Living in Colorado Costs What

"Kenda Ruck (00:01)
Welcome to Getting Real Estate, we're your hosts, Kenda and John, with Living Colorado.

John Wilkinson (00:08)
Yeah, so we're both relatively new to Colorado and this podcast that we created is really all about, you know, what we're learning and what we wish we knew before we actually moved to Colorado. What's it actually like to live in Denver?

Kenda Ruck (00:24)
Yeah, we're having all those conversations about the good, the bad, and we're gonna take you with us along the way as we discover new areas, new parks, new restaurants, and what it really is like to live in Colorado. So today we're gonna talk about something that everybody wants to know, which is the cost to live in Colorado. So it's gonna be really interesting and we'd love your feedback, but I think first of all, we need to understand, and John, if you can talk to this,

Where are people moving here from? People are moving here all the time. Where are they coming from?

John Wilkinson (00:59)
That's right. Yeah. Colorado is so beautiful as, as you and I know it's crazy weather as well. Like, you know, sunny one day tomorrow, supposed to get rainy and snow and it's going to be May, which is insane. But, but yeah, it is, it is kind of like the top places. California tops it at number one, really like from LA, San Francisco, San Diego. And what we've seen is a lot of the reasons people move from California is because they can sell high.

Kenda Ruck (01:08)
Right? Right.

John Wilkinson (01:28)
In California, all know prices, home prices have skyrocketed. And then by low here, and also lifestyle, know, the outdoors, there's less congestion than there is in some of the big cities in California, especially LA and San Francisco. And it seems like they just want to move. They like the lifestyle. You know, the weather is pretty moderate here, although it can get much colder than it does in the areas. But San Francisco, you think about it, it's a relatively chilly

you know, the city, people can come here, get 300 plus days of sunshine. It's really amazing. Second place is Texas, where I moved from Austin, Dallas, Houston, Austin are the top kind of feeders into Colorado. And really there it's because of weather and outdoor access. I know for me, moving from Austin was there 23 years and it was tough to move when you have roots in the city for so long, you've built.

not only a network, but you have family, friends, and memories, right? Which is, it's tough to step away from those memories sometimes, but people have to, either it's job relocations, you know, but for us was, was just, the weather was just insane in Texas and our son wants to go to school in Colorado. So obviously that is a financial kind of mindset that we had, it's like cheaper for in-state tuition. We're talking about costs today that definitely, you know, rolled up in our mind.

And then the others are from the Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis. They really want more lifestyle upgrades. Colorado obviously has the mountains and lots of sunshine. Chicago, Minneapolis, they don't have that, right? So there's that draw. And obviously, the ability to work remotely is a draw for people who moving from the Midwest. And then finally, Mountain West or nearby states, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Phoenix is obviously...

really beautiful in December, January, February, but then it starts to get super hot. Now they have some beautiful hills there, you know, that people can go hiking and whatever, but it really is kind of a draw for the outdoors. And that's kind of the reasons why people move here and why I moved here anyway.

Kenda Ruck (03:44)
You know, it sounds like when you talk about these different areas, the first thing I think about is like the extreme weather that they have, you know, in whether that's in the the the Northeast or wherever they're coming from, whether it's extreme hot or extreme cold. And I think that's one of the best things about living in Colorado is you don't it's more temperate. I don't know if that's the right word. Yes, it gets hot, but it's not humid. And if you just get in the shade, it's it's lovely. And yes, it gets cold.

John Wilkinson (04:06)
Yeah.

Kenda Ruck (04:13)
but if you can just wait until tomorrow, it's gonna be 70 degrees again. you know, you get a lot of seasons, you get the full effect of each season, but overall it's pretty temperate. And it's, I think that might be a big driver. And one of the things, go ahead.

John Wilkinson (04:18)
I know. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree.

Huge, huge driver. I Sorry,

I was gonna say real fast. I teased my brother-in-law. He's a physics teacher, head of science department at school in Austin. And I tell them when we moved here, was like, man, the sun is so intense. Like it's hot, know, must be because we're closer to the sun. And he's like, no, man, like that drives him crazy. Cause you look at a marble, you know, and then zoom in, you could see some grooves in that. And so like for us, it's like the relativity of that to the sun is like,

makes really no difference even though we're a mile high. It's just the atmosphere and like you said, the environment, but you get in the shade and it's night and day.

Kenda Ruck (05:08)
Yeah, it really is. It makes such a big difference. And I think the other interesting thing about, like when we talk about the cost of living in Denver or in Colorado in general, people coming from different areas are going to have different perspectives on what the cost of living is here. Like if you're coming from California, you might find, you know, like you said, sell high and then come here and pay cash for a house because it's like, my God, it's so cheap. But if you're coming from, maybe

Atlanta or Alabama, you might come here and think it's rather expensive. But let's talk about what the average cost of a home is here in Colorado. last week we touched on the fact that there are these micro cities or micro areas and how different.

the cost of living can be, or at least the cost of real estate can be in each of these little areas. So let's talk about what do you see as one of the most expensive areas to live?

John Wilkinson (06:15)
for sure, Cherry Hills here in the Denver area. mean, from a range standpoint, you're looking anywhere between two and half to five million plus. Yeah, for Cherry Hills. And so you think about some of the California movers, there's that billionaire tax in California and also the mansion tax that goes into when you sell real estate. so many of the wealthy families are

Kenda Ruck (06:25)
Woo!

John Wilkinson (06:44)
starting to leave California. Tracy Tudor is a popular agent, was on Million Dollar Listing LA. She has an office in California, but she's also done, she's doing a lot of business in Dallas and Austin now, her team's expanded. And she's doing a lot of business there because people are moving from California to other areas because of those taxes, right? So Cherry Hills may be a place like, hey, I've got this equity.

a lot of equity in a home from LA or Beverly Hills, and I want that kind of a lifestyle. know, Cherry Hills is that ultra luxury kind of market. Next would be probably Cherry Creek. Those are like 1.2 to 2.5. You know, and as you go down, yeah, still pricey, right? But when you think about the homes, I'll say from Austin, you know, there's an area called Terry town, and that's probably in the same area as Cherry in terms of cost.

Kenda Ruck (07:27)
still pricey.

John Wilkinson (07:41)
as as Cherry Creek, but the homes are going to be a little bit larger here than they are in in Austin for the price, right? So you get a little bit more for the price than you would in Austin. Well, a year or two years ago, obviously, my awesome the market's correcting a little bit. But but yeah, it's still pricey. But then you go all the way down to Lakewood, you Lakewood's kind of an entry suburban neighborhood and those homes, you know, go 600 900,000 on average.

So there's quite a discrepancy. then Lakewood is also closer to mountains. So it's very popular for people who want to quick access to either ski, hike, all of the things the mountains provide all of us in Colorado.

Kenda Ruck (08:26)
What kind of people do you think are, like you touched on that, but like California people are going into the Cherry Creek, Cherry Hills area. And then more like, think because I live in Littleton, I see a lot of families coming here. So a lot of first time buyers, a lot of, and it's kind of starter homes. So like for us, we moved here from Cabo and we wanted to be able to pay cash for our house. So we,

We came here, bought a smaller home to see, do we like it in Denver? And perhaps at another time in the future, we might buy a little closer into the city. But for right now, it's a perfect way to get into a market and kind of discover if you like the area. what I so another thing that's really different from area to area is like utilities and costs of living.

John Wilkinson (09:17)
Yeah.

Yeah, I you were talking to me about in Sterling, you know, the differences in terms of utilities. Is this a water district or something? What is it in Sterling? Okay.

Kenda Ruck (09:34)
It's a special tax district

and basically our taxes in the Sterling Ranch area are incredibly high. it's because, and water's also extremely expensive in Littleton because water is definitely a problem in Colorado. But a special tax district is a district where a developer comes in and says, okay, I wanna build a sizable community in this district.

And what they do is they get a grant basically from the government and say, hey, give me this money and I'm going to put in for you the infrastructure, the water, the roads. I'm going to put in all of those things. And then we're going to tax the future residents who come to live here, who buy here. And they're going to end up paying back this loan that we took from you. It's clever. And it's a good way of these developers being able to come in and put in this very important infrastructure.

John Wilkinson (10:19)
yeah.

Kenda Ruck (10:33)
but it does make for super high taxes. And I think there are in Colorado, there are about 2200 special district tax zones. So it's something to pay attention to for sure.

John Wilkinson (10:45)
Wow. Wow.

Yes, that could be neighborhood to neighborhood. Wow, yeah. So in Texas we had.

Kenda Ruck (10:51)
It is, yeah. Yeah, because I think there

are areas in Littleton that are not in a special district tax zone, but I'm in Sterling Ranch and that in Sterling Ranch is. Right.

John Wilkinson (11:00)
Yeah, I know Highlands Ranch is not does not have or

specific neighborhoods, I guess, in Highlands Ranch does not have that. you know, in Texas, we had something similar. It was it's called Mud Municipal Utility District. And it was kind of the same thing where developers have to put in all of this infrastructure and also water treatment plants potentially or whatever. So that gets charged back to future homeowners and developers get to recoup that money. But that is definitely something to keep in

Keep in mind, I'll say, yesterday you say, were surprised about Sterling's taxes. I had to pay our taxes yesterday, because in Colorado, as you know, you can pay over two payments, or you can pay all at once, and all at once is April 30th of every year. And I paid ours yesterday, and it's a fraction of what it was in Austin. And that was a surprise, a good surprise, right? Yeah, in Austin it was,

Kenda Ruck (11:55)
Interesting.

John Wilkinson (11:58)
you know, two to three percent was our annual tax. And so there's a lot of fighting, you know, with the appraisal district to see how we can get that reduced. And it's also based on valuation, right? Not just what you actually paid for the home. So and here it's similar, but it's it's it's far less. It's it's I'd say equivalence of like point five percent, point seven percent.

of the value of the home and taxes, which was a nice surprise.

Kenda Ruck (12:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that is a nice surprise. Speaking of surprises, what else surprised you about what's more expensive than you would have expected?

John Wilkinson (12:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, you know, think the tax sales tax is an example in Austin is eight and a quarter percent here. It's eight point eight percent in Denver. Now it can get less in some of the neighboring towns around us, but Denver in general. So I was surprised at the just general cost of things because of the additional sales tax.

And like I said, can be in the suburban areas, can be a little bit less. So that was definitely a surprise. And then in Denver, think too, it's like there's higher restaurant prices, especially like low high, Rhino in Cherry Creek. But part of it is you get that you pay for convenience and it's the walkability and all of those things, which add to like

Parking, I've never been to a mall that you have to pay to park. Right, so like, you're going to go spend money there, but you've got to go pay. That surprised me, you know, as well. I don't know, what are some of the things that you've seen that surprised you?

Kenda Ruck (13:39)
right?

There were two things that surprised me and you and I have actually talked about one of these things before, which is the cost to register your car, like a car tag. Like I believe in Georgia, which it's been seven years since I lived in Georgia, but I think it would cost to renew your tag, like, I don't know, $150, $200. And here it's like my car is like $1,200 a year to get my tag.

John Wilkinson (13:58)
my god.

Yeah, yeah, that blew me away. I mean, people warned us. It is crazy. They warned us like, just wait to register your car, just wait to register your car. And I was like, okay, it can't be that much, right? But you're right. It was over $1,000. And in Texas, it's $78/$80 bucks, you know, a year to do it. So that definitely was a surprise. Despite having been warned, I was still shocked. And I have friends that actually

Kenda Ruck (14:19)
crazy

John Wilkinson (14:44)
drive to Texas to register their car and they still have like Texas plates, whatever they've they've been here for, you three or four years already.

Kenda Ruck (14:53)
Well, I can understand why they would do that because it's so, it's pretty, I was really surprised and I wasn't warned. I walked in thinking, you know, that I was going to have to pay, you know, a couple hundred dollars because it was a newer, it was a new car and I was shocked. So, and if you pay with a credit card, they add like 20%. I don't know, they add some crazy. So you have to pay with cash. So make sure you take, yes, exactly. Convenient for who?

John Wilkinson (14:56)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes, a convenience fee or whatever. Yeah. Right.

Kenda Ruck (15:20)
And then the

other thing that surprised me is insurance. And we're gonna do an entire episode on homeowners insurance here because it is a little bit touchy here. It's kind of a big topic, even amongst our government officials here in Colorado, our state officials, because Colorado is considered a dual catastrophe.

John Wilkinson (15:26)
my gosh.

Kenda Ruck (15:48)
a dual catastrophe state, which means that the insurance companies have classified us as being at risk for two separate catastrophic events that could be very expensive. One of them is hail, which surprised the heck out of me, because how do you protect yourself from hail? can't, like your roof is gonna get, it's gonna be a problem, but because I think we're in the foothills and because of the air currents, we are at very high risk of

very damaging hail storms. And then the second is fire, also because of the way the wind whips in and because of how dry it is here. those two catastrophic events are both at high risk here. So there are areas where you can't even really like get insurance, homeowners insurance.

John Wilkinson (16:40)
I know, it's so sad.

Yeah, it's crazy. I mean, I think of, you know, when we moved here, well, I guess during the time that we were looking for homes, there were some fires in the foothills, kind of up north of Morrison. And the smoke was incredible, but it just showed the danger for like, you talk about hail, but also the fire dangers that also hit.

California, I think it's that area. People don't realize that we are a desert climate, right? So if you looked at Denver is really the front range. And so like, we are similar to like, you know, Eastern Colorado in that the trees and everything that are here are here because they were planted. They're not native necessarily to this area. They've been brought down a little bit from the mountains. And so, you know, that surprised me is like that we were a desert climate, but that causes

the dryness and the lack of precipitation that we've had makes it really dangerous. But when we got insurance, even for the car, I was really surprised. I guess it's because of the hail for that. And also, obviously, winter roads and potential accidents, that doesn't help it for sure.

Kenda Ruck (18:02)
Right, absolutely. Speaking of winter, you moved here because Hayden likes to ski. I don't ski, so I don't know how much that costs, but talk to us about how much, like say you wanna ski, how much does it cost to go skiing?

John Wilkinson (18:23)
It's

a great question. I think it's like golf, I think, right? So you have to get your gear. You have to buy clubs. You've got to get skis. You got to get boots. You got to get, you know, jackets. Maybe it's a little bit more, you know, but it does cost. Yeah, it does cost quite a bit for that initial investment. Now you can always go and rent, you know, so let's let's look at it from that perspective. You're renting and say you're going to go, you know, to

Kenda Ruck (18:37)
I think it sounds.

John Wilkinson (18:53)
to like, I don't know, Breckenridge or whatever you can get there with definitely within, you know, a day trip, you can go up and back to Breckenridge. But you've got to rent, it's probably $100, $125 just to rent gear, right? And then your lift ticket for the day is going to be 250 ish, right? So that's then that's per person, right? So that's, that's a it's a $400, you know, expense, just do that, then you've got food and

Kenda Ruck (19:14)
the day.

John Wilkinson (19:22)
you know your gas or whatever. And so you know the mountains while beautiful and offer so much it is it is pretty pricey. Now people in Colorado know that there's there's passes and that's definitely the way to go. If you're a skier and you don't want to save money on on you know lift tickets you just get a pass for the season. Now this year didn't really work out that great because the snow was really bad this year but

Obviously, it's worse in history, so hopefully it doesn't repeat itself again during my lifetime, but it could. So who knows? But yeah, you're looking at $400 or so just to get up there and ski. Now, if you have a pass and your own gear after the initial investment, it's just your time to get up there and any food that you're purchasing. Those other things are all sunk costs, but that's what we did. We got passes.

Kenda Ruck (20:19)
Do you

happen to know how much an annual pass is? Does it cover like all the ski areas or do you have to get a different pass for each area?

John Wilkinson (20:27)
Yeah, so there's the icon pass and epic pass and so there's different resorts here that are on one or the other. And then there's Loveland ski area, is owned actually by Texas family, but it's kind of a local place. It's right before the Eisenhower Tunnel on I-70 and that's less. So that pass was like, I want to say $600 for the year. Whereas like I think we had the icon pass and that was

$1,200, $1,100 per person. But you think about $1,100, if I'm up there five times, six times, then it pays for itself. And people are going up much more frequently than that when they have a pass.

Kenda Ruck (21:13)
Yep. Another really cool thing about Colorado is that it's a big outdoor community and people like it's so easy and cheap to get exercise and to get, you know, just to be outside in nature. And there are bike trails everywhere you go. There's walking trails there and you can go to parks and you can hike and you can there's so many things that you can do that are very affordable. So if you have a big family.

John Wilkinson (21:32)
Yeah.

Kenda Ruck (21:43)
You you can go for walks in the wood and you would never be alone. Well, you would be alone in certain areas. But my point being that everybody here is, they do it, they're outside. I sit here in the morning in my house out of my back porch and I just watch people walking.

John Wilkinson (21:43)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Kenda Ruck (22:04)
just out walking and it doesn't matter if it's snowing or raining or hot. They just go outside and walk and ride bikes and it's really interesting to me that you can do that for free.

John Wilkinson (22:14)
Yeah,

I just love that too. Yeah, there's a lot of things. mean, there's, there's, know, the Denver, you know, nature and science museum, which is beautiful. I'm not, not super expensive to go to the zoo also in city park has, has great things for folks to do. And definitely helps with costs, especially when you have a family. think, you know, when, when, when we moved, you know, we were just like an explore mode.

trying to see kind of all the things. And you're right, like the parks that are around are just so beautiful. And people are out there, you know, playing volleyball, you know, just doing slackline stuff between trees or hammocks, relaxing, reading books. They've got jazz in the park in Denver, you know, in the summertime, which is free to go to. And there's, there's food trucks and you can go and just listen to live music around, you know, this pond and city park. It's just so, so beautiful. And lots of things you can do.

that are invigorating and enriching and are free.

Kenda Ruck (23:16)
Yeah, which is great because we're talking about how much it costs to live here, but you can still have a really rich life and manage your costs a little bit better. I know that there's a RiNo Street Festival coming up in a week or two that I'm gonna go to, and I'm excited about that. I think dining here, some people feel like dining is expensive. Again, I came from Cabo, and Cabo is...

John Wilkinson (23:29)
Yeah.

Kenda Ruck (23:44)
You know, the Riviera of Mexico, it's like the Beverly Hills of Mexico. It's very expensive, but I find dining here much more affordable. Now tips are more right. Everybody wants a 25 % tip now, which great whatever. Well, we could talk about that on another episode, but I find the food a good bit cheaper than it was in Cabo. What about how does it compare to to Texas?

John Wilkinson (24:02)
Yes.

Yeah,

you know what, let's see. That's a great deal. I think it's very equivalent to Austin. Now, you know, obviously food prices have gone up in the last year. And I think probably to the same inflation rate that that's hitting Austin and the rest of the country. But yeah, I think dining is is interesting. What I know that like in Denver in specific areas, it probably is more expensive than

You know, my son, for example, says the Chipotle across from East High is more expensive than others because it's like, have this like audience of kids that rush there during lunch to get things and you can go and, it surprised me. was like $38 for Hayden and I to have lunch at Chipotle. And I was like, that's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, casual fast food or whatever, but yeah, I mean, it's good, but I don't know, 30, 40 bucks. That's a lot for, for two people to eat lunch.

on a random day. don't know what other like hidden costs have you seen? Dining you say is like a little less but what about like any entertainment or any other differences that you've seen here?

Kenda Ruck (25:23)
You know, I really love the, I love the theater. I go to the theater and I really love that. I find that also affordable. But again, I'm coming from, I'm coming from an area where everything was outrageously expensive. So gas is cheaper here. I had a, my sister-in-law came to visit me from Atlanta, which historically has very low gas.

John Wilkinson (25:24)
You

Kenda Ruck (25:49)
And she couldn't believe that the gas was cheaper here than it was in Atlanta, which again, right now it's high. But I was really surprised by that. But as far as hidden costs that I did not consider, there's more maintenance on your house because of the extreme weather changes and the extreme sun. So I think you have to paint a little bit more and it's dry.

paint a little bit more often, know, water is very expensive. So you have to, you know, be very careful about watering your lawn. A lot of people are going to artificial turf because they don't want to have to water their lawn. And, you know, again, hail and snow and ice and the salt that they put on the roads can cause issues with your car. And you need to make sure you keep your car washed and

I think those are the things that surprised me the most was just how much more attentive to the upkeep and the maintenance that you have to do on your home to keep your home what it needs to be because of the climate.

John Wilkinson (27:09)
Yeah, I agree. I think too, in speaking about homes, right, and just general pricing, when we get folks giving us estimates for various things, I think one thing to keep in mind for everybody is that get several bids. I've seen yard cleanups come back for $1,600 and the same work come back for $450. So

there's a big discrepancy and I don't know if it's neighborhood targeting sometimes, know, like people assume, but just be, think if you're just diligent on value and looking at various prices for stuff, you can definitely, you know, maintain some of these hidden costs or surprise costs that are out there. I wouldn't rely just on one, you know, bid for home services for sure, you know, because it can vary greatly.

Kenda Ruck (28:07)
We are both thriving here. We love it here. But who do you think might struggle? Like what kind of person might struggle living here in Denver?

John Wilkinson (28:17)
Yeah, that's a great question. think people that are like hustle bustle kind, right? They love fast paced life. They wanna keep, you know, stay busy all the time. I think that if you can't, you know, as they say, stop and smell the roses, then it can be, I think that could be a little challenging for someone because it is a pretty laid back lifestyle.

there's a lot of similarities, surf culture, ski culture, right? And that's, it's kind of like, friendly, laid back, no rush. And when we lived in Cabo, knew like when we had work getting done, it's Mexico time. It's just like, manana, it's like tomorrow they'll do it. And we found that the same thing kind of applies here is that there's some trades and whatever that are just like, hey, we're just gonna wait till tomorrow.

or it is what it is or I gotta go skiing so I can't come today. You just kind of run up against that sometimes.

Kenda Ruck (29:22)
Right?

I think the phrase is the mountain is calling and I must go. Right? Yeah, absolutely.

John Wilkinson (29:31)
Yes, that's right. No, I mean, it's it's definitely happened

for sure. Kenda you what do you think like, how people are folks that are looking for condos, what they should be aware of, or, you just thinking about not necessarily hidden costs, but extra costs?

Kenda Ruck (29:49)
Yeah, think there are some very good things about buying a condo here, especially for somebody like me who spends part of the time here and part of the time in Cabo. There are benefits to having a condo, but there are a couple of things you need to consider. Number one,

the HOAs in condos can be incredibly high. And there are a lot of, there's a lot of buzz right now in the community about how high these HOAs are. And some mortgage companies are even struggling with giving you a mortgage with relation to your income and how much you can afford because they're factoring in the HOAs.

And the HOAs are incredibly high. So you may not qualify for as much if you do get a condo. You may want to look at a little bit less than what you can afford because you have to factor in that cost of $1,000 to $1,500 a month extra for HOAs, which is a thing. And then the other thing to know about condos is for some reason in the Denver area right now, they just aren't

selling like single-family homes are selling. I think the demand for condos is really diminishing and you just need to be, if you're gonna buy a condo and you're gonna sell your condo, you need to be aware that you're kinda gonna be in it for the long haul and that your buyer is gonna have to address the same issue that you had to address with regards to how much can you afford.

John Wilkinson (31:35)
Yeah.

Kenda Ruck (31:44)
not just based on your mortgage, also based on the HOA fees for condos. They work for some people, you know, but you just have to be aware of those hidden costs.

John Wilkinson (31:56)
Yeah, I agree. think too that you posted something on social media last week talking about the importance of staging and pricing to this today in this market more than ever. And I think you're right, especially condos, you have to do everything you can to make sure that it looks like a show, like a model, right? It needs to be film, move in ready, and it needs to be priced right. And there's a lot of

inventory out there in the condo market. think to like, one of the changes that are coming up is, as you mentioned about debt to income ratio and getting a mortgage, that lenders are now having to look at the health of a condo's reserves, right, how they're operating. And even if you you're able to qualify for the mortgage, if the condo does not pass muster to the lender, then

Kenda Ruck (32:40)
H-O-A.

John Wilkinson (32:52)
then there's a potential that you can't get that mortgage for that specific condo building, which is a new piece of legislation that just came out.

Kenda Ruck (33:02)
Yeah, and we already were dealing with a sluggish market in the condo market, and now that's going to just really push it to the next level, I think.

John Wilkinson (33:12)
Yeah. So overall, do you think the costs benefit kind of that way, the potential high price for things?

Kenda Ruck (33:23)
Yeah, wow, for me personally, there is no question. Just having the variety of the weather and the option of so many things to do. For me, even though I don't ski, it's worth everything that it costs more than what I would expect. It's worth it to have, you know, to pay a little bit higher taxes because I can walk to a park. I can walk to...

a national park, can walk to the mountain. I have so many resources at my fingertips to have a really rich and great life here. And it's so worth it to live here. The people are friendly, the food is amazing, and the climate is just exactly what I was looking for. What do you think?

John Wilkinson (34:11)
Yeah,

no, totally. I echo everything that you said. It was a tough move. I left a lot of family back home, but it is, when they come to visit, they're just like, when can we come back? Right? Because it's just so beautiful. And like you said, people are amazing. And there's so many great places to discover. And I know we're going to be doing some shows about hidden gems that we love.

Kenda Ruck (34:24)
Mm-hmm.

John Wilkinson (34:38)
you know, in and around town. So I'm looking forward to talking about all that.

Kenda Ruck (34:43)
Yeah, we have a lot of really

great things coming up in the very near future. We're gonna talk next week about just what day-to-day life is really like here. We'll talk a little bit about the traffic and the little micro communities that we've mentioned in the past. And then in the following week, we're gonna talk, we're gonna draw some similarities again between the Cabo market and the Colorado market and how we can still enjoy our Mexican.

love and our Mexican passion here in Colorado, which was very important to me. I wanted to be able to have those roots remain and is one of the reasons I chose to live in Colorado was because of the Colorado Cabo connection.

John Wilkinson (35:16)
Yeah.

Yes, I totally agree. There is definitely connection there. Lots of similarities. Hopefully we're able to do the podcast remotely from a surprise location, but we'll see how that turns out.

Kenda Ruck (35:44)
Well, that's going to be so fun. I can't wait. We have to make sure we can get some food too, though. I forgot about that. That's right. Exactly. At nine thirty in the morning. Well, that's a wrap for today. We appreciate you so much. You watching the podcast and as always, please put your comments, questions, things you want to know about living in Colorado in the comments below. And we will absolutely address your

John Wilkinson (35:46)
Yeah, I agree. agree. Yeah, exactly. Maybe a margarita. Yeah. I know. know. Maybe not.

Kenda Ruck (36:14)
your comments and answer your questions.

John Wilkinson (36:16)
Absolutely, yeah. Thanks everybody. Thanks for watching. And as we talk about things that we learned as we've moved to Colorado, hopefully you get some insight into what life is like here and about real estate as well.

Kenda Ruck (36:30)
See you in the next one.

John Wilkinson (36:32)
Yep, see ya.
"