Considering a move to the Boulder area. Need some help with areas/schools. (Denver: apartments)

[bluekauaigirl]

Hi everyone!

I have been reading this forum and searching the web, yet I still have some questions I'm hoping someone out there can help me answer.

The hubs and I are considering moving our family out to the Boulder area. We have visited on vacation, but spent no appreciable time in the area. We are originally from Ann Arbor, MI (both U-M grads) and our understanding is that Boulder and A2 are very similar in many regards. The lifestyle offered in Boulder (outdoor activities, liberal leanings, college town, healthy living) is exactly what we are looking for.

We are moving from Northern Wisconsin with our three girls (ages 10, 6 and 6). My husband thinks that, if we're going, we need to "do it the right way" and live in Boulder proper. I'm not sure that agrees with our budget given our family size. We would be looking to rent for awhile, but hope to buy eventually. Rent would need to be in the up-to-$2000/month range. Purchase would need to be under $400K. Is this at all realistic? It doesn't really seem to be from what I'm seeing online, but it's hard to say when you're looking from a thousand miles away.

Also, how do the schools work there? My kids go to a public Core Knowledge charter school here that is *very* comparable to Peak To Peak. I understand getting into that school is virtually impossible, but I'm wondering if every school requires an application? I don't see a lot of "neighborhood" schools. It seems like every school site I click on from the Boulder Valley School website requires an application. I know this sounds ludicrous, but do the neighborhoods have schools or does the "open enrollment" policy mean kids go wherever they choose, rendering "neighborhood schools" obsolete?

Finally, for those who live or have lived in Boulder proper, do you think that Boulder is the only place to be? Are the advantages to living in town such that it justifies the additional cost-of-living expenses? When we were in Ann Arbor, we lived in one of the cheaper neighboring towns. It was maybe a 10 minute drive into A2 and we could even bike into downtown if we felt like getting some exercise. We found we could still enjoy everything A2 has to offer without paying the much more expense price to live there. I guess what I'm trying to ask is, can we only really appreciate the Boulder lifestyle if we live IN Boulder?

I might be able to sell him on one of the other towns if I could convince him that access to Boulder would be easy. I know there are tons of bike paths, etc. Do any of these run from other towns to Boulder?

My husband travels a ton for business, so he is allowed to work from home when he's not traveling. This means we can live anywhere in the world we choose to live. He will not need to commute anywhere daily, but will need to head out to the airport with some frequency (looks like the Denver Airport is about an hour away?).

I am really sorry for all of the questions, but I can't seem to figure out the answers to these questions and we need to make a decision this week. Any help would be most appreciated.

Thank you,
Sherri

[Bradburn1]

I'm afraid your budget for housing will not go far in Boulder proper. Right now there are only 2 listings for homes in the 380,000-400,000 range, one is a condo of those two. Boulder is surrounded by pretty landscapes and has a great downtown, but is very expensive, and has terrible traffic. You can get all the things you are interested in right outside Boulder in Superior, Louisville, Broomfield or Westminster with much more affordable housing and still good schools. You can still get to Boulder from those areas in 10-20 minutes.

I like Boulder a lot but wouldn't live there because I can get all the things I like about it (including being able to walk to many restaurants and shops) and still afford a decent sized single family home. I live in Westminster.

[xeric]

Interesting question. IMO the answer to whether you need to live in Bouder proper is yes but only if you are in central Boulder. If you move out to south or east Boulder then I'd say you might as well pick an outlying community. This may appear to be snobbish but it really isn't (after all, I no longer live anywhere near central Boulder). But central Boulder will provide a walkable lifestyle that will be better then what you can get in any other smaller cities in the U.S. (that I know of at least). Not only will you have walking access to multiple dining, and entertainment options, but you'll have easy walking access to the Boulder mountain parks. I used to hike from my various central Boulder apartments to Green Mountain (at 8200 feet) - 3 hours up, 1 1/2 hours down. Downtown Boulder is only a half mile to the nearest trailhead. The tradeoff is that you'll most likely have to settle for a townhouse or condo rather than a house. So it's really a question of priorities.

[OhioToCO]

Originally Posted by xeric

Interesting question. IMO the answer to whether you need to live in Bouder proper is yes but only if you are in central Boulder. If you move out to south or east Boulder then I'd say you might as well pick an outlying community. This may appear to be snobbish but it really isn't (after all, I no longer live anywhere near central Boulder). But central Boulder will provide a walkable lifestyle that will be better then what you can get in any other smaller cities in the U.S. (that I know of at least). Not only will you have walking access to multiple dining, and entertainment options, but you'll have easy walking access to the Boulder mountain parks. I used to hike from my various central Boulder apartments to Green Mountain (at 8200 feet) - 3 hours up, 1 1/2 hours down. Downtown Boulder is only a half mile to the nearest trailhead. The tradeoff is that you'll most likely have to settle for a townhouse or condo rather than a house. So it's really a question of priorities.

Disagree about South Boulder, and about East Boulder, to a degree. It depends on where you need to walk to . You can definitely hike to a lot of trails from anywhere in South Boulder.

[OhioToCO]

I've been to Ann Arbor many times, having lived only an hour away. You are correct in your assessment of Boulder being similar to AA. I like Boulder a bit more

We relocated 2 years ago and had a budget very similar to yours. We ended up renting for a little over a year for $1650 (the family in our formal rental now pays $1800), and when we were on a market for a house our cap was $400K. Well, unfortunately, with this budget, there is nothing decent in Boulder proper. Last summer you could get a half-decent townhome in South Boulder for just under $400K, with 1 car garage and three bedrooms on three levels. Lots of hiking trails right off your backyard though. (And biking too). This year's housing market is crazy, not sure if it will ever go down, but if you moved right now - no, you can't own a fit-for-a-family-of-5 anything under $400K in Boulder proper. Unless you can live in a 2-bedroom condo, but with 3 kids I doubt it. We ended up in Boulder county - I drive a lot to town, where most of my kids' activities are, and hate it, but I have to be reasonable with what we can and can't afford. We chose county vs Louisville or other Boulder county town because we wanted to be zoned for specific schools, not open enroll and not have to drive kids to school, on top of everything else.

Which brings me to your question about neighborhood schools. Of course, every house has a neighborhood school it is assigned to. I find this very helpful: School Finder

Also this (map for elementaries, there are also similar pages for Middle and High schools): Elementary School Web Boundary Map

[xeric]

Originally Posted by OhioToCO

Disagree about South Boulder, and about East Boulder, to a degree. It depends on where you need to walk to . You can definitely hike to a lot of trails from anywhere in South Boulder.

That's true - I probably overstated that. To me living in Boulder was all about being able to easily walk to the places that I was most interested in (the downtown Mall, CU, Chatataqua Park) so I had some fairly strict standards about where I would live. Lots of people are quite happy to reside in south and east Boulder.