How does 80108 rate?
Mature, educated, affluent and 1,000 feet above Mile High
By Joe Gschwendtner
Every magazine and newspaper has its list of best places, Money, Forbes, Family Circle, and the Denver Business Journal to name a few. Colorado and its cities are always high on these lists. Most rankings deal with quality of life issues like education, growth, jobs, income and home value. But zip codes are also sorted to map and exploit marketing areas with direct mail and advertisements to follow. When it comes to the Front Range, 80108 leads the Denver area in buying power.
Prior to hitting the economic skids, average income at these altitudes exceeded $200,000 annually. Even so, today’s average household earnings, projected at $187,939 place 80108 in the top one-and-a half percent of all households in the country. Almost one-third of all households today still earn more than $200,000 annually. Such numbers should come as no surprise since those in the Castle Rock area appear to be some of the most educated folks in the country. Extrapolations indicate that 54 percent of our 24,811 residents have college degrees within which an 18 percent subset have post-graduate degrees.
We are anything but a dense community and have only 8,606 households. But we live quite well on ample property, including ranchettes, thickly wooded estates, mesas, and at cliff side. Discounted 20 percent from 2008 for the distressed real estate market, our average home price exceeds $500,000. Of all households in the zip code, only 1,264 or 15 percent are renter-occupied.
Our hair is also greyer here. We average 40.9 years of age, ahead of the U.S. population itself by a full four years at 36.8. If diversity is an important factor to the quality of life, we miss the mark by a country mile, as more than 92 percent of residents are Caucasian.
Your Castle Pines Connection serves this greater community: Castle Pines, Castle Pines Village, Surrey Ridge, Charter Oaks, Beverly Hill, Oak Hills and a few others. The trend for our future continues to be bright if quality of life is the essential element. We occupy a unique ridge in the geography of Colorado. With the continuing affluence and education of our citizens, the only challenge we really have is to work closely with local government and associations to nurture our environment and stay well above “Mile High.”
