Denver Metro area

[royalfan5]

It appears that I may have some very good career oppurtunites in the Denver area. I was wonder if anyone could share with me some info on quality of life and cost of living in the Denver Metro. TIA

[BajaOklahoma]

Housing is pretty high.

[Skysooner]

If you don't mind a commute, it isn't too bad. The farther you get from the mountains, the better. The winter there is hard just for driving, but they have good equipment. The downtown area is fantastic for restaurants, bars and things to do. Denver has a pretty good mass transit system which helps. It kind of depends on where you are working. If it is downtown, the commute everyday is going to be hard. If it is in the tech center area, it isn't as bad.

[soonerboomer93]

Housing is expensive if you're buying, but you can find apartments with good rent. In all honesty, you have to watch where you live because of how water rights work. You want to make sure you live in a town with some sort of renewable water and not somewhere that pull off the aquafer. There's multimillion dollar homes with no water during peak usage times because of that.

Commutes can be rough, but depending on where you live and work, the light rail can help.

[1stTimeCaller]

I lived in Denver for about 10 months. I lived at 11th & Quebec about 4 blocks from Aurora. I worked in Downtown Denver and my commute was about 15 minutes each way. I loved it. I had a 700sf apartment that wasn't fancy at all and it cost me $680/month. You can rent a dump downtown for about $1000.

The winters there are GREAT. It doesn't snow in Denver very much and when it does the street people do a great job of clearing the streets and the snow melts in about 2 days. Denver has more sunshine days each year than any other American city.

The humidity is low so the cold isn't too cold and the heat isn't too hot. I loved the climate, hated the people. The people there are not very friendly. Your car insurance will go up about $500/year, mine did when I moved there from Missouri. Groceries are a little bit more expensive. Your electric bill will be lower because you won't have to run the AC or heater very much at all.

KingCrimson lives there, his advice is probably much better than mine for housing.

[colleyvillesooner]

I lived in Denver for about 10 months. I lived at 11th & Quebec about 4 blocks from Aurora. I worked in Downtown Denver and my commute was about 15 minutes each way. I loved it. I had a 700sf apartment that wasn't fancy at all and it cost me $680/month. You can rent a dump downtown for about $1000.

The winters there are GREAT. It doesn't snow in Denver very much and when it does the street people do a great job of clearing the streets and the snow melts in about 2 days. Denver has more sunshine days each year than any other American city.

The humidity is low so the cold isn't too cold and the heat isn't too hot. I loved the climate, hated the people. The people there are not very friendly. Your car insurance will go up about $500/year, mine did when I moved there from Missouri. Groceries are a little bit more expensive. Your electric bill will be lower because you won't have to run the AC or heater very much at all.

KingCrimson lives there, his advice is probably much better than mine for housing.

Key there is 1TC doesn't live there anymore. I say go for it :D

[BeetDigger]

Grew up there. Have been trying to get back there for 20 years. Great place to live although the people can be a bit of a pain.

A key, but accurate observation of the place is that people are always bitching about all of the people moving into the area from other places. But when you research a little, a lot of the people who are doing the bitching are the people who moved there within the last five years. Basically, people feel that after 3-5 years, they are "natives" and can complain about the "newcomers" and how they are driving up the prices of homes, taking all of the water, clogging the roads and causing all of the wrecks on the highways during snowstorms (because, you know, those newcomers don't know how to drive on the snow and ice).


PS - don't tell them you are from Nebraska. :D

[Harry Beanbag]

Denver has more sunshine days each year than any other American city.


More than the 325 in Phoenix and Las Vegas?

[Beef]

I lived in Denver for a couple of years and loved everything about it except my family not being there and a lot of the people. Being a :texan:, an OU grad and a smartass didn't help folks attitude towards me. I thought the winters were very tolerable. Like 1TC said, the lack of humidity doesn't make things too bad. I was in my mid 20's when I was there, and I can't think of many more fun places to live being single and that age. Lots to do. Housing is expensive, but coming from Dallas, it wasn't much of a shock. I also lived near downtown, so that didn't help.

[C&CDean]

Denver blows.

The traffic is as bad or worse than any large U.S. city, the people are rude, it's too expensive, and they pour green chile sauce all over everything. There's POS Bronco fans running around everywhere (Bronco fans are the western equivalent of Philadelphia fans - ignorant, uninformed, and bitch and moan after every play that didn't go their way), POS Rockhead fans, and Boulder is right up the road - and we all know what that means.

Stay in Nebraska. You'll be way better off.

My brother lives in Arvada. Soccer mom city.

[1stTimeCaller]

More than the 325 in Phoenix and Las Vegas?

I was wrong. Sorry, I bought into what all the locals in Denver told me. Denver has 'more than 300' sunshine days per year.

[1stTimeCaller]

One thing about Coloradoites that I liked is that they absolutly loathe Texans.

Like Beet Digger said, nobody that lives in Denver is from Denver.

The women are hit or miss they are either 1s or 2s or 7s and above. They seem to have an aversion to any makeup whatsoever on their faces which can be a good and bad thing.

[royalfan5]

I'm not worried about the winter's. I'm from Nebraska. We have winter here, I'm used to it. Both places that are interested in me, are out in the suburbs so I likely wouldn't live towards downtown anyway. Anyway, I appreciate the input.

[1stTimeCaller]

which suburbs? That's pretty important.

[BeetDigger]

Anyway, I appreciate the input.

That's what she said. :mack:

[royalfan5]

which suburbs? That's pretty important.
Centennial or Greenwood Village

[BlondeSoonerGirl]

Denver blows.

The traffic is as bad or worse than any large U.S. city, the people are rude, it's too expensive, and they pour green chile sauce all over everything. There's POS Bronco fans running around everywhere (Bronco fans are the western equivalent of Philadelphia fans - ignorant, uninformed, and bitch and moan after every play that didn't go their way), POS Rockhead fans, and Boulder is right up the road - and we all know what that means.

Stay in Nebraska. You'll be way better off.

My brother lives in Arvada. Soccer mom city.

Word...except not so mean-sounding and stuff. :dean:

[OU Adonis]

Man, it really is pretty damn cheap to live in OKC.