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Introduction to Denver Move

[0:00] If moving to Denver is potentially in the cards for you, you've probably wondered what it's like to move to the foothills just outside of Denver where it's still close enough to make it practical. And you know, the foothills might be exactly what you're looking for. And that's what we're talking about today. And by the end of this video, you're going to know if living in the foothills outside of Denver is actually the best move that you could possibly make or if it just sounds better on Instagram than it does in real life. You know, I've helped hundreds of people relocate here to the Denver area and make this move. And over the years, I found that there's a very specific type of person that can make it in the foothills of the mountains. So, today we're going to break down the lifestyle, the pros, the cons, uh the trade-offs that they're going to have to make, the commute realities, the weather, and what you can actually expect from real estate. First of all, who are the foothills made for, right? What type of people end up moving there? Well, the end up moving there aren't chasing nightife. You know, they're chasing more of the peace and quiet. They want space.

Denver Lifestyle & Community

[0:53] uh you're chasing mornings instead of nights, you know, where you look out and you see a sunrise and you see trees instead of rooftops. The areas here that we're about to go over tend to attract more uh entrepreneurs, more work from home people, um people that value the nature and don't mind trading it in a little bit for a longer commute to get to Target or to go pick up a pizza, right? The lifestyle is going to be a bit slower. It's, you know, going to be surrounded by hiking trails, wildlife, winding roads, and views that are very different every single season. You're going to see elk right in your yard.

[1:28] You're going to shovel more snow than your friends in the city, and you'll probably learn what a well and a septic system are pretty quickly. Uh, living in the foothills means that your daily kind of life changes. You know, everything is quite a bit different. You're not running to the grocery store to go pick up sugar. You're going to knock on your neighbor's door. Um, grocery runs take planning. you know, winter driving becomes more of a skill. Internet speeds can vary, you know, greatly depending on where you are, but in return, you get something that many people only dream of. You know, most people who move here are thinking a little bit more long-term. Most people here want land.

[2:03] They want the views. They want a home that feels like a retreat, you know, not just a place to sleep between work days. And honestly, the people who love it here absolutely love it and wouldn't have life any other way. with the people who move here without understanding what it really means. Don't last very long. So now before we get into some of this, if you are debating on whether or not Denver or the foothills, all that is right for you, just feel free to call me, text me, ask me whatever questions you have. I'd be happy to talk with you about it. I love our great city and I love talking with people who are thinking about making the move here. Um, and if you're not ready just quite yet, download my relocation buyer guide. It's going to answer so many questions without having to talk to anybody. All right, starting with what do we actually mean by the foothills around Denver? And you know, there's a little bit of variance here, but basically all the way up from western side of Boulder all the way down through Route 6 and I7 here down into Evergreen and further down uh south towards Sadalia area. And we're going to look at this a few different ways because these this doesn't look like it's too far on a map cuz Denver is not that big of a city. I mean, to get from the northwestern side, let's say to Lewisville, all the way down to where I live on the southern part of Denver here, even with traffic, is about a 40minute drive. Like, it's not a huge city. Um, yes, we're 4 million people big in the entire metro area, but you know, it it's just not that big of a city. We are not Chicago, LA, New York, uh, Miami. We are not those sizes, right? Dallas, it's just not us. So, when you look at this map, you're like, "Oh, these areas aren't actually that far apart from each other." And you would be wrong. The roads here are windy. If you've ever driven Route One or 101, whatever it is on California on the coast, whoever's idea that was was just dumb. Uh, I made it about four hours before I was making myself carick.

Mountain Area Geography

[3:45] And it's not that extreme. Some of the neighborhood roads are, but even the main highways here, like you might be going 60 m hour max. Um, so to get from like this Netherland area all the way down to Sadalia through these mountain roads might take you a solid hour, 15, hour and a half to get to with zero traffic. Uh, nothing here is a straight shot. So, I broke this down and we're going to look at in a few different sections, right? West of Boulder here towards the Netherland because this is going to be a hub. And the only hub, the only reason why any of these areas are hubs is because this is where a grocery store is. Okay, Netherland, that's one of your hubs. No other hubs around here.

[4:21] Blackhawk, eh, not really a hub. Just kind of casinos. Um then you've got uh pretty much evergreen here which is a hub and a little bit of Aspen Park and Conifer area because you do have grocery store and then you know we're not even going to bother with anything down south much. Uh we'll look at some of the real estate down there but you don't have a hub here. You've got you know Sidalia is not a town doesn't have a stoplight or anything. So you're coming all the way to Littleton or over to Castle Rock uh for you anything anything at all. Right.

[4:51] So, starting up north, um, if you were to look, you know, starting at up to about 750,000, right? Cuz this is going to be a big determining factor of where might work for you. Uh, and so starting up to 750, we've got a handful of options here. But these are not going to be amazing houses. These are going to be, you know, something that you're just paying here to be for the lifestyle. 1300 ft². And of course, they show the view. Why? Because that's the best part of the house. Um, this actually isn't bad for where this is. I'm surprised at this price. Inside that carpet is a beautiful color. Um, you know, it's this is better maintained than I would have honestly guessed, right? And nothing against the seller or the listing agent like, but this is in the middle of nowhere. Um, and you're going to kind of have this funky log cabinish mountain property sort of vibe to it. Mountain properties are different. You got to be ready to get out there and have snow against one side of your house for six months out of the year, right? and it's just going to rot away the boards. The UV light up here destroys decks. It destroys paint jobs. You got to repaint your house every few years. Not a joke here, people. Like, maintaining a mountain property is not an easy thing to do. Driveways get washed out. You know, um most driveways are not going to be concrete or asphalt. They're going to be gravel and you're going to get big old ruts in them. And to get in and out of your driveway, you might need four-wheel drive or studded snow tires, right? Totally possible. Now, that property we just looked at, you know, it doesn't look that far out of town, but I promise you from Netherland to get there is about a 20 to 25 minute drive. Okay, that's a reality here. Um, as we get more in Netherland proper, this is a neighborhood just north of the reservoir, it's a nice neighborhood, you know, and this thing at 750,000. That was 4,100 square ft, but man, this is weird. Um, inside doesn't look too bad.

Netherland & Northern Areas

[6:39] So, for 750, I'm really wondering what's wrong with it. Someone took pictures with their phone and resized them. These are bad. Um, so this thing's going to need a lot of work. Just assume. And this is what I mean with driveway. Like that driveway doesn't look too steep on these pictures, but I promise you with a nice layer of snow down there, you you you're sliding halfway down the hill. U just to get out of your driveway. Uh, and so that one's been on for about seven, eight months now and not moving.

[7:03] So there's something else going on with it. You can be in Netherland proper. You know, you got this at 450. Need I say more? But you're in Netherland and it's a cool town. I used to live in Netherland. It was fun, man. Um, everything's close. You can walk, if you're in town, you can walk to the grocery store, walk to the bars. It's cool little place. Uh, as you head further south here, you got Cole Creek Canyon, which this is the western side of Arvvada. So, most likely you're either going up to Ned or if you work down in town, you know, you're going to be stopping at a grocery store in Arvvada. But this stretch here, so from the western side at 93, which is the route that goes up from Boulder down to Golden, from that intersection up to Netherland is a solid 30 minutes, okay?

[7:44] Like this is a windy road. You know, it can be treacherous in the winter. It can get closed down in the winter um depending on what the snow is like, you know, but you get a couple of options in the canyon here. Uh again, they're going to kind of be funky, but you know, it is what it is. 585 gets you a home, but expect a lot of work just to keep up on these things. Um, it is what it is, ladies and gentlemen. All right, going on here. As we work a little bit further south towards Blackhawk, we get like Rollinsville area. I lived there too for a while. You get a few little pockets of these homes here um that feel kind of like neighborhoods, you know, and this is actually nice looking house, you know, in the 700s here. Uh, but the the reason why they're in the 700s where that doesn't get you anything down to Denver proper is because you're close to nothing, right? You got to really want to live here to pay 700,000 for that house, work from home, or be okay with having a, you know, 30 to 45 minute commute down into town. Central City and Blackhawk, you know, they've got some newer stuff. There's a lot of casinos there now. And so they've done some building here, you know, for people that work there because sometimes, you know, accessibility could be really hard. So, there are a few options there, but again, you're not going to really feel like you're in the mountains in Blackhawk. And then as you get further south into Evergreen, Evergreen is probably one of the bigger areas uh that you'll hear about living in the foothills because you actually have a Target here. Um I don't know if you have a Walmart here. You might. Uh but you've got a lot of shopping, a lot of restaurants, you know, and most of these neighborhoods, that's going to be your hub is in Evergreen here. Now, this is the new part of Evergreen, right off the highway here. You got a lot of shopping and then you've got kind of old Evergreen here which is just another cool part of town. There's Evergreen Lake. Great for going ice skating on if it would ever freeze. Uh and I joke because this year has just been really warm. But in Evergreen again, you're going to have mountain sort of properties, especially under 750,000, but they're going to be in the trees, lots of cabin sort of feels. Um again, you got to want to be here, you know, to to to want to you just got to want to be here. As you go further south, you got some stuff in Conifer in Aspen Park area. You know, seven and a quarter. It starts to get you a little bit more into the southern belt, you know, more like a real home. It's going to be a mountain, total mountain property. Um, but it's going to be decently sized at least, you know, this one at 1,800 square ft. Um, so it is doable for most people. And in the 700s, that's that's about it, right?

Blackhawk & Central Foothills

[10:09] In this zone from about 750 to 1.2, you're going to get a few more options. Again, you've got the canyons just outside of Boulder. But Boulder for some of these places like Sugarloaf here, you know, there Magnolia on the other side of 119, which is the route to go for Boulder up to Netherland, um, and get up to Eldora, the ski hill, which is right over here. Um, you know, there's going to be a few options here, but again, accessibility could be really, really hard on some of these properties here.

[10:36] This thing looks like it's right off the highway, right? It looks like it's right next to 119, but the route to get to 119, you got to go all the way up and over to Hurricane Hill, almost all the way up to Dudland. So, even though this thing looks like it's really accessible, it's still a 30 plus minute drive down to Boulder. But again, in this price range now, you start to get real homes. You know, this is a threetory on a hillside. Uh I don't know how many square feet. I'm going to guess somewhere around 3,000. Yeah, 3500 ft².

[11:05] uh mountain properties still you're going to have a lot of maintenance here. You're not going to find a ton of new builds in this price range here. It's just too expensive to build is just the reality of it. In Netherland proper, you know, we're going to have a few more options here. Um you know, something like this at 1.05 built into the hillside, half of an acre, and you've got the driveway right up top and then you got this funky walk down. So, health issues, right? or if you have health issues, mobility issues, I'm I would not say that the Foothills is a proper place to be. I just wouldn't. As we work further south, Evergreen, you're going to start to have quite a few options here, right? Uh this is kind of a breadandbut price range for the Evergreen area. You know, 1.075, you're going to get a beautiful home.

Evergreen & Southern Foothills

[11:49] Maybe not updated to the nines, but it's still going to be wellmaintained. Uh Evergreen tends to have a little bit of an older population, and so they just tend to take care of their homes more. A lot of these, you know, once people live here, right, you do get some high turnover of people thinking they can do the foothills and then, you know, within a year or two they're selling it off cuz they just didn't realize how much work it was going to be. They didn't realize like getting home means you're home. You forget something at the store. That sucks. Do without. Um, that conversation happens all the time. text your neighbor, go find out, you know, if they've got more sugar that you need or whatever some, you know, that's just how it is. Uh, as you go further south, you start to get out of more of Evergreen proper and still there's just tons of homes in these areas. Like this this part of town, even though it doesn't look like you have neighbors, like there's there's lots of people who live in here. There's tens of thousands of people that live just in the map that I'm showing you right now. Um, and as you get further south, again, not much.

[12:49] We got one poking up and this is kind of Oh, this is this house. This thing is built on a cliff side. Um, super funky property and that's your walk from the driveway up to the house. Like you're not parking at the house, you know, for for a lot of these for a lot of these properties. You kind of build with what nature gives you the ability to build. Um, and that's it is what it is. So, above 1.5 million, you know, again, quite a few options.

Boulder County Properties

[13:18] These are more um Boulder types of homes. Look at this. $14 million outside of Boulder. Go figure. $8,500 square ft. Looks like there's multiple lots there potentially. Um oh, conservation easements around it. Oh, that's right by the Passo Wild Wildlife Preserve. A Great Mount Trail here, uh for whatever it's worth. But this is still a 15-minute drive to Boulder. And this looks like a small compound. It's actually a pool up here. You guys are crazy. Uh those are so hard to maintain even in town here. All right, so coming back down to earth, you know, north of that 1.5 million about 3.2. Now, you got to realize this is outside of Boulder, so that's going to be your hub in any of these parts. You going to have a newer built property. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to have, you know, an incredible kitchen bath. This is going to be more of your retreat feeling style of home. Uh lots of great architects, you know, put stamps on their properties out here because they're really proud of them because Boulder does attract, you know, people who are able to pay um all the way up to the Netherland area. As you go further south, you know, along this I70 stretch, this is attracting more of the money that, you know, needs to be in Denver proper, uh you know, at least a few days a week. And so, Evergreen is going to have a lot in that 2 to3 million range.

[14:33] And they're going to be real homes. you know, they're going to be they're going to have views. They're going to have your tall ceilings, your large kitchens, four, five, six thousand square feet. Amazing properties, right? Uh it's going to be hard to complain about most of these, but again, you really got to look at the neighborhoods to know depending on how windy that road is going to get and how long it actually takes you to get to the next main throughway, you know, road to to to actually get anywhere. you know, if it's a 10-minute drive just to get to the main route to then get into town, you know, that might still be too much for you. But to each their own in the mountains, like you're going to find what you like and what your tolerances are. And sometimes that's as much as 2 minutes for some people. I've been through this so many times or it's the type of road because in the winter, you know, you know, like, hey, if I invite anybody over and they don't have four-wheel drive, they're not going to be able to make it up the road.

[15:24] These are all very real concerns that you have to look at when you know choosing a mountain property. As we go further south here, you know, this Indian Hills section, this is really close to town. I mean, Indian Hills and Homestead 10 minutes before you're in the western side of Littleton over there. Uh, so it's really convenient. So, you get a lot of people who want to live in this part of town knowing that their hub is going to be down in Denver.

[15:49] And again, the there's going to be beautiful properties out here. You're going to have a lot of ranches over here. Goodiz land. Uh just just, you know, it's hard again to complain. Um but you are going to have more snow, you know, and weather out here. You're going to have a lot of ranches, you know, horses. Like I don't know, guys. Like there's a lot to explore in the foothills outside of Denver. And it takes a little bit to, you know, to to really dial it in and figure it out. So other things to consider, right? What are more of the upsides? uh your lifestyle. You know, working from home is getting a lot easier, too. Uh especially with Starlink and more internet providers, you know, being available for the foothills, you're not going to have generally many problems here. Uh if you are a homebody, you like to stay at home, great. Like, you couldn't ask for anything better.

[16:38] Mountain views, city views, all going to be options from a lot of the foothills. Depending on where you are, it might be quicker to get to skiing. But in this front range part, there's, you know, there's not much other than in Netherland, there's Aldora there, but it's a small resort. I think there's six lifts total. Um, so it'll get you there, but the Front Range has a different weather system than Summit County and on the other side of the Continental Divide. We get UPS slopes that create most of our bigger storms. They just get big storms all the time because they're higher and they're further west. And then the continental divide happens.

Weather & Seasonal Considerations

[17:09] Things shake up and lots of stuff changes as it gets over the hill. It's not too uncommon on I7 going east to west for it to be sunny and nice and beautiful on one side uh 40° and on the other side it'd be a white out blizzard. Can't tell you how many times I've run into that in my life. Going through the tunnel think you're going 65 70 mph and then brick wall traffic and that downhill slope into Silverthorn area uh can be a little bit treacherous at times. So, we get different weather patterns up here on the front range. And this year in 2026, it's been dismal for the amount of snow that we've gotten.

[17:41] But things to look at on the properties here on continuing on the downsides is which direction you're facing, how long snow is going to be there. If you have a north facing driveway, going to be a pain in the butt, right? Look at how steep that driveway is. And you're most likely going to be looking in the summer months uh or late spring months where there's not going to be much snow, but realize that that is shortlived. Your winter up here is a good month or two longer than it is down here in the Denver area. Keep that in mind. Now, things like schools are going to be a little bit more challenging. You know, taking kids to school, most people are driving their kids. Bus system is not going to be great. Uh cell phone reception up here, too, can be real hit or miss even in today's age. You know, a lot of times we go to home and we have to hop on the Wi-Fi to, you know, make calls or text messages or stuff like that. So, just things to really consider when it comes to living in the mountains. that I would highly suggest if you're here and you're shopping to not only look at places in the summer, but to get here the season before and actually make a drive through these neighborhoods in the winter to really get a feel with snowpacked roads and you know how how it goes because if you have one, you know, family member that just cannot deal with the winter roads, like it's going to be a real painful process for them to go through. Now, with all that being said, the foothills outside of Denver are one of the best places you could absolutely live. Lifestyle, uh, the views, the health, it's just so high for so many reasons, and you can still get a real home for around the million-doll mark and enjoy everything that Colorado has to offer. Now, if you haven't spent a lot of time in Denver, Colorado, there's a ton of misconceptions out here, which is why I put together this video to kind of help answer a lot of the things that you hear about not being from Here.