In a hot market with prices below Denver’s, Colorado Springs’ Banning Lewis Ranch shows its Colorado Collection from $370s
While Denver’s housing market cools off for fall, Colorado Springs’ market is red hot — with median home prices $134,000 below those around the Mile High City. One Springs zip code on the side closest to Denver ranks as the seventh hottest market in the entire nation now (Realtor.com) — and a mile from there, Oakwood Homes can show you some new, energy-efficient, quick-delivery homes at prices way off their Denver mark — roomy ranches included.
Visit this weekend to tour a new Colorado Collection ranch at 8779 Tranquil Knoll Road in master-planned Banning Lewis Ranch. It has three bedrooms and 2-1/2 baths above ground, more than 2,000 square feet finished, plus a full-wide three-car garage and a day-lit garden-level basement for future finish. Oakwood Homes has a “Rake in the Savings” promotion running on inventory homes that can deliver before the holidays — and that brings the price of this one down to just under $430,000.
Those prices — plus the appealing amenities developed by Oakwood at Banning Lewis Ranch — are drawing a significant share of the Colorado Collections’ buyers down from the Mile High, according to Michelle Wilkerson, who along with Yvonne Rowe will show you around. Oakwood opened this entirely new collection at Banning Lewis Ranch last spring — but has roared through 23 of 53 available sites. Some of those buyers, says Wilkerson, are commuting from here into the DTC and other Denver work sites.
On the way, they pass new home areas closer to Denver where smaller ranch plans are priced $50,000 to $90,000 higher than that, without the day-lit garden level basement. “If you figure the extra cost in gas of commuting down here, you’ll never make up for that much difference,” adds Wilkerson.
That’s without figuring in the community aspects that are part of the package at Banning Lewis Ranch, seven miles east of I-25 on Woodmen Road. The 2,600-acre community has 50 acres of parks and trails, with a Ranch House community center that includes a 24/7 fitness center and pool — in addition to a newer $2.75 million Aquatic Center with slides and a zero-entry area for small kids, closer to the Colorado Collection models you’ll tour.
That’s all complemented by yearround activities that Wilkerson says is like “Highlands Ranch on steroids.” Banning Lewis Ranch has its own Thursday farmer’s market, summer concerts in the park, movie nights, campfire evenings with s’mores and holiday-themed events, including an Apple Pickin’/Pumpkin Pickin’ event next Thursday and a “Santa Run” 5K in December.
Banning Lewis Ranch isn’t age restricted (it already has two charter schools, including a 6th-through-9th grade Prep Academy that’s scheduled to become a full charter high school in the future) — yet Oakwood’s reasonable prices for ranch plans are attracting plenty of downsizing buyers, some of them moving to be near their kids. The senior set here has its own “Silverado Club” with movie nights, shopping trips, pickleball, free yoga and Pilates classes, and hiking and biking groups.
Harder to believe, the metro district fee that Banning Lewis residents pay for all that, including the aquatic center, is $81.50 per month.
You can see a mix of Oakwood’s “Showcase Homes” on track for early move-in, both ranch and family-sized twostory — including a Palmer ranch, with three-car garage and a “Smart Space” upstairs that adds a guest suite with full bath. It provides 2,518-square-feet finished, reduced now to $419,900.
Wilkerson will have Horseshoe Doughnuts, a local favorite, out in the models this weekend. The quickest route is via Interquest Parkway to Powers — but for your first trip, take I-25 south past 470, 50 miles to Woodmen, and head east seven miles to Marksheffel, then south a mile to Dublin, and east a mile to Vista Del Valley. Turn north to the models at Mineral Belt.