I was running the numbers on a house in Parker with a client last week, comparing it against a similar listing in Highlands Ranch, and she stopped me when I mentioned E-470. "Wait, how much is that actually costing me?" She'd budgeted the mortgage, the HOA, even the higher property tax. The toll road she'd be crossing twice a day never made the spreadsheet. She's not unusual. Most buyers treat E-470 as...
I had two buyers under contract within a few weeks of each other this spring. Both homes appraised within about fifteen thousand dollars of each other. One was a resale in Highlands Ranch, the other a newer build in Castle Rock still finishing out its street. When their lenders ran the final numbers, the estimated annual tax bills came out well over a thousand dollars apart, on homes that were nearly...
Almost every buyer I work with says some version of the same thing early on: "we want to be close to Denver." It's a completely reasonable starting point, and it's also not specific enough to actually plan around. Close to Denver for a job at the Denver Tech Center is a different commute than close to Denver for a job downtown, and the neighborhoods that win on one can lose on the other. I've watched...
A buyer called me last spring, genuinely thrilled. She had just gone under contract in the Pinery, and she wanted to know how fast the Town of Parker usually turns around a deck permit. The Town of Parker was never going to see that permit. Her house had a Parker mailing address and a Parker ZIP code, and it sat entirely outside Parker town limits, in unincorporated Douglas County. I have that...
I get a version of the same question from almost every buyer who's looking seriously at Castle Rock: is the water actually going to be there in twenty years? It's a fair thing to wonder about a town that's growing as fast as this one is. So let's go through what's actually happening, not the rumor-mill version. The Math Behind Castle Rock's Water Situation Castle Rock Water currently serves around 90,000...
If you've been touring homes in Highlands Ranch, you've probably noticed something that doesn't quite add up. One listing shows an HOA fee, another mentions something called HRCA, and a title company disclosure might reference a third charge you've never heard of. It's not a mistake. Highlands Ranch runs on three separate fee layers, and knowing which one pays for what can save you from a confusing...
Two of my clients this month were weighing the exact same decision: build new in Sterling Ranch, near Highlands Ranch, or in Painted Prairie, out toward Aurora. They're the two biggest new-construction communities in their part of the metro, and both have long waitlists on their most popular floor plans. Each sales office will hand you a glossy binder that makes its community sound like the obvious choice....
Quick answer: Three Parker communities are still selling new homes: Anthology North (Century Communities, from the high $400,000s), Trails at Crowfoot (five builders, median sale around $695,000 over the past 12 months, funded by a metro district rather than a regular HOA) and Pradera (golf-course community, $800,000 and up, club membership optional). Compare the HOA or metro district cost per lot, not...
A couple I worked with in Parker last fall picked their subdivision partly because they assumed it fed into a specific elementary school, the one two blocks from the model home. It didn't. The attendance boundary ran down the middle of their street, and the school they were actually assigned to was a fifteen-minute drive away. That mix-up is more common than most buyers expect, and it is one of the easiest...
Something I notice almost every week: buyers say they want to move to "Parker" or "Castle Rock" when what they really mean is Douglas County, and they have not looked at the county as a whole yet. That is fair. The county is big, the towns blur together at the edges, and nobody hands you a map when you start looking.Here is what actually makes up Douglas County, what it costs to buy here right now, and the...
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