is colorado spring a friendly city? (Denver, Colorado Springs: for sale, insurance, houses)

[black.nickel]

my family and i are interested in moving to colorado for its beautiful landscape and mountains. are there jobs in colorado spring and aurora?

[otowi]

There are, and it is pretty friendly here. This is neither the worst or best place for jobs, and the style of friendliness is different here than in some other parts of the country - there are many threads on these topics that you can read here.

[Christina S]

It's Colorado Springs not Spring qnd people here are friendly in general.

[KickAssArmyChick]

Yes, people in the Springs are friendly. I lived there for two years and loved it. It is the second best state I've ever lived in (I've lived in about 11 total and also two other countries). I am back in New England now which is where I am from but I'd move back to Colorado if I could.

[TCHP]

Originally Posted by black.nickel

my family and i are interested in moving to colorado for its beautiful landscape and mountains. are there jobs in colorado spring and aurora?

Mountains we have, beautiful landscape, in the mountains, sure. Along the front range cities, well.... we lack a lot of water so normally summers are much more brown than they are this year.

For jobs, it depends. If you have secret clearances or missle defense experience, or software coding background, jobs are easy to find and pay well in Colorado Springs. If you made a decent living doing research work for Gallup polls or did skilled labor for Union Pacific, you'll find it difficult to find competitive work here. Also, expect to pay about $100k more for a similar sized home in Colorado springs, and around $150k more in Aurora than what you are used to.

[lurtsman]

TCHP, I didn't see anything saying where he is from. Most coastal areas are substantially more expensive for homes than Colorado Springs. Unless he is coming from OKC, certain parts of texas, or the rural Midwest, homes in the CS suburbs may be cheaper. Did I miss something?

Welcome to the area Black Nickel.

[TCHP]

Black Nickle's public profile lists zip code as 68106, Omaha Nebraska. I have no idea how the OP makes their living, so that's a bit of a wild card. A quick Zillow check shows some pretty nice homes in that zip code selling for $80-150k. Similar homes here will push $250-300k. Omaha also has a pretty robust economy in banking, insurance, telecommunications, construction, and transportation. Omaha is home to the Gallup Organization, TD Ameritrade, Werner Enterprises, Berkshire-Hathaway, Con Agra, Union Pacific and more. I'd say they have a much more robust and diverse employment base than Colorado Springs, which, seems to have the best jobs in defense and software. We still have a few tech manufacturers, but nothing like we used to. We also have a large number of tele-marketing employers, who are large but hardly top tier, primary employers.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Springs, or else I wouldn't have spent my life here, but the last 20 years have seen the diversity and strength of employment here crumble. IMO, unless you have experience in some specific areas, finding a great job here is tough unless you can transfer in with your existing company or have skills that the primary employers want. Can you find a job to survive on, probably, but why survive if you can thrive.

[lurtsman]

Great research method for checking the source to tailor price expectations. However, I just ran a search on houses for sale in that zip code in the 80 to 150 range, sorted by price, and I can attest that the very nicest homes under 100k don't even remotely compare to the nicest houses I can find in the Springs under 200k. I would agree that Omaha is cheaper, but it seems to be along the lines of a 100k Omaha house being comparable to a 120k to 130k Springs house. However, as I moved up the gap felt like it was closing rather than growing. When I got to the 150k houses in that zipcode in Omaha they felt comparable to 160k to 165k houses in the Springs. I couldn't find anything that offered a 2 car garage and solid construction with over 2k square feet, which can certainly be found in the Springs for under 220k.

If I include nearby areas to get the most affordable suburbs, there are some really cute houses there under 100k, but it seems the challenge with being an older city is those houses often did not have garages. Having lived in the Midwest, choosing to live there without a garage is like choosing to punch yourself in the face each morning in the winter.

[TCHP]

That is much better detail than I got into. I think we pointed out that the OP will need to do additional research.

On to employment...Indeed shows 9128 jobs in CoS, 8031 full time, 1032 part time, and then various contract, commision, temps and internships. The vast majority of these postings, 8887, are show at $20,000+ with 2211 listed at $40,000+ and only 954 at $60,000+.

Breaking it down further, 590 are listed as restaurant/cashier, 554 as guest service, 504 as crew member, 476 for shift leaders, 436 for kitchen coordinators, then a big drop down to 78 for babysitters. That seems like a really odd mixture to me, but that is what they are listing for the top quantities of positions.

Again, lacking specifics on employment, we could only speculate. If, for instace, the OP is a AWS certified welder of structural steel working for UP building railroad cars at $25-30 an hour, you will take a 50% pay cut to live here. If they are a mid level manager in insurance making $75k, they will take a 15-20% cut to live here. If they are writing code , they may be able to trasnfer at a level rate or possibly increase their pay.

SO, please research in depth before simply loading up the family truckster and heading to Colorado Springs. Also, I am wholly unfamiliar with opportunities in Aurora, so that is another set of search engines to engage. There may be more and better jobs, but housing will also be significantly increased as well since Denver has recently seen a new high for median housing prices.

[otowi]

I wonder about this online employment listing sites. My employer is a big one in this city - several thousand employees - and never posts jobs on such sites, and actually has several current openings on a variety of pay scales. I don't think they give a truly representative listing of employment opportunities in a location - certain fields may use this method more than others, some not at all.