Getting your player ready...
How much better is this year’s housing market around Denver and Boulder than last year’s? Just ask builder Ward Ritter of Chartered Homes, who last week sold his twenty-sixth patio ranch for Year 2012 at Latitude at Vista Ridge — equal to Latitude’s combined sales for three previous years. Even more surprising, says Ritter, is how many of those buyers are reaching for premium lots that back to Colorado National Golf Club, and to views spanning from Mt. Evans to Longs Peak.
Latitude’s site plan, which wraps low-maintenance ranch lots in trails and other comprehensive amenities, currently includes nine sites that overlook the scenic, rolling course – this week dotted by the team jerseys of women golfers from colleges around the West, here for the NCAA West Regionals. Chartered Homes offers ranch home-and-site packages on those from the low-to-mid $300s – into the $400s for a larger 3-bedroom home with a full-width 3-car garage. In early 2011 when those premium lots first came available there were no takers – but the rising waters of this market have quickly enveloped them – since Jan. 1, six of the nine have sold. The lowest priced of those three remainders overlooks a trail corridor into the course; but two back directly to sweeping views across bunkers and water features to the club house and Vista Ridge’s rec center, all set against the snowcapped Indian Peaks. One lot can take a full-width 3-car garage: “That’s enough room for a motorcycle, your bikes, and the two cars,” said Ritter, pointing to one newly completed ranch for a Boulder area buyer who is using garage space in exactly that arrangement. Down the road, Ritter says, Chartered Homes will offer more lots in a future filing that will back to the course; but the quality of those views may not match up to what you can see at Latitude today and this weekend, two miles west of I-25 just off Highway 7. And those future prices, he adds, are VERY unlikely to be in this range. In addition to all of the material costs that are pushing prices northward, Ritter says that he and other builders, large and small, are facing a tighter market for construction trades; made all the leaner because of faster paced apartment construction around the metro area. Those golf-view homes, like all of Latitude’s offerings, are complemented by Vista Ridge’s trails, parks, two pool-and-tennis centers, a fitness club, not to count the golf club itself and its clubhouse with grille, a quarter-mile by trail from Latitude. All the homes in Latitude also come with an affordably priced maintenance package – full exterior landscape on each home, trash and snow removal included. All of that, including Vista Ridge’s master association fees for the non-golf amenities, currently runs only $127-a-month. Latitude’s sales rep R.D. Baker will show you those final phase-one golf lots, along with Chartered Homes furnished ranch models, and two homes that can deliver right away – one of them a ‘Turnberry’ ranch with two bedrooms plus a study, 2,151 finished square feet, including finished space in the basement level, plus 2-car attached garage (it’s priced at $289,082). He’ll also explain Chartered Homes very accommodating approach to building: lots of flexibility unheard of at these production-home prices. Take I-25 north from 120th, seven miles to Highway 7; then west two miles to Vista Ridge’s entry at Mountain View; or from Boulder, take Baseline east 13 miles. If you go… WHERE: Latitude at Vista Ridge, attainably priced single-family patio ranches, 4 fully-furnished models, 3 sites left backing to course & mountain view; lock-n-leave lifestyle, country club amenities, 2 ranches for immediate delivery; coffee & cookies. 1944 Windemere Ln., Erie; Hwy 7 at Mountain View Blvd (Vista Ridge entry nearest I-25). Take I-25 north past 470 to Hwy 7, west 2 mi. to Mountain View; or from Boulder take Baseline east to Mountain View
