These Denver Suburbs Are NOT the Same | Moving to South Denver
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Thinking about moving to the Denver suburbs in 2026? Highlands Ranch, Parker, Castle Rock, Lone Tree, and other South Denver communities are not all moving the same. In this video, we break down what buyers and sellers need to know about the southern Denver suburbs right now, including how the market is behaving, where homes are selling faster, where buyers may have more negotiating room, and how new construction compares with resale. If you are moving to Denver Colorado, relocating within Colorado, or trying to decide which Denver suburb makes the most sense for your next move, this South Suburb Guide gives you a much clearer picture of what is actually happening on the ground. We compare areas like Highlands Ranch, Parker, Castle Rock, Lone Tree, Meridian, and nearby Douglas County communities, including why one neighborhood or price point can feel completely different from another. In some areas, homes are moving quickly. In others, buyers may have more time, more leverage, and more opportunities to negotiate. We also talk about one of the biggest questions for buyers right now: new build vs resale. Southern Denver has a unique mix of established neighborhoods and newer developments, and there are important tradeoffs between the two. We cover location, infrastructure, schools, home condition, builder incentives, seller concessions, and why some new construction homes may offer more financial flexibility than buyers realize. Property taxes are another major part of the conversation. A similarly priced home in Highlands Ranch, Parker, Castle Rock, or a newer metro district can come with very different annual tax bills. We explain why that happens and why looking only at the purchase price can give you an incomplete picture of your monthly housing costs. You will learn how seller concessions work, how buyers are using them toward closing costs or rate buydowns, and why taking the maximum concession is not automatically the best financial decision.
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Chapter 1: Moving to the Denver Suburbs in 2026
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If you're thinking of making a move to the southern Denver suburbs, this video's got everything you're going to need to make that move.
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That's right. Today, we're going through a market update for the southern Denver suburbs. What's happening in 2026, what's coming in 2027, because if you
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think you know what's happening in Denver, the suburbs can be an entirely different market.
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Absolutely. So, we're going to keep going through the pros and cons of a new build versus a resale home, the tax implications, the financial implications, and teach you how to get yourself $25,000 in concessions.
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Ooh, that would be nice. We are Jake and Megan Fredel. We are your brother sister team, full-time real estate agents, part-time tour guides to all things southern Denver living.
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So, if you're moving here in 900 days or you need to get here tomorrow, we can start touring homes for you before you even fly into town.
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Yep. We hope folks just like you everyday do exactly that. Now, let's dump jump into living in Southern Denver.
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So, let's start with where we're at right now in 2026. So, everyone's talking about this balance coming to the real estate market and I think that's
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really true. Things are starting to get normal. Uh we're down from the big boom and we kind of had a slow year last year, but things are really returning to normal and you're seeing some recovery.
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Amber, when I'm in Denver, we're going to compare a little bit about Denver versus the southern suburbs. I feel like Denver is still experiencing so much
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slowness, you know, and that is true especially for condos. Uh so what we're seeing is like as we go through things that
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recover fastest is always the single family homes and condos always lag behind that and that's because single family homes are really the driver of the real estate market.
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Yeah. And that's true for Denver right now too. A single family home in Denver is doing fine but a condo it's just taken a lot longer.
Chapter 2: Highlands Ranch vs Castle Rock Market
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That's right. And you know, I've noticed that the million to 1.5 million price point is actually going pretty quickly overall.
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Yeah. But let's talk about how that's a little different in the southern Denver suburbs.
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So when we say southern Denver suburbs today, we're really focusing on Highlands Ranch, Lone Tree, Meridian, Parker, Castle Rock, Sidelia, these sort
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of Douglas County areas. And what we're seeing is that much like in a big city, hot neighborhood, hotter price points,
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things move faster. So, when we're talking about Highlands Ranch, things are pretty hot in Highlands Ranch right now, whereas things are moving a little more slowly in Castle Rock.
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Oh, yeah. I've definitely see that be true this year. You're shopping in Highlands Range, you pop over to Castle Rock, completely different experiences.
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We actually have the perfect case test for this right now. We just sold two houses in Highlands Ranch and two houses in Castle Rock and it was a different
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exper experience. Not like black and white different, but definitely a few more days on the market in Castle Rock.
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Yeah, it's notable, right? I mean, when I just had my buyers out in Casar Rock last week, we came across their perfect home really. And it had been on the
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market for 32 days and their question to me was, "Megan, what's wrong with this home?" And um, you know, it's kind of funny for us because 32 days is not the
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end of the world, but for what we just came out of, it makes people think there's got to be something wrong. How has this not been scooped up yet? And
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the reality is just certain places are that's really pretty normal. I mean, median days on market in Castle Rock is really around 26 days on market. So to
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see something 32 doesn't mean that the home is falling down or insanely overpriced.
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That's right. And from a seasonal perspective, we see that things always slow down in May. The kids graduate, things move a little slower. All the
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agents in town want to know our feedback on their listings. And that's a really good, you know, reason to call us in advance so we can help plan out the
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seasonality of the market and help you figure out when the time is to get the best deal.
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100%. So, Highlands Ranch tends to be moving a little bit quicker this year than Castle Rock. There's also areas in Parker where these luxury communities
Chapter 3: Parker & South Denver Luxury Homes
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are selling way faster than the starter homes in Parker.
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And, you know, we're actually seeing lux the luxury market moving a little faster than like the below milliondoll market.
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Um what we're seeing is that these folks are maybe less price sensitive and rate sensitive right now and they're just ready to go for it because you know if
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you already own a home especially you're probably feeling bottlenecked by the last few years of crappy inventory and rates and you're just hitting the point
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where it's like we have to move now we're ready to go. You have a house to sell and so you have equity so you're just less price sensitive in that for that reason.
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Yeah. And I think because of that that's why we're seeing like that 1 million to like 1.4 4 millionish. It tends to be moving a little bit faster. But it's not
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just your neighborhood or your price point. There's also certain features that the home can have in southern Denver that's really going to make a difference.
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That's right. Like if you back up to some open space, which is common here in in southern Denver, we have so many trails that weave in and out of these neighborhoods.
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I mean, the suburbs are really built around all this open trail access and open space. And so, if you have that, I mean, even if you're not the most
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updated, it's going to go. But I will say if you're updated really well, folks also folks are price sensitive generally
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about the cost of construction and the cost of materials. So if you have a house that's really well updated, that's going to sell much faster. Or if you're
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buying a house that's really updated, that's going to sell a lot faster with more competition because folks look at these houses that need a lot of work and they're just dragging their feet and
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they don't want to. So that's and they don't have the money to.
Chapter 4: Denver Suburbs Home Prices
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Exactly. Just to give you an idea of what a home is looking like in these southern Denver suburbs, I took the last year of data and I'm just going to give you the medians to see what the typical
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home seems like. It was a 4bedroom 4b 2300 above grade square footage with the total square footage being 3,600 square
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ft. The median closed price last year was $737,000 and it spent 25 days in the MLS. The
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average build year was 2004. Gone are the days where every home you're seeing hit the market, updated or not, is going five or more% over asking price.
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Oh, thank God.
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Because you I think we all forget for a second how much that sucked.
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I mean, it was nice as a seller, but then where were you going to go afterwards? So, it's still scary as a seller.
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Yeah. So, it's very different now. We're saying so starting with a lower price point like 500 to 750. Those homes are going for average about 98% of the list
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price. So, that's not a ton of wiggle room, but it is something, right? Like, so 2% of $500,000 is 10 grand. So,
Chapter 5: Seller Concessions & Rate Buydowns
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that's $10,000 on your closing cost to buy your rate down to do anything creative like that.
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Can you explain a little bit what you would use that for? So, if instead of going and taking that off of the purchase price, which is not a bad idea,
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what are the other ways that you can start to use that?
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Other great ways to use that are paying out your loan closing costs at closing, right? So, there's a bunch of loan closing costs and we can pay things
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forward like pay forward a year of your homeowner's insurance and buy down the rate to a lower rate or maybe do a temporary buy down cuz maybe you've got
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some student loans falling off for the next year or maybe you're just hoping to refinance the next year or two. We're always careful with that advice, but
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then let's hop into the higher price point. So, if we're looking more like a million, these homes are more going for an average price of 96% of list price, which at a million-doll home is $40,000.
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And some of these are going for 96% and they're still getting those concessions you're talking about, right? We're just talking about sales price. So, there's also concessions
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available in that. That's hard to see when you're searching around with Zillow or Red Fin is like how many how much did they get in concessions?
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It's impossible to see. That's where really really where you need a real estate agent to be pulling that data and informing you on what's happening.
Chapter 6: Buying a Home in Colorado: Price vs Concessions
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That's right. And so then one more piece about this list price versus sale price ratio is that we are seeing those
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turnkey homes are going for a lot and those are still going above ask price.
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As a matter of fact, the expectations are something like Zillow tells us that the turnkey homes are selling for 5%
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above expected sale prices. in some of these houses that still need a lot of work are selling for up to 14% below
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expected sales prices. Now, speaking of these concessions and list price versus close price, there's a lot of hubbub
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about what the right thing to do here is. And now, I understand if you take a one minute sound bite of someone giving it advice, it's often just boiled down
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too much and it's giving too direct of an answer to a more complicated scenario. But I'm pretty riled up about
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some real estate influencers online acting like you're an idiot if you ever negotiate the price down and don't just take everything in concessions. That's
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right. Like these little sound bite people who are like trying to just catch your attention and tell you like you're an idiot. If you give money off the price of your home, you got to use the
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concessions. These people are who caused a lot of problems the last time around when the market dipped.
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Yeah. So the way I think of concessions is not free money to go grab. I think it's borrowing your equity a little bit
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early because anything you could have gotten as a concession upfront, you also could have just gotten off of the price point. It's the same thing to the
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seller. The seller does not have any difference to their net if they give you money off the price or if they give you a concession. So, if you got one, you could get the other. And if you're
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taking a full call it like 25 30k and you're taking it all in concessions, you basically just cashed out on 30 grand of
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your equity early. And that can get you into big trouble.
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That's right. When you're taking concessions, you have to think about is that you're actually just financing those concessions and you're paying that 6% interest rate on those concessions.
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So take 10 grand to pay for your loan closing costs. Keeps money in your pocket now, but you're paying 6% interest on that money you borrowed.
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Yeah. and say, you know, we always encourage people own your home for a longer term. But say something happens and in 3 years you've got to sell. Well,
Chapter 7: New Build vs Resale in Denver Suburbs
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if you took that 30K early, there might not be any equity left and you might be under what you need to close.
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All right, let's hop into a little bit of the difference between new build and resale in southern Denver living. So, you know, Megan, one of the problems
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with a new build sometimes is like, man, you're going to move so far out to an undeveloped community and be so far away from everything.
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Yes, I will say that is very true of Denver. I mean, you have to go out to the airport almost to get into a lot of these new build communities. Not true with a lot of the southern Denver
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suburbs. We have this unique thing where we have a lot of little plots of new build communities kind of sprinkled throughout. You're not having to go super far east or super far south.
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Although of course if you go super far east and south in Douglas County you will find more.
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But there's these nice little pockets like Lone Tree is a super developing area. There's Meridian which is kind of like West Parker area where there's the
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really this land is just being filled in and there's tons of development especially in Lone Tree and there's cool restaurants coming and there's like the
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whole Park Meadows Mall. So really that area is filling in nicely. And so if you're dreading the idea of having to wait for all the infrastructure to be
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built and you're dreading the idea of living in an area where there's not a single mature tree in sight, I will say southern Denver has a lot of pockets
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where you get to avoid all that and just kind of jump into a community with a brand new house. But there's no avoiding dreading the problem of taxes. We'll get
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into that later. So what are the communities that are still kind of far out and further from things? And what are the communities that are actually
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already pretty close? Hm. Well, if you're looking at Castle Rock and Parker, there are some communities on like the southern and eastern borders
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that do still feel kind of far out for things. So, we're thinking like Looking Glass is a big one. Um I think like Montaigne still feels pretty far.
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Sterling Ranch and Helens Ranch.
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Sterling Ranch going over to the west side. Um that it just doesn't have a lot built out for it yet. So, it does still have does still have that kind of far
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out feel. Whereas you're looking at like Meridian Village or any of these little lone tree developments, they still have that already already built feel. But
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even these more built out communities like Meridian Village, for example, does still not it doesn't have a full exemption from being a new build and
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having some of those pain points. Like there was a middle school that was proposed in Meridian Village that was supposed to be built and it never
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actually ended up being built because the community despite feeling like it's not is still in its infancy stage. And so because of that, they didn't have the
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capacity to fill it and there's not a middle school there. So if you're living there, you have to do quite a drive to get to your middle school. And that's, you know, some of the pain points that
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come with new builds. And it's not all bad when it comes to new builds. Those are just a few of the pain points. and I'm well versed in them because we do help a lot of people find new build
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places and they really love them. But I'm well versed on some of the bad stuff because I've lived through a lot of it.
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I actually have a whole video where I kind of talk smack about new builds. It's called the dark side of new builds.
Chapter 8: New Construction Homes & Builder Incentives
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Check that out. But let's lighten it up and talk about some of the great things about new builds.
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There are some great things. Some of us can be objective about this subject. So, aside from getting all new stuff, new roof, new HVAC, new windows, and all of
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that, there's actually a lot of financial perks right now with the new builds, especially here in southern Denver.
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Especially here in southern Denver. So, what we're actually seeing is more negotiation on the original list price to the closed price. So, we're seeing in
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that lower tier, 500 to 750, you know, uh homes close something like 96% of their original list price. If you move
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up in the per in the purchase price range uh up to a million, we're seeing 94%. Which is huge. That's like $60,000
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off. And that's not even counting the concessions these folks are giving. So that's like we warned before about concessions. You got to be careful about
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it. But the thing about these new builds is they're often not willing to do a price reduction instead of the concessions because they're trying
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they're trying to protect sort of the image of the community that like, hey, we're selling these milliondoll homes and yeah, we're going to give you
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$25,000 in concessions, but we won't do it as a price drop cuz we don't want that to show up in our sale price. So, the key to getting those
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$25,000 concessions we were talking about earlier, you just kind of got to show up right now, and we actually may be able to negotiate those higher if the
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concessions are what you're looking for, but they're harder on the purchase price itself. Um, but as you move up in the price range, actually, interestingly, as
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you go above a million, there's a little less negotiation on the price. And if you go above 2 million, there's almost none. This is a weird one. above $2
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million price point in the Douglas County area is not very negotiable and these houses are selling quickly.
Chapter 9: Colorado Property Taxes on New Builds
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Okay, I do have one more thing that I kind of wanted to say. Just can't help yourself, can you?
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I can't. So, one more con about these new build communities, and Southern Denver is no exception, is the taxes on things from, you know, the lowest pocket
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of resale taxes to the highest pocket of new build taxes could be three times the annual tax amount. And that can hurt.
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And you can be sure that it's at probably at least double, maybe double plus, because they're saying it's about 0.55% in Douglas County overall, but a
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new build is going to be 1.25%, which on a million-doll home, it's like $6,000 a year. It is. And hey, that
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brings us to our next topic. This is a great leadin because we also just want to talk to you about taxes in general, not just new builds, but on resale and how they differ all around the different
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communities in southern Denver. So among the resale communities within the southern Denver suburbs, there's a little bit more diversity than you might
Chapter 10: Highlands Ranch & Parker Property Taxes
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expect in the annual tax amounts. So starting off in Highlands Ranch, the median here, what I used was a purchase
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price of about $750 across the board for all the communities I'm about to talk about, just to put this into like a realistic term for you. But for about a
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$750,000 home in Highlands Range, your median tax bill uh for the annual year is going to be $4,600.
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And that's pretty good, especially when you consider that Highlands Ranch has a metro district. A lot of the time when you see a metro district attached to a
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community, those taxes start to just really buff up. But not so in Highlands Ranch, they maintain the trails, all of
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the outside areas, and they do a great job. If you move over into Parker, there's a little bit of diversity in the tax rates there.
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That's right. There's a couple of neighborhoods on the lower end, like we've got Cottonwood, Clark Farms, Canterbury. These are all pretty much in line with Highlands Ranch. Yeah, those
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are on the lower end. Of course, this is one of those typical communities where as you start to move up, as in the newness of the community, then those
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start to go up, which makes sense. Gas Rock is another community that has actually a pretty surprising tax piece to it. So, it does follow that standard
Chapter 11: Castle Rock & Founders Village Taxes
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thing we've been talking about where the newer builds are going to have the higher taxes, but there's also one standout community that has some higher
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taxes, and it's Founders Village. And although Foundersville will just have a couple pieces of it where there is some newer homes built out, it's in general
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an older community and even those older homes still have a much higher tax rate.
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So we're really looking there when we were saying about 4,600 for the lower end of Parker and for Highlands Ranch,
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we're going to see more like 5,800 to 6,000 in Founders Village, which is just below what you're seeing for a lot
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of those new builds. So, what else are we missing for things you might want to know about southern Denver suburbs before you move here?
Chapter 12: Moving to South Denver: Next Steps
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I'd say maybe like the general vibe of each community. Hey, it turns out we have some videos on those things. So, for neighborhood tours and general
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overall layouts of all these communities, follow our channel, subscribe, and make sure you check those other videos out.
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And when you've got more questions after those videos, that's what we're here for. Schedule a Zoom call with us, hop on the phone with us, text us, whatever is your preferred method of
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communication. We're so excited to hear from you and help you make your move within or to the Denver area.
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We're excited to meet you and thanks so much for joining us.
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Q: How does the real estate market in the southern Denver suburbs compare to the Denver market?
A: While the city of Denver is experiencing some slowness—particularly in the condo market—single-family homes in the southern Denver suburbs are moving much faster. Areas like Highlands Ranch are currently very hot, while nearby Castle Rock sees homes sitting on the market just a bit longer. Additionally, homes in the $1 million to $1.5 million price range are generally selling quickly overall because buyers with equity are less sensitive to interest rates.
Q: Are homes in the southern Denver suburbs still selling way over asking price?
A: For the most part, the days of every home selling for 5% or more over asking price are over. Homes priced between $500,000 and $750,000 are averaging about 98% of their list price, offering buyers some negotiation room. Homes closer to $1 million are averaging 96% of the list price. However, highly updated "turnkey" homes are the exception and can still spark competition and sell above asking.
Q: Should buyers prioritize negotiating the purchase price down or taking builder/seller concessions?
A: The hosts warn against viewing concessions as "free money". Taking full concessions is essentially borrowing your home's equity early because you are financing those concessions at your current mortgage interest rate. If you take $30,000 in concessions instead of negotiating the purchase price down, you risk being left with very little equity if you need to sell the home in a few years.
Q: What are the pros and cons of buying a new build in the southern Denver suburbs?
A: Pros: Southern Denver offers several new build pockets (like in Lone Tree and Meridian) that are already close to restaurants and infrastructure, so you aren't forced to live far out in undeveloped areas. You also get brand-new materials and significant financial perks, as builders are currently offering heavy concessions and room to negotiate on the list price. Cons: Newer communities are still in their infancy, meaning you might have to wait for infrastructure like neighborhood schools to be built. Additionally, new builds come with significantly higher property taxes.
Q: How do property taxes differ between new builds and older homes in the area?
A: Property taxes for new builds can be up to three times higher than those for older resale homes. While the general property tax rate in Douglas County is around 0.55%, a new build is typically around 1.25%, meaning a $1 million home could cost $6,000 a year in taxes. Older communities like Highlands Ranch have a much lower tax burden (around $4,600 annually for a $750,000 home) despite having a metro district that maintains the trails and open spaces.