Moving to Albuquerque

Hello Querqians,

My girlfriend Jess and I will soon be making a big move from North Carolina to Albuquerque and, as our prior knowledge of the area is limited, we figured it could be helpful to ask for advice from the local scene.

We are 30 year old climbing, paddling, adventure enthuisiast. Jess's work will have her downtown near the 25-40 interchange and I am a self-employed carpenter whose work place is always changing. We certainly have a budget, but would like to rent a house and garage that has good access to the trappings of the urban life (I'm thinking about groceries, dinner and bar options, nightlife perhaps, maybe even be able.to ride a bicycle around). Access to some sort of park or green spaces would be awesome, access to area climbing/skiing/hiking would be nice too but it seems like that might be asking too much. 

Are there any particular neighborhoods or city sectors that may be recommended over others? I know that pocket streets will always exist but any areas to perhaps avoid? Any advice for some oblivious Easterners is greatly appreciated.

We fly out the 1st of August to find a place to live, and will be making the move at the end of the month. It will be sad leaving NC but we are super excited to be getting an opportunity to explore The Land of Enchantment!

P.S. I will also be looking for climbing partners! I do it all but like ropes best. Love the long shot trad adventures but doing the dance on a sport climb is good fun too! Psyched to get plugged in with the community

Taylor

It has been almost a decade since I lived there, but I liked the area few blocks east of the University.  It was quiet, not too expensive, and a reasonable drive from the Sandia trailheads for climbing and hiking.  Groceries are within biking distance, and you can always head toward UNM for coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and night life.

I loved living in Albuquerque
You should seriously consider the crime rate before picking a place

Hey Taylor,

East downtown, downtown, Nob Hill are all decently priced and will put you near in town amenities. I bike everywhere in town and have lived near Stone Age and in Nob Hill. Grocery stores are aplenty in that part of town. If you want proximity to the foothill trails, you'll want to live up near Tramway, but that will make the commute to Jess's work less than ideal. If you're downtown, than the bosque trails are really great for single-track biking and running. I would discourage living on the west side of the river.

Crime is scattered throughout town, but clustered in the International District. Break-ins can happen no matter where you live, lock your doors...

As far as climbing, you'll be driving 40-50 min to get to the east side of the sandia's to approach the multipitch granite (the climbs are accessed from the top). Santa Fe climbing at Diablo is an hours drive and Socorro is also an hour to the south. There is a lot of bouldering in the Albuquerque foothills near Tramway as well.

I grew up in Durham and have lived out here for the past three years. Send me a personal message if you have any more questions. 

There are certainly better and worse places to live but Albuquerque is a fairly small city. You can get pretty much anywhere in 30 minutes and usually less with private automobile being the most popular means of transit by far. Nob Hill area sounds most similar to what you're interested in in terms of nightlife but frankly that's outside of my area of interest/knowledge. There's an online bike map; riding on the streets can be a little risky but off road trails and more open roads are pretty decent. Getting out of town for skiing, hiking, etc. is enabled by being closer to I-25 or I-40. Most of the skiing is best departed to via I-25 from ABQ; the hiking is less directionally dependent.

Weather is way better than the East coast humidity IMO. A little snow in the winter. Sunny in the summer but not scorching hot. So good climate IMO. Trails right on the east side of town. A few hours to Taos which has great skiing or closer local places.

I was just considering buying an investment property in town. I'll repeat what I was told.

The nicest area is the NE. It's also the most expensive.

Or just north of I40 and the farther east the better (I guess it's still considered the NE, but it's really central in terms of North to South) , is a great older area that's still affordable with lower crime and easy access to the trails. It's where we were considering buying. Easy to hop on I40 east to head to Sandia crest climbing

As mentioned east of the University is also decent (south of I40 from the area I mentioned above.)

As mentioned don't live on the west side of the river. There's a limited number of bridges and they get busy at rush hour.

As a self employed carpenter if you can live on your girlfriends salary (well, you may need to be married for her to buy into it) I'd buy an older house (cheap but in a good neighborhood) that needs updating. Rehab it. Then buy another house that needs work and move into it. Then rent out the original house. Keep doing that until you have about 20 houses and you'll be able to stop working (except managing your rentals) and climb full time.

With only 2 people weighing in who actually still live here, let me add my 2 cents as a current & longtime resident:

Crime: Bad, but getting better ... mostly property crime so security is a must, whether you rent or buy

Rent v. buy: A lot of people mention Nob Hill ... definitely rentals in that area ... as far as buying, though, good luck ... everything within about a mile perimeter of UNM starts at around $.5 M for the most basic homes ... rentals are available all over town, though, & for quaintness maybe try North Valley or Country Club or Old Town areas ... as pointed out, the only place really to avoid is the SE, what Bobby calls the International District as a rebranding of the old name 'War Zone' ... which brings me to:

Getting around: Albuquerque is a pretty sprawling city & transit is terrible (fingers crossed ART gets up & running) ... otherwise, with a personal vehicle as Bill points out you can take the freeways virtually to anyplace in 30 minutes or so ... biking is a mixed bag ... on the one hand, a super network of exclusively bike trails (including following the drainage arroyos) can take you far in all directions without dealing with traffic except at crossings ... the bad news is, once you exit the trails, all bets are off ... on the other hand, ride share is huge in ABQ, brewpub scene is stellar & the food ...well, need I say more?

Climbing/skiing: Great bouldering all along the foothills, easy to get to for an after work / school session ... for longer climbs, as Bobby points out, Diablo & Socorro are about an hour's drive away ... for even longer ones, forty minutes up the backside of the Sandias gets you to some of the hardest climbs around ... the Sandias are a big and complicated range, the challenges run pretty much from car to car with devious approaches & lots of potential for time wasting missteps (different from getting 'lost', which is well nigh impossible) ... then there are the route finding challenges of the climbs themselves ... maybe start with Echo Canyon & Upper La Cueva (upper La Luz Trail) - lots of stellar multipitch routes with minimal complication - then head for the Muralla Grande & finally, maybe, the Shield ... for skiing, Taos & Santa Fe are both in driving distance but I'll put in a plug for Sandia Peak Ski Area as really a kind of hidden gem, served by the Tram if you don't feel like driving & with more acreage than at first appears, a decent selection of black diamonds & good skinning if that's your game ... also a good selection of cross country trails all along the Crest ...

Other pasttimes: Biking the Bosque Trail, mountain biking north of Alameda Bridge, along the Sandia foothills & Cedro Peak (just a few examples) ... also: board sailing / paddle boarding at Cochiti Lake, rafting / kayaking on the Rio Grande north of Espanola ...

All in all, Taylor, you & your GF could do a lot worse than become Burquenos ... best of luck ...

Thank you everyone for your responses. There has been a lot of helpful information handed out and certainly eases the tension of the unknown. Jess came out to the city for 3 days in February and was able to tour around a little, but I've only ever driven through Albuquerque. The lack of knowledge on our part paired with wildly varying opinions by Non-ABQ/NMians on the city has given me some cold toes leaving the pastoral, albeit humid, North Carolina.

The areas mentioned near downtown are the places we will likely focus our search but the NE of downtown towards the foothills seems like another great option (maybe a bit more suburban but good access to the Foothills). We have seen a lot of places advertised on the west side and it seemed like prices may be lower. I wonder what the story was and the bridge issues seems best to avoid.

It is also nice to hear about the convenience of the foothills bouldering to Albuquerque. Where we currently live i dare say is the Hub of NC climbing, with the bulk of areas falling within 1:15 in a 360° radius. However, no area is less than 45 minutes and that makes afternoon climbing a bit more of a mission than I would like. Through my MP lurking sessions, I have been continuously impressed by the variety of climbing areas such as Sandia Crest, Capulin Canyon and Enchanted Tower, all within range of a day trip of Albuquerque.

I didn't know anything about the biking infrastructure or the off-road trails utilizing drainage washes, or the Tram accessed skiing opportunities. That is all pretty dang slick. I will definitely have to step up my skiing game!

All in all, Albuquerque seems like a fun place to live and we are very excited to get out there.

Thanks again for the opinions and the advice. It is all been greatly appreciated.

Taylor and Jess

Also, the north campus area is a good option. It is close to Nob Hill and downtown, walking distance to the UNM golf course for quick trail runs, and is a safe neighborhood. We live just south of Nob Hill off of Ridgecrest, and though we like it, we do get some Warzone spillover which is not ideal.

Taylor - I had meant to talk about the West Side - that's where most of the new building goes on in Burque ... some very large, very new homes at very good prices ... but the bridges are no joke ... there are 6 of them & while that sounds like enough, it isn't given the number of people living on the West Side, all of them forced onto one or another of the crossings at Rio Bravo, Bridge Street, Central, I-40, Montano, Paseo del Norte or Alameda ... there's not a lot of political will to build more bridges & I can relate to that ... 'If you build them, they will come' goes the reasoning ... trouble is, they've already come ... fortunately, where I live (NE Heights) it doesn't affect me much, but I did have a transport job once that took me back & forth over the river multiple times daily & while rush hours are clearly the worst, there is really no good time for crossing without huge backups & people driving like Indy racers ... I finally quit that job, it was so nerve wracking (I'd take runout 5.10 over it any day) ... there are dedicated bike trails that parallel at least parts of Montano & Paseo, but I really can't imagine anyone commuting that way if he didn't have to ...

Your instinct on the NE Heights, however, is spot on ... these neighborhoods began as 1950s subdivisions (mine, for example) but somehow survive into this century with responsible ownership & good landscaping ... some pockets of squalor, but mostly a good bet for home buying ... the eastern limit of these old subdivisions is Tramway Blvd, running along the foothills from I-40 in the south to I-25 in the north ... above Tramway & sandwiched between it & either Abq Open Space or the Sandia Wilderness boundary lie all the trophy homes ... Uncle Hank lived in one in Breaking Bad, with a commanding view of the Rio Grande Valley, the crags of the Sandias looming behind & unlimited bouldering out the back door ... for we peones, though, those homes only pose an obstacle to getting to the boulders & canyons of the foothills - though not much of an obstacle, fortunately ... thanks to ABQ Open Space Division providing easy access to sites such as Embudo, U Mound & Tres Pistoles bouldering & with direct wilderness access to the good, short multipitch routes of Lower La Cueva Canyon....

I trust this answers your outstanding questions regarding West Side versus NE Heights ... either way, once across the Rio Grande & providing it isn't rush hour, you can still get up in the foothills in an easy half hour ...

Mark

I haven’t lived there but I’d definitely consider it. I’ve been to about 46 states and would only live in an area with good climbing and skiing. Eg CA, CO, WA, OR You also get a pretty good climate. Affordable housing. (a rarity these days). I could deal the crime/homelessness/remoteness. The hardest thing for me would probably be being so far from the ocean but I’d plan vacations somewhere with a beach/surfing. 

Well we have secured a place to live in Albuquerque! Jesss and I flew out last week and spent 3.5 days combing through the housing market scheming proximity, desirability, security, and perhaps most importantly, AVAILABILITY! I believe the time of year has much to do with it, but the rental market in Albuquerque is highly competitive.

Overall, I very much enjoyed Albuquerque and found it to have a similar vibe as a Midwestern Rust Belt city. I am originally from Dayton, Ohio, and the two moderate sized suburban city's each have a strong sense of place mixed with their own urban decay and strip malls, that to me, lend to an interesting and unique place, not to mention population.

We focused our search mostly in the areas in and around Nob Hill, as well as the NE, predominantly below Menual Blvd (more or less burning a tank of fuel driving through these neighborhoods), but did see one property near the Tramway and one on the west side of the bridge. In the end we had 3 properties to choose from, one in Silver Hill that would have placed us just across the street from Presbyterian Hospital, one in the Inez neighborhood (I really liked this neighborhood, mostly older folks (it seemed) with immaculately maintained brick homes) that had a sweet solarium, and finally the one we chose in the La Resolana neighborhood. La Resolana felt more mixed than the other two neighborhoods, with one home looking quite tidy then the next with perhaps a derelict Winnebago with tarp strapped over it. We liked the home and the neighborhood park, and the location seems reasonably safe with good proximity to the areas we think we'd frequent.

The Sandia Mountains are BEAUTIFUL and really give Albuquerque a mountainous look. It is amazing how close the foothills  are. We didn't have a chance to go hiking but the climbing potential sure was holding my attention. So excited to start exploring the area. We drove around the range on 165 our last afternoon for a little exploration mission. The east side has a completely different physical makeup than the west and I was surprised to see how densely vegetated the forest was, as well as all the limestone cliff line and bluffs.

Once again, thank you for everyone who offered up advice here and reached out through email. The Albuquerqueians I have interacted with thus far have been friendly, unassuming, and helpful. We are looking forward to meeting y'all!

Taylor and Jess