Retiring in Colorado
 

This is my first post - now I need your advice. Recently retired, my husband and I would like to relocate to the wonderful climate in Colorado. We have been enduring 100+ degrees with high humidity all summer here in South Arkansas. Our interests are hiking, biking, watching the wildlife, and perhaps snowmobiling (we've never done that, but it looks like it would be so much fun). We love the mountains and lakes!

We would like to live in a small to medium-size town (15K to 60K population), but be located within an hour's drive to a larger city. We are wanting to down-size but aren't interested in condos or retirement communities. I just read that Money Magazine had selected Louisville, CO as the #1 place to live. Any comments?? We don't have a clue where to start in locating to CO.

Can you point us in the right direction by giving your advice on the perfect place to live in Colorado?

You should post your question on this forum:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/colorado/

How much time have you spent in Colorado? Winter and summer?

Remember, the general advice is to rent in a place for at least a year before your commit to buying anything.

Thank you both for the very helpful advice.

I don't know how or if it is easy to search this site but there was a very long discussion on this same subject about a year ago that would be very help to you.

A number of cities and neighborhood have received these magazine ratings, Ft. Collins, home of Colorado State is often rated high. And some of the old towns around Denver such as Littleton that have been over run by the Denver metro area still have a small feeling and charm that might still be worth considering. Combines a lot of advantages. Probably should just take a couple weeks and do a little driving. Also depending on your political leans there are some areas that might be more attractive to you than others.

We have a home in SW Colorado, equidistant from Telluride and Durango. It is beautiful country with mountains, ancient ruins, skiing, mild temps in summer and winters that aren't awful. You can bike, hike, raft, ski, walk, etc.

Durango is a great town and has just about everything you could want. Albuquerque is a 3 hour drive, not exactly close but BIG city. It is very expensive, be warned, as are many parts of CO.

We live 45 miles west of Durango in a small town [undeer 10,000] and the costs are much more reasonable.

Let me know if you want more info.

Thanks, fmpden! I don't know how to search for the earlier discussion either, but will see if I can locate it.

DebitNM: I would definitely be interested in more info about your location. Bring it on! lol

I have lived in Greeley, CO the past two years after almost 50 years in the Phoenix area. I love it. This whole region - from Greeley to Longmont to Ft. Collins offers almost everything you could ever want (alright, I admit there is no surfing!). And Denver is just an hour away. Housing is ultra cheap right now.

Windsor, which is adjacent to Greeley, was recently on a best places to live list.

Hi bigtyke! I'm really glad that you had good things to say about Greeley, because I had read somewhere that the odor from cattle pens is offensive in Greeley. I'll do some additional research on the Greeley area. Thank you!

To some that is the smell of money, to others ...... That can be a problem IF the stockyards are in operation and the wind is from the right direction, NE, but that is not the prevailing direction for winds. Right now, the yards are in full operation.

Have a serious look at Louisville. IMO it's one of the better places along the front range.

Check out Evergreen, Colorado in the foothills west of Denver.

I vote for Ft. Collins. It is 60 miles from Denver with all that Denver has to offer and Ft. Collins itself is a great town. My wife and I retired to Colorado in 1999 with the promise we would not be more than one hour from Denver. However, we ended up in Durango and left there three years later. Durango is a lovely town with 60 restaurants but it is very isolated, at least too much so for my wife and I.Also, be sure you are fully aware of the winter weather.

While the slaughterhouse is still in Greeley, the big feedlot is several miles east in Kersey (although there is also another one south of town). And the odor control is excellent. I can't remember more than a few hours of agricultural smell in the two years I have lived here.

It was a worse odor when they used to put in winter lawns in upscale Scottsdale, AZ.

Ft. Collins is nice, but larger than you desire. It is nice having it just a few miles away. Ft. Collins has Col. State U., Greeley has U of Northern Colorado. CSU is the Ag school, UNC the teachers college (at least orginally)

We are far from experts, but my brother has lived in Colorado for a few years. He loves many parts of it. We stayed with cousins and also visited my brother. We found Colorado Springs to be very friendly and homey--a place where we could envision ourselves living.

My in-laws have moved a couple of times during their retirement. Things that influenced their choices include access to regular doctor appointments, access to emergency service. Their first move, it turned out that despite how cordial as people were at first, they had all lived in their town "forever" and my in-laws were never entirely accepted.

Wow! You all have given me lots of homework by suggesting so many places to give consideration. That's exactly what I was wanting. Now I'm wondering where we will find the mildest winters...on the front range or to the west near the Montrose area. Mainly, we are trying to escape the very hot, humid summers of South Arkansas. Thanks to everyone for your valuable input.

The mildest winters will be further south along the front range. But it also warmer in the summer time so that is part of the trade off. We have lived in the Denver area for the past 30 years and while the memory is fading we still think the Denver winters are milder than when we lived the Chicago area. We can have a couple of bad months -- Dec and Jan. And we get snow and sometimes a lot but generally the next day the sun is out and it is melting. Coming from S Ark any winter probably will be a shock. The sun load with low humidity in the winter can make a cold day very pleasant. And besides, if cold is problem we are only a day drive from Arizona.

fmpden, You have answered my concern perfectly. In S Ark, we never get "just" snow. It always rains first, the rain freezes which creates a layer of ice, then a few inches of snow falls on top of the ice. This makes driving quite treacherous. Now that we are retired, we can either stay inside and enjoy watching it fall or go snowmobiling. So, are you basically telling me that the further west, the more snow, if you were to go west from the Denver area?

If yuu settle in the Denver area, east of the Front Range range you will get hot, but not humid, summers. You'll need a/c.

My BFF has lived in CO for the past 25 years, so I've been out there many times. I'd vote for Boulder, Glen Springs, or Idaho Springs. Boulder has all the cultural advantages of a university town, which I enjoyed, but it's not a very far drive to Denver.

BC

We live in the Denver area, east of the front range. Do not have a/c, won't be anything like Arkansas (I grew up in Houston) I would suggest spending a winter somewhere before you relocate. You might also look in the Castle Rock area.

OK, geography lesson. Since the prevailing weather pattern is from the NW and the continental divide (high point or ridge of the mountains)is just west of Denver, the water is wring out as snow on the western side of the divide -- that is where all the ski areas are. When the weather system pops over the divide, there is nothing left so we stay snow free and relatively dry. The continental divide can also serve as a block and keep deep cold weather in the mountains. The storms that give us trouble come up from the SW and hook around the bottom end of the mountains. And we do get a couple a year. Our snowiest months are March, November, and April. And wettest month is May.

We have lived in the Denver area since 1980. Didn't have A/C in our home until 2000. Even then it is not used much. It is rare for summer time temp to over a 100. Didn't happen last year and only a couple days this year. One day last week was high 90s and 7% relative humidity. And we are hot spot for skin cancer. It is dry and could be a more difficult adjustment for you.

We just retired in the last couple of years. Wife had BIG retirement party three years ago but haven't seen any difference in her activities. We have looked around and visit a number of places -- traditional ones. Could not stand Phoenix, couldn't afford San Diego, Florida is nice for a couple of months (headed to the Keys this January). We are very satisfied with Denver and probably will stay here. We are enjoy cycling and Denver has about 500 miles of trails in the metro area most separated from traffic. We will do 2000 miles a year in and around Denver. And we can bike nearly year around which gives you some idea about the weather. There are a number of old towns around Denver that have been run over by the Denver metro area but you still have the feel and charm of a small town even if in a big metro area. Public transit is excellent if you live on the south side where the light rail system was first built, downtown is thriving, medical facilities are good, and there are a lot of things to see and do at reasonable prices. So I would not be too quick to write off Denver as a possible location.

I, too, am considering retiring in Colorado. Have spent many ski vacations there over the past 30 years. Any thoughts on Telluride or Santa Fe, NM?

When approaching retirement I think everyone has their own criteria for what is critical and not so critical. Having had parents and grandparents that lived well into their 90s but had a several minor but nagging medical problems. They lived in those small towns (15-60k) but the medical facilities and service were simply lacking. And then there was the constant need to depend on other people for their shopping, to and from medical facilities, etc., led us want to be near good services. We want a recreation center, social network, transportation, bike trails, taxi service, etc. so we are sticking with the bigger cities.

I have visited Santa Fe and for some people it is magical because of the Indian culture. There is some skiing there but the season is short.

Telluride is nice, but it is a ski town and somewhat isolated from everything else. Good friends retired there three years ago but return to Denver this summer. They thought it was a very pretty place to live but it was the lack of services and transportation. Telluride lovers will say they have an airport -- and it does -- but it is not tied to the rest of the world very well and it is expensive.

Everyone has to decide for themselves the important issues but for us, the Denver area fits our bill very well.

fmpden: Great geography lesson....I read every word to my husband, and he said that he wouldn't mind living "near" Denver, but not "in" Denver.

I also appreciate the comments from HappyTrvlr and BetsyG. Since BetsyG grew up in Houston, I know she's experienced hot, humid weather.

We will visit Castle Rock and cities to the west of I-25 near Denver. Bookchick had some good suggestions, too, so we will also take a look at Idaho Springs.

Thank you for giving me all of this detailed information!

You can tell your husband that it would be hard to live "in" Denver. Denver area itself is quite small. Many, many years at the height of the school busing issues, the Denver boundaries were frozen and Denver was prohibited from annexing surrounding areas so that no one from the suburbs would be bussed into Denver schools or, more importantly, bussed out from Denver. The results is a small physical area that is actually Denver and a large, independent area of small cities and county surrounding Denver. As I posted earlier there are some small old towns, Littleton for example on the southside, Parker to the SE, which retain some of the small town flavor (certainly small town politics especially Littleton) but at the same time enjoy the considerable advantages of the larger metro area.

Another thought. Don't know what kind of health issues you might have but altitude can impact anything to do with breathing. While Denver reasonable at a mile, moving further into the mountains can present more problems as the elevation increases. As someone suggested it might be smart to rent for a year before making a final decision. Some friends of ours from Des M, Iowa moved part time to Breckenridge thinking it would be a good retirement home in about ten years. After five years it is on the market now, bad timing, cause they could never adjust to the altitude. Both were heavy smokers at one time with some lung damage and that is not good when the air pressure is low.

Presently, neither of us have any health issues (we're non-smokers) and hopefully won't have much trouble adjusting to the altitude. I agree totally that it is important to be near to good medical services, etc. You've mentioned several small cities surrounding Denver. Would you mind mentioning which city you and your wife live in? Low cost of living really caught my attention. We visited San Diego in June and absolutely loved the weather, but can't afford to live in that area either. We've not been to the FL Keys. A few years ago, we vacationed in Panama City, FL and enjoyed it.

We've just bought a new motorcoach and could exist quite comfortably in it while checking out the Denver area. I haven't searched for RV resorts in the Denver area, but I'm sure there are many. Instead of renting, we could stay in the coach until we knew this was the right area for us permanently. We've learned so much about CO because of your helpful posts. If you think of anything else, please feel free to share. :-)

We actually now live in Centennial which is a new city created in 2000 out of huge tracks of un-incorporated Arapahoe county that lays along the south side of Denver. However, we are couple miles south of Littleton city limits. My wife taught in the Littleton school district for over 25 years so we identify with Littleton community. Littleton is about 15 due south of Denver along the Platte River. An old farming community that was the last rail stop before Denver. Most of the downtown area is on the National Historical Registry. The first line of the Denver Light rail system went through Littleton so access to downtown without driving is very easy. Also the trails along the Platte River is the backbone of trail system in Denver. It is 22 miles via trail system to downtown Denver. Other than a couple of streets in our subdivision, one we enter the trail system near our house, we don't cross another street until we are in downtown Denver. One concern about our trail system is that every now and then you have to be alert for mountain lions and this time year, black bears. That does tend to make trail users a bit nervous.

Hard to compare cost of living. I would guess we are higher than S Arkansas but don't know for sure. Property taxes are very low. Right now I pay about a half percent of the value of my house in property tax. Property values have declined but not as bad as many other parts of the country in part because we didn't have the same inflated value problem that a lot of other areas had. Sales tax varies by location ranges from 4 or 5% to 7 or 8%.

If I think of other things, I will post them.

The house temp this AM was 56. We had to use a blanket last night and wore sweats for the first couple of hours this AM. Fall is coming.

There are some really nice pictures of Littleton online. It sounds to me like the rail system is sometimes safer than the trail system (mountain lions and bears!). We occasionally spend time hiking at Lake Catherine State Park in Hot Spring, AR where they have a few rocky hills. My husband jokes that he's not worried about bears as long as he can run faster than his wife. lol Cruel joke! The trail system sounds like a wonderful convenience to downtown.

Since I was curious about our property tax rate, I called the tax assessor's office and they gave me this computation. 20% of the market value of our house multiplied by 40.5% millage. We are in a subdivision which is outside of the city limits and the millage rate is 5.0% less than inside the city limits. So, how do I equate that into a comparison with your half percent? As for sales tax, it is broken into tax 1 at 9.250% and tax 2 at 5.250%, which is a city tax I think. We pay 6% sales tax on a new vehicle.

It was 78 degrees here this morning and the a/c was in operation all night. We will begin to feel some relief from the heat and humidity by the first of Oct.

That is the problem with property tax rates -- Tax rate has no meaning. It gets too complicated when discussing mill levies, accessed value, etc. There is only one number that counts.

Amount paid in property tax last year/current selling price of house. That gives property tax as percentage of current value. Only way to compare. $2000 in tax on a $400,000 house is .5%

We may have our furnace turned on by the first of Oct.

Some other criteria to consider when looking a retirement location are a good airport( DIA is good with many direct flights), a college or university nearby offering classes, cultural activities and sports, and good medical care, especially a teaching hospital ( UC offers this.)

Just played with your numbers. It looks like a $400,000 house might have a property tax of about $3200 or about .8%

I have lived in Louisville for over twenty years and it is an awesome town. We lived in Boulder before moving here and much prefer Louisville. It is just a perfect town - not too large but with easy access to the mountains and to Denver. Lots of activities like the Street Faire concerts on Friday nights all summer long. Old town is full of fun restaurants and bars. Houses are not cheap however (but less than Boulder). Loveland is another nice town along the Front Range that would be more affordable and is larger than Louisville (more at the high end of your range versus Louisville which is at the low end). It would be a longer drive to Denver.

Thank you for the information about Louisville and Loveland. We are planning to spend the month of October in the Denver metro area to get acquainted with as many cities as possible. We're going to start at Castle Rock and work our way northward until we arrive at RMNP.

Our first stop will be in Pueblo to taste a "slopper" at Sunset Inn. We learned about a slopper on the Travel Channel last night.

Once again, many thanks to all of you for the wonderful info.
You are doing a great service for your state by being so helpful.

We elected to move here 16 years ago. First home was a Denver suburb, nice bike trails, shopping, restaurants, and traffic. Second home for 14 years now, in Evergreen. Highly recommend it. Your first winter at 7800 ft will be shocking. Some people can't cope and move back to Denver. If you don't have to commute to work 'down the hill', it's about as perfect as you can find. All the big city ammenities of Denver are there when you want them. It is always 10 degrees cooler here (summer & winter). We wish for air conditioning about 3hours a day, about 4 days in a year, so obviously we don't have it. Denverites come here for the day in summer. Denver even bought land up here in the 1920's so that residents would have a place to play--Denver Mountain Parks--in the cooler climate. We have some paved bike/hike trail and more is coming. There are abundant gravel trails. All wildlife can be found in the front yard or back, depending upon what time of year and day. Coyotes, mtn.lions, or bears can happen, but are infrequent. Elk own the roads--get over it, or go back downhill. Our county has regulations about light pollution, so we can still see the Milky Way. It always snows on Halloween. Sometimes Dec. is warm & dry, others it snows everyday. March is winter here. April is mud season. May is spring, usually. Evergreen is in the foothills.

For downhill suburbs, my favorites are Lakewood & Littleton, but you'll want the newer areas of either.

October is usually nice, but bring your layers, gloves, and hats and jeans may need long undies, under.

PinkCoyote, You've pretty much covered everything about Evergreen. Thank you so much!! I hope we can stay for the Halloween snow event:-).

Does anyone have any advice on which RV resorts are good ones near Evergreen?

At least PinkCoyote was very truthful -----

-- Your first winter at 7800 ft will be shocking -- and your second and your third ------

We had friends that moved to Evergreen from Houston. The first winter did them in !!! When Denver gets 6", Evergreen gets 16, when Denver has a foot, Evergreen gets 3 feet. If Evergreen is 10 degrees cooler in the summer, it is going to be 15 to 25 degrees cooler in the winter especially with all that snow on the ground. Winter comes early and stays longer. Evergreen, Morrison, even Idaho Springs to a degree are all lovely mountains towns but there are in the mountains and not on the plains. The climate for these areas is substantially different and not sure I could recommended it for someone from S Ark. Maybe you need a winter on the front range before trying a winter in the mountains.

You keep asking about RV parking area. Have no idea. I don't remember seeing any parking areas other than some storage. I am sure they are somewhere but since we are not into RVing, I am not aware of parking areas.