Getting your player ready...
In a New Year weekend when everybody in the Mile High City is wishing for warm, here are five hot neighborhoods for 2015 – ones where builders and real estate agents see exceptional opportunity right now.
Opportunities are what agents and sales reps say that home buyers are after, coming out of the holidays – turning up to tour models and listings in unusual numbers for this early in the season. “They’ve already made up their minds and have a date in mind,” says Jeff Cook with G.J. Gardner Homes in Denver. Gardner works with urban sites all over the city of Denver – but is highly focused on areas bordering Highlands, where home prices have soared over the past few years.1. New dining at less-than LoHi prices. Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood wraps Tennyson Street’s burgeoning restaurant row north of W. 38th and the former Elitch Gardens site. “We’re looking at LoHi, but it’s too expensive,” is a typical line that Gardner’s builder Dave Pagano hears from buyers, who arrive to see his contemporary homes and duplexes, about two miles northwest of LoHi’s epicenter.
Pagano and Cook walk buyers down Tennyson – show them popular Parisi Trattoria at W. 44th, Hops & Pie, Okinawa, and Axios – and then where chophouse-style Block & Larder, Brazen and other new places are either arrived or taxiing up to the gate. On the very walkable north-south streets flanking Tennyson east and west, looser zoning allows Pagano to offer duplex plans from around $609,000 – well below prices buyers see around Highland Square and LoHi. One homeowner who closed with G.J. Gardner exactly a year ago says she’s already seen $100,000 in increased valuation on an appraisal she’s had done for refinancing. 2. Cherry Creek Schools at a bargain price. Oakwood Homes is just far enough along on its three models at Tollgate Crossing to hold an open house, north of Southlands shopping center in Aurora – but already has 46 contracts with buyers who like these prices, even though there was little to see. Sales rep Allyson Greenberg says Cherry Creek Schools are a big reason why – so popular that out-of-state buyers have already researched them when they arrive to look. Now Oakwood is turning up the heat with a new Park House series, slightly smaller but with prices from the high $200s. “They’re hands-down the lowest priced new homes with Cherry Creek Schools,” Greenberg says – but only 30 lots are available. Models are east of Gun Club on Chenango. 3. Fourth ‘Best Place to Live’ in U.S. That would be Castle Rock – graded super-high by CNN/Money Magazine in its 2014-15 ranking. Thirty years ago this was a gas stop on U.S. 85, but it held onto its historic downtown with eateries like the B & B Café — jammed with breakfasters who choose its Wild West atmosphere over plenty of newer, trendy dining nearby. Castle Rock is also getting attention for Philip S. Miller Park, newly arrived in a canyon just west, where you can take on a 200-step ‘Challenge Staircase’ climb that’s part of 7.4 miles of trails, and see where an ‘adventure park’ and zip lines are coming. Lennar Homes has new models from the low $400s a few minutes north in The Meadows, off Meadows Parkway at Low Meadow Boulevard. 4. Scenic Arvada ranch sites. In Leyden Rock in west Arvada, Remington Homes has four cul-de-sacs that offer great views of Denver’s lights; and has a series of ranches to match, all with walkouts. At prices from $399,950 Remington has already taken holds on 15 lots, but still has 30, along with a sharp ranch model – well defined entry spaces and a master suite positioned for privacy. Take W. 80th/Leyden west from Indiana a mile to Orion and turn north. 5. Metro North commuter access. KB Home already has 15 sales since November at Trailside in Thornton, with four models across from the site of an oval shaped park, close to city trails and an Adams 12 school, a half mile away. A testament to brisk sales is a sparse number of homes that can deliver now – just four in The Reserve at Trailside from $329,995; just one in an Estates series with 3-car garages and some walkouts. Commuters get the expressway of their choice: I-25 south to downtown, Northwest Parkway to Interlocken, or E470 east to DIA. Take Hwy 7 east from I-25 a mile to York, then south.
