We Bought a House in Denver!
It finally happened
I have been anticipating this moment for at least 14 years. For some reason, I’ve always been super eager to buy a home. I think I knew from a very young age that it was a good investment. Something you could live in and earn money on? Genius.
Buying a home wasn’t super practical when I was living in Los Angeles. I never felt settled there and prices were out of my range at the time. When I moved to Denver and met Lockie, buying a home was a lot more feasible due to the market and dual-income.
It wasn’t easy…
But it wasn’t that easy. Lockie and I started *seriously* looking for a home in August of 2018. It is now October 2019. It took us a full 14 months to find the right home in Denver. We really knew what we wanted, we just couldn’t find it. And our budget kept going up and down. We could afford more than we wanted to spend, which was a tough thing to grapple with. Knowing we could get something better but deciding we didn’t want to do that right now.
We were really set on living on the west side of Denver in Berkeley, just north of where we lived in Sloans Lake. To us, Berkeley had everything. It boasts charming local shops on Tennyson Street, walking distance to two parks and lakes, and easy access to i70 for commuting. Well, it turns out that particular area is just a little too expensive for us right now. But it took us a long time to figure that out. Each week, we kept hoping new houses in our price range would pop up on the market… and they didn’t.
Another obstacle was the homes that were on the market. We wanted something modern and new which is few and far between in an area full of funky 1910 bungalows. A major sticking point was having a basement. It is common in Denver to have a basement but not for new homes. We really want that space to be able to comfortably accommodate long term guests. Both Lockie and I don’t have family in Colorado so we want a spacious place for guests to stay.
Where we ended up
We ended up buying a house on the opposite side of town on the border of South Stapleton and Park Hill. It has everything we were looking for! …except it’s not modern and it’s not in the location we desired. Turns out you can’t get everything you want. But it has many other perks that we are excited about!
- It’s a corner lot
- It has 5 bedrooms
- We really like the layout of the house
- Lower price point means we can afford to make customizations
- Near a large park
- Walking distance to Stapleton Town Center with gyms and restaurants
- Access to the coveted Stapleton pools!
- Walking distance to the grocery store
- And a basement with TWO bedrooms!
We are super stoked to have funds left over to be able to remodel the interior of the home to make it more modern and style it how we want. (A LOT more to come on that!)
Is this our forever home? Probably not. However, I did just hear on the radio that South Park Hill is the most desirable place to live in Denver. So I’m hopeful that we are going to like it on the east side more than we know.