Advice on moving to Denver (Lakewood, Boulder: rentals, home, find a job)

[dontaskbrad]

Hi there. My family and I are thinking of moving from CT to CO and I wanted to get some ideas about what the possibilities are since I have never been there.

First, I need some tips on what areas I should look at for rentals (I need city names). We are willing to live outside of Denver to save a bit of money. We need a 3 bedroom with a functional kitchen because we like to cook. We'd like to keep the cost under $1500 per month if possible.

Some additional questions:
-Can a family of 3 live there on about $80K per year?
-How is the tech industry there? Are there jobs for people in IT?
-How is the education system?
-What is the community like? Are there activities for children and families all year long?
-Is the food good? Both good restaurants and fresh, healthy, high quality food in the grocery stores?

Thanks for the feedback!

[davebarnes]

Advice and Questions

1. Spend 4.2 hours here reading previous threads on this subject.
2. Where do you live now? Where would your work location(s) be?

[dontaskbrad]

We currently live in CT. I work from home. My husband will be leaving his job here and will need to find one. The figure I gave for what we have to live on is without him working at all.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

I agree with Dave that there is a wealth of information here covering your questions. I suggest that you do some reading to educate yourself about the COL, schools, jobs,weather, etc.

Just to clarify, you want to move without having jobs lined up, so are looking for someplace to rent for $1,500 a month. But you also asked about IT jobs. Will you be looking for work?

[OhioToCO]

Originally Posted by dontaskbrad

Hi there. My family and I are thinking of moving from CT to CO and I wanted to get some ideas about what the possibilities are since I have never been there.

First, I need some tips on what areas I should look at for rentals (I need city names). We are willing to live outside of Denver to save a bit of money. We need a 3 bedroom with a functional kitchen because we like to cook. We'd like to keep the cost under $1500 per month if possible.

Some additional questions:
- (1) Can a family of 3 live there on about $80K per year?
- (2) How is the tech industry there? Are there jobs for people in IT?
- (3) How is the education system?
- (4) What is the community like? Are there activities for children and families all year long?
- (5) Is the food good? Both good restaurants and fresh, healthy, high quality food in the grocery stores?

Thanks for the feedback!

1) Yes
2) Good, there are quite a few jobs in IT, but IT is big. Some jobs pay more, some are easier to get hired into from out of state etc.
3) This is very subjective and also depends on school district and individual school.
4) Very much depends on where you live, but yes, there is stuff to do all year long, if you are mobile (can drive to things)
5) Again, subjective. What's good for me may not be good for you.

I think you may be going about this move wrong. Come visit, find a job, move. I think it's going to be very frustrating to find what you are looking for on a budget of $1500.

[dontaskbrad]

Originally Posted by Dreaming of Hawaii

I agree with Dave that there is a wealth of information here covering your questions. I suggest that you do some reading to educate yourself about the COL, schools, jobs,weather, etc.

Just to clarify, you want to move without having jobs lined up, so are looking for someplace to rent for $1,500 a month. But you also asked about IT jobs. Will you be looking for work?

We're not moving without jobs lined up. I have a job but it is remote and I can live anywhere. My husband will be looking for a new full time job once we move but he also as a part time remote job to do during the transition. I'm basing the rent on 30% of our take home pay after taxes. If I did it based on gross salary we could afford more like $2000 per month but I am trying to have a buffer.

[OhioToCO]

Originally Posted by dontaskbrad

We're not moving without jobs lined up. I have a job but it is remote and I can live anywhere. My husband will be looking for a new full time job once we move but he also as a part time remote job to do during the transition. I'm basing the rent on 30% of our take home pay after taxes. If I did it based on gross salary we could afford more like $2000 per month but I am trying to have a buffer.

How far from Denver are you willing to be? Keep in mind that IT jobs are not limited to downtown Denver, and your husband may land a job in Denver Tech Center, which means you will be looking south of Denver. Or he may find one in Boulder, and then you definitely want to be north of Denver.

I think if you just need town names, you can use Zillow: filter by number of bedrooms and price range. But if you need that other job, I would start looking for it before I would look for housing. At least get a feel where he is more likely to find work. Because anchoring yourself on the wrong side of town from where majority of jobs are located will make that job search significantly harder.

[dontaskbrad]

Originally Posted by OhioToCO

How far from Denver are you willing to be? Keep in mind that IT jobs are not limited to downtown Denver, and your husband may land a job in Denver Tech Center, which means you will be looking south of Denver. Or he may find one in Boulder, and then you definitely want to be north of Denver.

I think if you just need town names, you can use Zillow: filter by number of bedrooms and price range. But if you need that other job, I would start looking for it before I would look for housing. At least get a feel where he is more likely to find work. Because anchoring yourself on the wrong side of town from where majority of jobs are located will make that job search significantly harder.

We are willing to be 30-40 min from Denver if necessary. Our initial goal is just to get to the area. We're trying to make a quality of life move. It doesn't have to be perfect from the get go. We just want to be in a place that we enjoy living.

I had not heard of the Denver Tech Center so that gives me something to look at.

I am sloly reading through the threads. It will take some time since I don't have a solid block of time to do that. I was hoping to get the names of some suburbs that would be worth looking at in the mean time.

[dontaskbrad]

Originally Posted by OhioToCO

1) Yes
2) Good, there are quite a few jobs in IT, but IT is big. Some jobs pay more, some are easier to get hired into from out of state etc.
3) This is very subjective and also depends on school district and individual school.
4) Very much depends on where you live, but yes, there is stuff to do all year long, if you are mobile (can drive to things)
5) Again, subjective. What's good for me may not be good for you.

I think you may be going about this move wrong. Come visit, find a job, move. I think it's going to be very frustrating to find what you are looking for on a budget of $1500.

We are definitely planning to come visit. I was just trying to peg down some areas to research and plan to visit since it will have to be just a few days.

I have a job already that I will still have when we move. Without my husband working we have an income of 80K per year. We could probably afford something more along $2000 per month but having never lived there before I want to build in some extra money.

[jsd079]

We live in Dallas and might make a move to Denver. My husband's new office will be in the Denver Tech Center. We were in Denver over the weekend and looked at Greenwood Village, Centennial, Lone Tree, Highlands Ranch and Parker. Our two favorite suburbs were Highlands Ranch and Parker. Parker has a bit more of a small town feel (although it appears to be growing quickily). I get the feeling Highlands Ranch is more established and a much busier suburb than Parker. Greenwood Village felt slightly more urban with more charm than the other suburbs (like Lakewood of Dallas) and Centennial just didn't do it for us. Lone Tree also looked very nice and close to a lot of great shopping. The only part of Lone Tree that we really explored was right next to Meadows Park Mall, all the great shopping, restaurants. We were there on a Saturday evening and the traffic was crazy. I don't know if I could live that close to so much traffic, but we only explored a small part of Lone Tree.