During a month when real estate agents try to wind down and plan for the year ahead, 43-year-old broker Jason Cummings isn’t getting a break.
“This month, the market has picked up and I’m stacked with appointments,” says Cummings, on track to do around $50 million in sales this year, up 43% over his typical sales of around $35 million.
Cummings’ book of business is centered in Denver, but he’s an expert in the southwest metro area — southwest Denver, Douglas County west of Broadway, and south Jefferson County — and where he’s exclusive agent for Wilder Lane, an infill of semi-custom homes that saw six sales this year, one at a record price-per-foot for the town of Columbine Valley, over $600,000.
“Denver has gotten so high that buyers are pushing southwest into areas like Lakewood and Littleton with a better bang for your buck,” he adds. Those include young couples, some with no kids — a demographic that likes being closer to mountain trails via southwestap abundant parks.
Those buyers also resonate with the sleek look of mid-century modern design — “mid-mod” — that they see in downtown lofts, as well as at Wilder Lane, where Cummings has three sleek four-bedroom/four-bath homes left from $1.18 million, from its original 24 sites.
Mid-mod, Cummings notes, works well in older areas like Lakewood and Littleton. Sixty years ago, builders were showing these Space Age designs to buyers that worked at Martin Marietta in Jefferson County, building rockets that carried Gemini astronauts.
Two miles north of Wilder Lane’s models on view now, you can pass through Arapahoe Hills, a mid-mod neighborhood from the 1950s and 1960s. Another mile north, broker Jack Fine of Jack Fine Properties is getting rapid sales with a new mid-mod enclave called Harlan Pines, tucked in beside Colorado Academy, south of W. Hampden/U.S. 285, west of Sheridan Boulevard.
Since opening last summer, Fine has sold five of his builder’s nine lots for ranch and two-story plans, priced now from $675,000.
Buyers, some of them younger, like the style and the recreation, but also the low-maintenance xeriscaped sites, suited to a lock-and-go lifestyle.
“We’re able to offer a quality product at a little higher price,” Fine says, noting that buyer competition for new product is tougher in southwest, where remaining development land is harder to find.
With new homes scarcer than in the other quadrants, buyers wanting a southwest location and an all-new look can push south to Sterling Ranch, a master plan on Titan Road west of S. Santa Fe in Douglas County.
Taylor Morrison, wrapping up its first neighborhood there with five homes left priced from $691,000, can show you plans now for its new City Collection from $489,990 — some of the lowest priced new homes in Sterling Ranch and anywhere in the southwest area.
“This is a true master plan with a great location and great schools,” says Tyler Gatlin, who has an Aspen model you can tour, close to where Sterling Ranch has opened its first coffee place and brewpub. He has a main-floor design ready to deliver and will show you a mid-mod elevation that will be in the new series. Buy any home and you’ll get a continuing pass into Chatfield State Park and Reservoir, just north of Sterling Ranch.
The news and editorial staffs of The Denver Post had no role in this postap preparation.