Moving to ABQ, NM. Recommended rural living areas

[jyoutz]

Well I'm moving to Albuquerque soon, and have been looking for a home for my family. I will work downtown (wife probably will too). We're looking for rural horse property within a decent commuting distance. The area must have good schools for my kids, some rural-small town services, and of course enough land to keep my happy with my tractor hobbies (5+ acres). We've been looking around at Edgewood and Tijeras. What can any of you NM locals tell me about these areas? Also do you have any other areas to suggest? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[sneaky_pete]

A few years ago, I almost took a job in Albuquerque; to the point of making some house-hunting trips. We had very similar requirements to yours, and came to the same conclusion - Edgewood. Good school district, easy 25-mile commute to Albuquerque, green and pretty, high and cool, land very reasonably priced for the beauty (we thought). If I wasn't tied to Albuquerque, I would be north of Santa Fe up against the National Forest. In fact, that's where we'd like to retire.

Sorry I can't add anything more recent or any new ideas.

Pete

 

[Bob_Skurka]

The lovely Mrs_Bob is in Albuquerque right now. Her whole side of the family has been there for about 10-15 years (parents moved there 15 years ago, ditto her sister, then her brother moved there about 10 years ago). So we spend quite a bit of time there. We have my daughter in the Albuquerque Academy in their summer programs, it is an amazing school. I've never seen a school campus as nice as that one anywhere else on earth. If we lived there, my daughter would attend full time. Edgewood is a nice area, I'm not familiar with Tijeras.

 

[btolle]

My brother lives in Cedar Crest. Both he and his wife work in town and it can get tough getting home when it really snows. They both have 4WD vehicles, a must if you are going to live in the country in that area. His wife stays in town a few nights each year rather than fighting the snow going up through Tijeras Canyon.

Cedar Crest would probably not be a good choice since it is getting built up and land prices are probably prohibitive. Plus, it has a lot of zoning restrictions and apparently city hall is hard to get along with.

Tijeras is probably pretty much uphill/downhill, not much flat land there as I recall, but I think it is a prettier area than Edgewood.

BTW, be prepared for "real" winters there. The coldest my brother has had was -20 degrees but below zero is not uncommon at all.

Good luck and enjoy wherever you end up!

Bill Tolle

 

[Amontilado]

jyoutz,

Lived there for about three years. If you want any decent sized property, traveling will be involved. The area in Bernalillo county was growing big time, especially with the growth of the electronics industry there. As was said before, a lot of growth has been eastwards on the east side of the mountains. Driving can get tricky in the winter, especially when the fronts pile up on the east side of the Sandias and Manzanos. You can also drive south, into Valencia county. Cheaper to live, with more space available. You can also travel north of the Reservation bordering ABQ; there are several nice towns there. Be prepared for sticker-shock, though; ABQ is an expensive town, lots of city, county, state, etc taxes. Also, when I left in '97, there were about six ways across the Rio Grande from the West side to the east, and there were starting to be problems with tempers. I worked at the Sunport and usually to the southern-most route over the river.
One thing I looked forward to was the annual balloon fiest. The first two weeks in October, with the special shapes rodeo running from Wednesday into the last weekend. Go once and you'll see why Kodak is a major sponsor. You'all get to wander around amongst the balloon crews, as long as you keep a proper distance while they are doing their thing. Spectacular seeing 500+ hot air ballons in the air over ABQ during the morning hours.
All in all, I would love to go back to New Mexico to live, as long as it wasn't in ABQ itself. Easiest traveling is north or south of ABQ (and the bordering Indian reservations). East you got the mountains, west a volcanic mesa that takes explosives to do any serious work.

A.

 

[jyoutz]

Thanks to everyone for the responses. We'll keep looking. But it's beginning to look more and more like Edgewood will be the best location for us. Winters are nothing new to us, we live in NE AZ in the White Mnts. and before that we lived in Flagstaff. But winter driving in traffic IS something new to us. Maybe those bad days are good days to work at home. So it looks like another day with the realtor next week.

 

[Stonefox]

jyoutz, Like some of the others said, there are some nice places just outside of Albuquerque but be prepared for some stickershock on the nicer places. Depends on what you want to pay and/or how far a commute you are willing to do. I live about 20 miles south of Belen, which is about 20 miles south of Albuquerque. Land can be fairly inexpensive if it is not irrigated. Otherwise irrigated land south of Albuquerque goes for about $3500+/acre, non irrigated for about $1200/acre. Any commute from south of Albuquerque you can take I-25 @ 75mph. A growing community about 15 miles south of Albuquerque that quite a few people are commuting from is called Los Lunas. Some other small communities are Bosque Farms, Peralta, and Belen. Good luck and welcome to New Mexico!
Redrat

 

[jyoutz]

Thanks for the info Stonefox. We are currently negotiating an offer on a house on 19 acres in the NE area of Edgewood at the base of the San Pedro Mnts. Seems like a nice area and the commute to downtown is about 45-50 minutes. We looked around Bosque Farms and Los Lunas but right now there really wasn't any large acreage places available (at least in our price range). But it seemed like a nice area, especially the irrigated land. Thanks for the welcome to NM. I've been a neighbor for a long time in NE AZ and am somewhat familiar with N NM, but I just haven't looked for real estate before in NM.