How’s life in the Denver/Boulder CO area?

docwyte said:

If you go up to the lift ticket window you're going to pay.  A lot.  However when I moved out here in 92-93 a season pass for Vail/Beaver Creek was $825 and was restricted, you couldn't use it on holidays.  A full Epic pass, which covers a TON of ski resorts and has NO black out dates is about the same amount.  So anyone who says skiing is expensive, or that it was way cheaper back in the day isn't really correct.

I'm going to defend my "skiing is more expensive" statements with two things. One, the Epic pass is a ridiculous deal for a season pass - although in 1991, I was buying a season pass at Megeve/St.Gervais for $300 Cdn so I'm going to say Vail was overpriced in 1992. It's not like Megeve is some little hick mountain, it had something like 71 lifts at the time and has hosted World Cup. And no lines.

But if you want to ski any less than that, there is no equivalent to the 10 day pass I used to buy. The $300 US I used to pay for a 10 day pass at Telluride will now get you a two day Epic pass plus enough to buy a couple of hamburgers on the mountain. There is no 10 day option. A 7 day pass is $766.

This is what I meant when I said the resorts were hostile to occasional locals. Want a season pass? Sure! Want to buy a week or less because you're visiting from Texas and paying for hotels and restaurants and renting skis and pumping money in to the town? Well, you'll pay what we want but here's a bit of a deal. Want to ski a few times a month? Might as well buy a season pass. So the actual cost of skiing for locals who don't get out almost every day has gone up considerably.

CO ski costs are pretty outrageous.  We go to Wolf Creek every other year, and it's cheaper to buy a season pass on summer pre-sale than it is to buy 7 days of lift tickets.  But... it's worth it.  The skiing is simply blissful compared to the Iced(east) coast... 

Lifelong Denver resident here.  Docwyte actually said a lot of what I was going to say.

I'm not totally clear on how to address this question, but Denver is very livable and pleasant.  It's not cheap.  My niece and her man just bought a 600 sf house for $300K.  Average for the city is $400, and I couldn't afford my 1940's house anymore since my neighborhood is rapidly gentrifying.

I went to school in Boulder and wouldn't want to live there now.  It's both super expensive and super mono-dimensional.  Great fun as a college student, but not my jam anymore.  And no one should be surprised by spoiled frat kids acting spoiled.

If you're working in Boulder, there are other interesting options that are within commuting distance.

We ski at Loveland for $30 a ticket, and the parking is free.  Stick your lunch bag under a bench in the cafeteria.  All chill, all the time.  Terrain and snow are great.

OP, I'd be happy to answer any questions you have directly.  Shoot me a pm and we can set up a phone call, if you'd like.

The problem with Denver and Boulder is not so much that you are paying almost coastal prices for housing but that along with that you are not getting paid San Francisco or Manhattan salaries so you can afford the stupid expensive housing. Salaries in Colorado are low, especially in professional jobs. Lots of people want to work there and the HR departments and hiring managers know it. I remember Harvard Law Graduates taking out ads in the Colorado Lawyer offering to take crappy paralegal jobs for $10 an hour so they could live with 5 roommates and go skiing every weekend. 

There are a lot of trust fund kids and early retired types who made there money somewhere other than Colorado so there is a lot of money competing for what little housing they have there. 

The flip side is that you'd have to pay me a huge amount of money to make up for the lifestyle of living in SF or Manhattan. It's not always about how much money you have left in your paycheck.  

I think it's the overheated CA housing prices that are driving up CO prices - for what you get for selling some little condo in San Diego you can buy something nicer in Denver or the nicest house in town in Grand Junction. You can see it in the architecture of new houses being put up, they're CA-style Tuscan copy/paste McMansions. Locals are more likely to go with a western ranching style or adobe.

Denver was a interesting place to visit a few years ago but Golden was my favorite place to visit in that trip.

If you're commuting to Boulder, you want to live in Longmont. It's a great, underrated town. It's been shaking off a dying industrial/farm vibe for the past couple decades and is sort of a hipster secret now. Cheaper than Boulder proper but a short drive away, tons of awesome local restaurants and breweries. Lots of well-kept older neighborhoods with cool houses. Traffic during rush hour is much more favorable between Longmont and Boulder than it is between Boulder and Denver suburbs. 

I lived in a very new development just outside Longmont when I was working in Boulder and my wife was (still is) working in downtown Denver; we pretty much went to Longmont for any food/drink/recreation/etc activity. The main downtown area feels a lot like the good parts of Boulder, whereas the newer I25 corridor suburbs on the Weld County side (where our house was) are full of crabby shiny happy people and fast food chains.

edit: or split the difference between Longmont/Boulder (if you have more money to spend) and look in Louisville. Nice quiet bedroom community.

If you just made a ton of money selling an overpriced condo in San Diego then Colorado is a great place to go. If you are fresh out of college with NO money and a ton of student loans, or if you are broke with a wife and kids to support, Colorado is probably a bad choice. The low paying jobs and high rent will suck you dry. 

If you want to do the ski bum thing for a few years, I would recommend it. I did it in Vail but if I were to do it again today I would go for cheaper venues like Summit County, Telluride or Crested Butte. Count on having roommates and not saving any money while you are doing this. I knew guys who were living in campers and pickup trucks when I was in Vail and this was when it got below zero at night. Not sure if they still do this. I think that Warren Miller used to live in a teardrop trailer. If you are a single guy you will not be dating much in ski country. It is a real sausage party. And don't stay there for too many years. I met a lot of alcoholics and burned out potheads in their 30s. There is a lot of drinking and drug use in ski country, and this was even before pot was legal in the state. Don't get too caught up in the lifestyle. 

Keith Tanner said:

The flip side is that you'd have to pay me a huge amount of money to make up for the lifestyle of living in SF or Manhattan. It's not always about how much money you have left in your paycheck.  

I think it's the overheated CA housing prices that are driving up CO prices - for what you get for selling some little condo in San Diego you can buy something nicer in Denver or the nicest house in town in Grand Junction. You can see it in the architecture of new houses being put up, they're CA-style Tuscan copy/paste McMansions. Locals are more likely to go with a western ranching style or adobe.

Housing in San Francisco is supposedly horrible, I read something that said you need to make over 90k a year just to make housing. That's kinda frightening if true.

My area has an influx of people that sell houses in California and move into the woods. The prices they are buying for are roughly half again what would be considered about right for the area. A lot of people worry about them "taking over" but so far it hasn't happened. I was actually born in the Bay area so it's sort of funny to hear.

Any area with high housing costs is going to be rough on recent college grads.  Not sure how Denver area is any different in that regard.  Everyone needs to realize that in the last ten years housing costs anywhere desirable have sky rocketed.  Denver is no exception.  Bitching about how it costs more money to buy a house here vs rural Ohio is pointless.  I don't want to live in rural Ohio and apparently lots of other people don't want to either.

The last year or so housing has gotten even more nuts as people who used to live in super expensive areas are now able to move anywhere they want since they can tele commute.  So folks that used to have to live in the SF Bay Area are now free to move here.  They sell their tiny house there for 1.5-2 million and buy a much larger house here for less money, which seems like a bargain to them.

Housing in a ski area has never been easy.  When I was up in Vail in 92/93 it was the same story and I lived with room mates.  That hasn't changed.  If you want to be a ski bum, that's just what you have to accept.  Summit County isn't any better in that regard.  I suspect Telluride isn't any different nor is the housing there any less expensive for a ski bum.

My sister and her family have lived in San Francisco since 1994.  You couldn't pay me enough to live there.  I'm simply not an that urban of a guy, the advantages of the city simply don't outweigh the drawbacks for me. 

There are a lot of cheaper places than Denver that aren't rural Ohio.

https://blog.cheapism.com/cheap-places-to-live/

Summit County and Telluride are not cheap but they are actually cheaper to ski and to live in than Vail and Aspen. In fact, most anyplace else with a chairlift is cheaper than Vail and Aspen. Places like Loveland and Eldora come to mind in Colorado for cheaper skiing and just about anyplace in New Mexico. 

I was looking for the ski bum lifestyle I'd stay away from Telluride. They like to pretend they're that kind of place but that ship sailed 20+ years ago. It's got a different vibe in the summer. Crested Butte isn't as far down the path as Telluride and has some seriously challenging terrain along with great mountain biking in the summer. But I'd take a good look at Wolf Creek simply because it gets all the snow the others claim to get. Ridiculous snow.

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

You're right on the "where you're coming from" aspect of Colorado.  I got lucky and paid a little more than I was comfortable with for a house in  Denver back in 2015, and it's valued almost triple that now.  If I sold, I'd have to move because of the low salary/high cost, but I could likely pay cash for something further west.    Coming from Atlanta, I'd say the traffic quantity there is much higher, but Denver's drivers are just maddeningly slow at deciding where they are going on the road.  Traffic into the mountains is worse than in town, for sure.

sobe_death said:

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

 but Denver's drivers are just maddeningly slow at deciding where they are going on the road. 

Could that be because of the legal pot? 

Housing prices are certainly skyrocketing across the country but what I'm seeing in Broomfield/Longmont/parts of Denver is not terribly far removed from what I'm seeing in Portland, Vancouver (WA), or Tacoma.

Job compensation would be north of $100k to justify the move. I'm sure that number doesn't mean what it did 5-10 years ago (it doesn't anywhere) but that would be hard to turn down if the opportunity comes.

At the end of the day I think we both really want to be in the PNW but we will try to spend a long weekend in the Boulder/Denver area before too long to at least get a vibe for the area.

Left-field question: how much of a headache is vehicle inspection/emissions? Here in WI we just do an OBD check for '96-up, older vehicles aren't even tested.

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

If you just made a ton of money selling an overpriced condo in San Diego then Colorado is a great place to go. If you are fresh out of college with NO money and a ton of student loans, or if you are broke with a wife and kids to support, Colorado is probably a bad choice. The low paying jobs and high rent will suck you dry. 

After I suggested Longmont I was cruising zillow mindlessly and ran across this. Low maintenance brand new construction, even on the Boulder-facing edge of town, this is affordable even broke. 

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/63-Quail-Rd-Longmont-CO-80501/296358097_zpid/

Solution to Denver (or any major metro area) being too expensive - stop trying to live right in the middle of downtown or in the trendy upper class downtown historic houses. 

pointofdeparture said:

Left-field question: how much of a headache is vehicle inspection/emissions? Here in WI we just do an OBD check for '96-up, older vehicles aren't even tested.

No safety inspection, just emissions. Diesels go to independent shops (usually import specialists or diesel performance guys) every year when they're old enough for a smoke opacity test on the dyno. Gasoline cars go to AirCare Colorado (a pseudo-state-run private racket, but I won't rant about that) every other year; new cars are exempt for a certain number of years, then get just an OBDII plugin for a few years, and then after a certain age they get run on the dyno with the sniffer. It is possible for certain cars to pass with a lit CEL as long as they pass the sniffer, I just don't want to go search out all the details right this second. There must be some unwritten age cutoff to determine if they pop the hood to check for emissions equipment, most cars they just look for cat with a mirror but my truck and old Subaru in particular they spent tons of time under the hood looking.
If your car is stock or mildly modified (compliant catted exhaust and sane tune) you have no problem passing the sniffer. Both my '87 turbo Dodge and '89 Caravan on the original cats managed to "fast pass" the sniffer because they were apparently super clean?

https://aircarecolorado.com/

Note - this applies to Boulder County, Jefferson County, (most of) Weld County, Larimer County, and some others. Does not apply to El Paso County (Colorado Springs) and most anything West of the continental divide.

newrider3 said:

Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) said:

If you just made a ton of money selling an overpriced condo in San Diego then Colorado is a great place to go. If you are fresh out of college with NO money and a ton of student loans, or if you are broke with a wife and kids to support, Colorado is probably a bad choice. The low paying jobs and high rent will suck you dry. 

 

After I suggested Longmont I was cruising zillow mindlessly and ran across this. Low maintenance brand new construction, even on the Boulder-facing edge of town, this is affordable even broke. 
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/63-Quail-Rd-Longmont-CO-80501/296358097_zpid/

Solution to Denver (or any major metro area) being too expensive - stop trying to live right in the middle of downtown or in the trendy upper class downtown historic houses. 

 

 

$225,000 is still a lot of money for a house. Especially one that is small and in the boondocks. The house I am in now is probably worth more than that but I bought it 22 years ago and it just happens to be near downtown and in a trendy area and it isn't that much more. Plus salaries are much higher in Dallas. 

I don't know what your definition of broke is, but if you can come up with a payment for a $200,000 house you are not broke. People who are broke live in apartments or in vans down by the river. 

In reply to Snowdoggie (Forum Supporter) :

$225,000 isn't going to buy you much of, if any, house in the Front Range Denver/Boulder area....

Median list price for a house in the US in Dec 2020 was $340,000. Denver was $532,000, which is half of San Jose. Housing prices have definitely disconnected themselves from earning potential, but it's not just in Denver.

https://www.realtor.com/research/december-2020-data/ 

Ha, I live in Bay View.  Before we settled in Wisconsin a few years ago, we considered moving to mountain States, California or PNW.  Have some close friends in Seattle and Denver. Definitely need to look outside the city to avoid crazy housing prices, homeless camps etc.  Comparing notes with our friends,  would not want to trade places.  But we also have two young kids with extended family in Chicago. And my job would probably pay the same or less in those places.  Go for it if you are less tied down... Life is short.  At the worst, you piss away some money and come back to the Midwest at some point.

Alright.  My lord.

For the record:

Denver is a very nice place to live.  There are good restaurants here.  There are good museums.  You can hear a very good concert here - a great one if you like bluegrass.  There is a surprisingly exciting hip-hop scene.  There are very good schools here.  The outdoor activities here are second to none.  It is a vibrant region.

Sometimes it really does snow a lot here - 24" of heavy wet spring snow this past Sunday.  But the next day it was 50 degrees and snow-blindingly sunny.

The cost of living matches many other places where other people want to live.  Some places where other people want to live are more expensive.

You can get stuck in traffic here.  Generally it's not a problem.  Some planning is wise.

There are homeless people here.  Some of them live in camps.  These camps are not very common, though I could tell you where you might find them.

There is legal weed here.  For legal weed appreciators, this is a good thing.  For everyone else, it won't affect your life.

There is property crime.  Not bad, but it's a city.

You'll find those stupid damn for-rent electric scooters littering the city sidewalks.  Hate them.

Hail.  Hail is the worst part of living in Denver.  Your cars will get hail damaged.  Period.

There are some idiotic tax laws from the early 90's that hamstring government.  It's stupid.

Some people don't like Denver and Colorado, and that is their opinion.  Just their opinion.  Which you can take with a grain of salt. 

And salt is something you won't find on our roads, which is another plus!

In reply to TVR Scott (Forum Supporter) :

I (and my barren yard near the street) can attest that CDOT puts TONS of salts(MgCl2) out these past few years.  I hate it, because the snow melts away anyways, but the streets are definitely dusty white until late April/May when it's rained enough to wash it away.

So just to give you an idea how the front range housing market is becoming. Don't believe any of the listing prices and add at least 10% to them to figure the real price that it will sell for.  

I just put my house in Colorado Springs on the market Friday at $625K. By lunch time on Saturday, I had multiple offers over $700K with 2 of them being over 80% cash and no appraisal or inspection. I had a signed contract for 30% more than I paid for the house 2 years ago and I didn't even take the highest potential offer. I took the least risky. 

In reply to bmw88rider (Supportive Dude) :

You're selling the house I met ya at for the Xterra?  Or another one?