By Mark Samuelson

If you look at a map showing nothing more than how average home values have slipped over the last market year, you can get the mistaken idea that the nicer a neighborhood is, the shakier the prices are. But savvy Realtors will show you why that math doesn’t work, and why this is a pretty good time to be buying into some of those popular areas, particularly at the lower end.

Laurie and Michael Marcus of Coldwell Banker are showing this 4-bedroom remodeled 2-story, in Cherry Creek Vista east of the Denver Tech Center.

“The DTC area has held value very well,” says Coldwell Banker agent Michael Marcus, who along with wife Laurie Marcus will show you a 4-bedroom home in Cherry Creek Vista that has all of the things buyers like about the Tech Center, including the Cherry Creek Schools (Cottonwood Creek Elementary is a short walk; and so is the neighborhood’s pool and tennis center). more »

By Mark Samuelson
Last week, while a field of solar panels near Alamosa was cranking out 8.22 megawatts of power, enough to run 1,600 homes, builder John Keith was doing the same thing on a small scale…readying a new house at Stapleton that will have 8.5 kilowatts of solar on the roof. It’s a thousandth as much, but looms large for the purchaser.

Builder John Keith shows off Harvard Communities’ Architect Collection at Stapleton, where he includes energy efficient construction and a small solar system with every home built. He’s opening a “Near-Zero Energy Home” there Jan. 24-25.

With the solar, coupled with exceptional energy conservation design, Keith’s Near-Zero Energy Home will deliver nearly all of the energy the family will use…so much that they’ll likely never pay more than a few hundred dollars a year for power and gas. more »

By Mark Samuelson
Most of the 300 families who’ve bought homes at RidgeGate in Lone Tree over the past three years have come from Denver’s southeast corridor…but among the remainder are some arriving from California, who instantly recognize what the developer is creating here: a community with a suburban address, but with a new urban feel.

Darryl M. Jones, Development Manager for RidgeGate, takes in view toward DTC from a trail up bluffs above Sky Ridge Medical Center. Luxury homes in foreground are sold out.

“We’re calling it ‘Urban Scape,’” says Coventry Development Corporation Vice President Keith Simon, who has a view across the changing landscape from his office near Sky Ridge Medical Center.

One buyer from the Bay Area started exploring their move to the Mile High by Googling “new urbanism Denver.” That turned up web sites of the two, big Denver city redevelopment projects…and RidgeGate’s. The family visited all three…and were probably impressed by the master plan taking shape here. But the clincher, says Simon, may well have been the pretty terrain around Lone Tree. more »