Moving to Colorado?

[BdaGhisallo]

To all those fortunate to live out west:


I have always been intrigued by the American West and after having visited Colorado and New Mexico two years ago I loved it. I live in Bermuda, and have done all my life except for four years of university in Ontario. I am a bit disenchanted with the island at the moment - growing crime, general lack of respect and courtesy towards others among the people here, overcrowding and a slight decline in the quality of life here.

I have been dreaming of leaving Bermuda and moving to Colorado. What I am wondering is which place might be great to live in. I know Boulder is lovely but is a touch lefty for me and a bit pricey in terms of real estate if my guess is correct. Colorado springs seemed nice. What other areas are nice? What of southern colorado? What are house prices like for three bedroom places in good towns and neighbourhoods? What are the taxes like? I don't need to be in a huge city, but don't want to be really isolated in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere either.

I do have US citizenship so immigration issues would not be an issue, though I wonder about my wife. Would she automatically get a green card as my spouse?

Questions and more questions. Any and all feedback is appreciated. I know my questions are quite general but thanks for any help.

[Smiley]

Yes on the green card thing , it may take some time to process , you should start this process now and not wait till you get stateside . as far as colorado is concerned my concern would be what type of work you do and does colorado offer this type of employment that you'd like . Are you sure you want to trade warm weather for cold although colorado is not as cold as it gets . Why not go to montana and work with Kirk

[mtflycaster]

Durango, CO
Santa Fe, NM
Bozeman, MT

[Bill Bove]

I'm with you Bda, I love the southwest. Boulder is getting crowded and expensive. Most of the rest of Colorado has this thing you may have heard stories about, winter. Winter SUCKS. Even more so if you're used to Bermuda. I'd go to either New Mexico or Arizona. Alba-howeveryouspellit or Santa Fe are nice. Flagstaff and the Sedona area of Az are also very nice. Tuscon is great if you can deal with the summer heat. Go to Flagstaff, great road and mountain biking, livable winter, georgous scenery, nice people.

[Russ]

Originally Posted by BdaGhisallo

....I do have US citizenship.... so immigration issues would not be an issue... though I wonder about my wife. Would she automatically get a green card as my spouse?

Hi BDA,

Speaking on my own experience, yes, you would be able to get a green card for your wife, but don't expect everything would be a walk-in-the-park. You will be dealing with the government and you are not in the US now. My suggestion is that you start checking the INS web site at: http://uscis.gov/graphics/index.htm and be prepared to deal with red tape and bureaucracy.

On the bright side, I will say that I did everything on my own, and I did not have to spend one penny on attorneys.

The other issue is your job. If you have the flexibility to move anywhere you want without worrying about work, then great! I lived in Colorado (Boulder) for 6 years and I think the salaries are much lower than other parts of the country even though the cost of living is as high as many top metropolitan areas.

Good luck!

[Fixed]

Bro after awhile you are going to miss the water if lived there your whole life take a look at the north west coast. good luck.Cheers

I'm with Fixed. I left living near the water for my hwole life and though I like where I am, I miss the Salt smell of the Ocean in the cool summer evenings.

If you and your wife are young and have no kids, or old and they've left home, the worst that can happen is you move again in 2 or 3 years. Why not try it?

[KirkKaas]

Last fall I purchased a used (2002) I think Ottrott. I love this bike. It is currently polished ti with clear carbon. I would like to have this bike painted, I actually have a gap in my life now where I am unable to ride for at least 6 weeks. Does anyone have any experience with the process. Can the clear coated carbon tubes be painted? Thanks for your help. I am new to the forum but have enjoyed reading the posts here.

Thanks
Kirk

Colorado and the other places mentioned are great and everything but don't expect a lower crime rate, more respect, and those other intangibles you're looking for.

[BdaGhisallo]

We are young and without children. At this point I haven't given much thought to what I might do work-wise. I work for the big bank here as treasury dealer. I don't imagine there's much need for one of them out there, though. The way I envisage it, I would have enough of a nest egg when I leave to buy a house outright with no debt. I figure I could get a nice house for 250-300K if I am not too mistaken. House prices here in Bda are ridiculous. A starter family house is running about $1.1 mio USD here. I have a good amount of equity in my house so I should be able to establish myself fairly well. I don't know what I would do for work though. But owning my home outright, I don't imagine I would need a huge income to live a comfortable life. I am a simple guy with only one vice, and that is the bike. I live quite cheaply otherwise - I could eat at Subway most days of the week and be completely satisfied!!!

As some of you say, I might miss the water but I don't think too much. When I was in Ontario, apart from the ultra cold winters and the loneliness being away from family and close friends, I didn't really mind it. My wife is from Toronto and we go up there quite a bit and I really like it. If it weren't for those brutal winters and the ridiculous taxes and overwhelming socialism, I would give it a go there.

I could handle a little winter but nothing too severe. I gather that parts of southern Co can be benign. Am I right in thinking this?

At this point it is only a thought and a dream but I am enjoying thinking about it. It's a great form of escapism!

Thanks for all the feedback so far, and that to come.

[Ken Robb]

I spent a week in Colorado Springs in July and found the old downtown area charming as was Colorado City. Nice riding on and off pavement.

My old college roommate is from Pueblo, CO. and we visited him there. It is a smaller town with very reasonable home prices. I saw a nice 1700 sq. foot new home for under $200,000. We visited Pueblo Country Club which was lovely and having a membership drive: Full membership(golf, tennis, swimming was about $100 initiation and $200 a month. I'm not old enough yet for golf but La Jolla CC is $175,000 to join and $550 month so you can understand how impressed I was with Pueblo. The town is having a renaissance of the downtown and river side areanthat could bode well for real estate values.

[gdw]

Look into the southern part of the state or the western slope. $250-300,000 isn't going to get you much in the Denver/Boulder area. Grand Junction, Gunnison, and Durango are really nice communities.

[Tailwinds]

Grand Junction!

Hey, I live in Denver now. PM me if you wanna talk about Denver. We might end up in GJ in a couple of yrs., but Denver's pretty cool if you don't mind some traffic... over 650 miles of paved bike paths and lots of great roads to ride. In general, motorists are pretty respectful compared to other places I've been (FL, TX, NC). The winters aren't nearly as bad as people from out-of-state imagine. It's a lot sunnier here than FL, btw. Home prices seem high to me, but I know it's reasonable when you look at the national average. Only thing missing here is a large body of water!

I've lived in Denver (actually the foothills just to the west) for 29 years. My suggestion is that you take a look at Loveland, about an hour north of Denver and just south of Ft. Collins. My daughter and her husband live there and the more I see of it the more I like it. Easy access to the mountains and Rocky Mtn National Park, inexpensive housing, and clean air. Proximity to Ft. Collins, a college down, is also a bonus.

Don't be misled about Colorado winters. Yes, our winters might be characterized as mild, but only because the sun shines a lot and when it comes out it feels considerably warmer than it is. It is possible--if you pick your days--to play golf year round, provided that playing golf on a day when the temperature is 38 but it feels more like 50 appeals to you. But we definately have winter and a foot or two of snow is by no means uncommon. I don't think there is much of a difference between southern and northern Colorado in that respect, but having never lived in southern Colorado I could be wrong. I have, however, been in Santa Fe in November and it was cold. That's just part of living at altitude, where you take warm clothes (and I'm talking fleece, gloves, stocking cap, etc.) in your pack when you are camping high, even in August. If winter doesn't appeal to you, I suggest you look much further south, like Phoenix (of course, you'll melt in the summer, but heh), or further west like Las Vegas (which is much lower than Colorado and supposedly not that bad a place to live if you stay away from the strip--or so I'm told). Hope that helps.

[flydhest]

echo on the Greencard. Being married to a citizen automatically gives you the right to apply for a greencard, but not the greencard itself. The bureaucracy and wait time vary enormously from processing center to processing center. In Arlington, VA--the center for Washington, DC--the wait is upwards of a year and a half to two years. In Baltimore, MD, it has recently been more like 4 months.

There are financial services firms in and around Denver. If you are interested in working in roughly the same field, you could make a comfortable living.

The west is beautiful.