Advice on Relocation (Denver, Colorado Springs, Aurora: low crime, home, good schools)

[MountainViews]

I wanted to thank everyone who has been so helpful in your postings. I have learned a great deal from reading the forums the past few months.

We are currently planning to make a move from Texas to Colorado in the next few months. My wife is a native of CO, and we have family there and make frequent trips to visit, so it will be an easy transition in some ways. It would be incredibly helpful to us if someone could provide a bit of information or suggestions on towns that would fit our needs.

I work from my home office, so a commute isn't an issue for me. However, I will be opening another business in time, so location will be important at a later date. I need to be within perhaps an hour drive to the airport in Denver because of my need to meet clients. I might be able to look at something a "bit" further away, but not a lot further.

Our biggest criteria as far as a town is that we definitely want mountain views, preferably with some local access to water (a lake would be ideal) for fishing and boating. Our hope is to find housing in the $300K to $400K price range, but we could go a bit higher if we found just the right opportunity. Privacy, quiet, nature, wildlife, low stress, and tight-knit community are high on our list of desires.

We are definitely wanting to be in a town with very good schools and a low crime rate. We are hoping to find a smaller town, but one close enough to urban facilities, such as hospitals and shopping, to be at least somewhat convenient. I think that towns with populations of less than 25,000 would be what we are going to concentrate on. However, suburbs of larger cities that provide the small-town feel would interest us.

We have spent a great deal of time in Colorado Springs, Woodland Park (both probably too far from the airport to be practical), Castlerock, Estes Park, Fort Collins, Loveland, Steamboat Springs, and most of the area around Denver. We love the area north and west of Denver. However, we never have spent time there looking at potential home towns, but rather as visitors.

We have wondered about Evergreen, Golden, Nederland, Idaho Springs, and other towns in that area. We've passed through that area numerous times, and have stopped to shop and look around, but don't know much about the towns as far as places to live.

Any information you can provide will be greatly appreciated. Have a wonderful day.

[TinajaCo]

What type of mountain views do you want-- a wide, panoramic view of entire ranges, or the up-close, in-person type of view? if you want the wider view, your best bet would be in the Denver area, possibly Parker, Castle Rock, or (if you're willing to be in the Denver suburbs) Littleton, Centennial, or Highlands Ranch. Although Centennial and Highlands Ranch don't have an old town as Littleton does, all three have numerous opportunities that give a small-town feel to them, even while being Denver suburbs (although, you won't have the privacy you may be looking for in a lot of these locales). All are also within an hour of DIA. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of water sport options in the Denver-area, but the two most-popular are Cherry Creek and Chatfield, both of which are convenient to these towns.
If you want a closer view, Golden is a good choice. It does have a distinct, small-town feel, while being just minutes away from Colorado Mills Mall and a wide array of shopping, and is a straight shot down I-70 from DIA and down C-470 from Chatfield. But again, it may lack the privacy or secludedness you want, since it is a town and is essentially a suburb of Denver (as much as people in Golden try to fight this title). Evergreen would also fit your criteria, although it would be a bit farther from the amenities of the city, and would also be farther from water. Both Golden and Evergreen are Jefferson County schools, which overall is a good district.

[2bindenver]

I would suggest Trailmark in south Jeffco, across from Chatfield Res. Just south of Chatfield Arboretum, or the new builds south of the Aurora Res. Hospitals and shopping need a volume of people to sustain themselves.