What kind of "acts of God" can ruin things there? Fires? Floods?

If you worked in the city what are decent "suburbs" to live in that have about a 30-45 minute commute time?

How are the politics in CO? I know MagPul pulled out of there. Have things gotten better or worse in terms of RKBA?
Can you own NFA weapons (suppressed and SBR)?
Open and concealed carry?

What are crime rates like?

Property taxes?

I lived in NJ, so it's hard to top that shit hole as far as horrible places to live.

Just looking for a starting point.

I was gonna say Delta.

I might sound snobby, but I was looking on Zillow for houses and the ones that don't look like pieces of shit are priced almost in the same range as NJ.

I'm by no means dead set on moving to GJ. Just considering options. The surrounding landscape looks pretty cool. Colorado as a whole doesn't scream "this is the state I'm going to buy my last house in". I'd like to have the last house I own built to my specs, so buying another house at this point would possibly put that plan on the back back back burner.

Based on what I could make working at the VA there, it would make any dreams of building a home that much further from reality.

But... I still like knowing my options.

We use to hit ATCO up occasionally to do some drag racing.

Zillow is a waste of time. You need to come out spend 3-4 days of actual house hunting. Then make a decision.  We moved out here before there was an internet. Spent 2 weeks ( 2 trips) to decide to move.  
 
Are you wanting a $$ home for a family or you single?    
There are a few places that can be purchased for under $200K that have lots of potential. Like being able to build that "dream home" while having a roof over your head.

Most of the state is going nuts on house prices.  The Front Range is the worst.  My county said the value of my house increased 26% in the last year.

I grew up in NJ and didn't go to the raceway until I moved back there with my kids. Even then, I only went once. Never really did much for me.



Yeah, the housing market is recovering... probably with all the same mistakes that were made before giving loans to people that can't afford to pay them.
We managed to sell out home in NJ for above asking price but we still took a hit because we sunk so much money into it expecting to be in it for a lot longer than we were. That's the gamble I guess.

So what's the "ranges"? Front Range? West Range?



I'd be with family.

I lived 15 minutes front Atco.  Used to run my chevelle there on Friday nights for fun.

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Front range = east of the divide, but not out on the plains.

Western slope = west of the divide.



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The Front Range is generally meant as the urban corridor from Fort Collins (or Cheyenne) to Pueblo.  It's where the mountains meet the plains.

meth

Whoa there!  We need to do some serious vetting before they obtain resident status in my AO.  We can't just have NJ refugees crossing into our borders.

What kind of "acts of God" can ruin things there? Fires? Floods?  If you are talking about housing/structures, my response would be: termites and expansive soils.

I have nothing else of value to add to the previous responses, although that has never stopped me before.   I have never lived in Grand Junction, so take what I say with a grain of salt.  My parents lived there for 10 years (after they retired), so I have visited Grand Junction often.  I live 15 miles north of the Colorado state line (have for the last 40 years) and visit Colorado more often than I want to.

Grand Junction is a retirement community with a large portion of the provided services geared toward retirees.  Being a retirement community, the population tends to be older and more politically conservative.  But the majority of Colorado's residents live on the Front Range (Denver area) and they are very liberal and getting more so every year.  The sad truth is that no matter how conservative the Western Slope (Grand Junction) may be, the laws are being created by the liberals in Denver and people living in Grand Junction have to abide by those laws.  

Be aware that while you may legally acquire NFA firearms, you will never be able to legally acquire high capacity (>15 rounds) magazines.  Others will have to explain to you how difficult it is to break this law and the severe consequences of doing so.

While Colorado looks like a liberal hell hole to me, it may be a conservative paradise to you.

Must be in a different part than we looked at.  GJ has an approximate population of 60K  The college accounts for a good portion of that. The places we looked at, almost everyone we saw in the area was clearly younger than we are (60)  Now you talk about  newer enclaves of HOA, Covenant controlled housing, then yes definitely closer to retirement.

There are more feels, safe space, folks moving in to CO, then there are right of center.  I have no doubt the purplish color CO is shown political wise, is moving closer to a solid blue as time goes on. 2016 will be a bell weather of it going faster, or slower.

The question is what kind of lifestyle one wants to live, you an outdoors adventurer? If so CO is a good place to live. IF you prefer less people / crowds, GJ is becoming like denver as it's boundary slowly expands.  The GJ / Montrose area will eventually look like denver metro has become..

WE have been looking at different states to relocate. The warmer climate of AZ is nice, yet the ever increasing "illegal" population PLUS lack of water took it out of the running.  Northern NV is on the radar, same for ID.
The only place to live that's staunchly Conservative almost 100% red voting counties is OK.  Who the hell wants to live in OK ?

Lived here for 48 years.  I have seen most of the country (except northwest),  many times I've thought places were nicer but nowhere else I've been has the variety of mountains, forest, desert, slickrock terrain so close.

Other big change will be public lands all around you.  NJ is probably almost all private land with some state or forestry land.  Colorado and surrounding states are something like 60-70% public (BLM).

As mentioned above,  Junction is conservative town controlled by liberal population mass on other side of state.

Biggest re-occurring natural disaster is weather inversion.  Junction is in a valley that can get a blanket of smog trapped in it.  It can go weeks of icebox cold in town and be 20 degrees warmer on top of the nearest high ground.

I would look at Delta if employment is not a concern (sorry Delta).

I moved here from Bucks Co, PA in Feb. Just bought my first house a couple of weks ago in Fruita (something I could never have done where we were living back east.) My family and I love it here. I had a job lined up before I came out here but my wife who came out with the rest of the family after the school year was over and had a bit of a struggle finding work. It was stressful but she finally found a job after two months. We have noticed the cost of living is a bit less than back east but there are some trade-offs. (No Wawa. ) All in all though, we are very happy that we made the decision to start a new life here.

Welcome to Fruitopia.  Ahhh Wawa.  I miss Wawa.     Hoagies and pizza around here generally suck, but the outdoor recreation tends to make up for it.  

My in-laws lived in Grand Junction for about 15 years, before retiring last year and going the full time RV route.  They lived out in the Redlands area, which has some pretty high end houses.  I don't know anything about the current state of property values in Grand Junction, but I do know that it seems like home values in GJ are heavily influenced by oil field health.  When business was booming, prices got stupid high, because every roughneck had the cash to throw at a house.  I know at one point we looked at what was available (10 years ago) and the only thing "reasonable" was some run down mobile homes outside of town.  But when the oil fields crash, the prices crash too.  At least, that's what I saw a decade ago, so YRMV.