By Mark Samuelson

In a week when Forbes Magazine named Denver ‘Best City to Buy a Home’ in the nation, Oakwood Homes is showing you a great place to do just that–Green Valley Ranch, where last week Oakwood CEO Pat Hamill helped officials break ground for Green Valley Ranch’s E-12 campus, an ‘energized platform’ for learning that will blend high-tech with green/sustainable energy features.

Turning the first ground for Green Valley Ranch’s new E-12 Campus are, from left, DPS Operations Director Kelly Leid, Oakwood President and CEO Pat Hamill, former Councilwoman Allegra ‘Happy’ Haynes, School Board Member Kevin Patterson, and Councilman Michael Hancock.

“You’re seeing Green Valley Ranch develop a sense of identity, a sense of place,” says Denver Public Schools’ Operations Director Kelly Leid, who five years ago was with Oakwood when he began work on a vision for E-12…a School of Science and Technology campus (plans call for a laptop for every student), covering all grades, K-12; the first new high school built in Denver in 30 years. more »

By Mark Samuelson

Why is Denver being ranked as a national market (perhaps THE market) most likely to lead a real estate recovery? In part for the excitement buyers and developers are finding in the city’s core urban neighborhoods…highlighted by Cherry Creek, where new upscale stores, exclusive restaurants, are emerging right now, this year.

Developers David Steel (left) and Roy Kline show off the Paris-inspired courtyard of NorthCreek, where residents have their cars valet-parked.

“Everybody’s trying to mimic Cherry Creek,” says Roy Kline of Western Development Group, overseeing the metamorphosis of an entire block of Cherry Creek North into NorthCreek, a medley of residential offerings that have already lured a complement of stores to the street level….including Hermes (famous Paris accessory house that opened in April); Eileen Fisher; Loro Piana, Marmi…all of them either a flagship, or making a singular appearance. more »

When NBC’s Today Show ran a segment last week projecting Denver as the market with prospects for making the nation’s first comeback from the housing slump, more than a few Realtors were already expecting the news.

Becky Kenny of RE/MAX Professionals shows a listing at 179 Satsuma Place in Plum Creek, Castle Rock, priced at $699,000, backing to the Pete Dye-designed golf course.

“We’ve been predicting for six months that we’d begin seeing appreciation in the lowest price ranges, and that the effect would begin creeping into the middle ranges,” says broker Jack O’Connor, a principal owner of the newly combined RE/MAX Professionals. He issues a monthly report to agents on market prospects. more »