Getting your player ready...
If you think it’s easy finding housing designs oriented for age-50-and-older buyers this year, you haven’t looked; and in some parts of town the scarcity is more evident than in others. “Why doesn’t somebody build this kind of thing closer to where we live now?” is a common complaint heard by builders and Realtors who have ranch-style plans to show, in low-maintenance neighborhoods.
But those communities are out there – even in places where builders haven’t launched many enclaves for an older-buyer profile. Ranch plan oriented communities are easier to find in the metro north area – tougher in southeastern and southwestern suburbs; but several builders are meeting the need. “I don’t know that anybody else in our area is doing what we’re doing,” says Katie Walker with Verona, a 55-and-older restricted community that wraps the Highline Canal on the west side of Highlands Ranch, west of Lucent on W. County Line. She had just met with buyers from Littleton who live only a mile north of the community, who have been back daily since they discovered Verona during the first weekend of the Best of 50-Plus Tour, sponsored by HBA’s 50+ Housing Council. “They totally had never been here,” Walker said. “They told us, ‘We didn’t know how cool this is.'” “We’re always getting couples who say they’ve been looking all over for ranch plans,” says Mike Davidson with Century Communities, with homes in the tour in Westminster, Inverness and Saddle Rock. The Saddle Rock enclave – well removed from mega-communities that get lots of traffic – has some of the best prices for patio-ranches in the metro area. This weekend, $304,950 buys a 3-bedroom, 3-bath ranch at 6675 S. Shawnee with 2-car garage and finished basement included, close to the golf course. You could be moved in by New Years. Meanwhile, this is the weekend Koelbel Urban Homes launches pre-sales on patio-ranch plans coming to The Bluffs at Pinehurst, the last sites within Pinehurst Country Club, just west of S. Sheridan on W. Quincy. “This is a part of town that has had virtually no new product of this type available in years,” says Dana Keller, vice president at Koelbel Urban Homes. She’ll be there Saturday with an Airstream and a free hot dog/coffee cart, to show off floor plans from the high $300s. Cardel Homes, with two sites, has the tour’s very most affordable plans in its Clocktower at Highlands Ranch Town Center, elevator-served condos that attract older buyers to its underground parking, limited-access entry, and walkability to Starbucks and lots of dining options. “Older kids like knowing their parents are in that kind of a building,” says Cardel’s Sara Dieringer. Prices start in the high $100s.DenverPost.com/RealEstate.
