You'd want to check with sonic spork about which parts of fountain/widefield are good, but overall the area offers some great deals on housing.

There are some houses that look incredibly cheap near Merksheffel. I don't know the full back story, but as I understand it they have covenants separating the land from the property underneath which makes it a horrible financial mess.



Next property is definitely surrounded by some dangerous areas, but IMO it is less dangerous than the park/lane property first mentioned.
http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...l_PhotoGallery
It's a pretty good size property, but they did a really poor job with the photos and took them with the place being a complete mess which has limited their asking price. That'll be gone pretty fast.

If you really want quite and can swing a budget of 100k, I think this one fits your interests
http://www.realtor.com/realestateand...29-63820?row=1
4 beds, 2 bath, .24 acres

I'm not a realtor, I just got really good at looking up properties and filtering through hundreds of them on realtor.com when I was getting ready to buy a house a few years ago. I'm sure some other forum members that know those parts of the town can chime in.