180 closings
Verified transactions over the prior five years, 112 of them buyer side.
An Albuquerque foothills realtor is really working five or six separate markets that happen to share a mountain, and the covenants differ in every one of them.
Melissa Salazar shows in the foothills corridor regularly, from Four Hills at the south end through Glenwood Hills, Sandia Heights and High Desert.
She is also a professional real estate photographer, which matters more here than anywhere else in the city, because the view is most of what you are selling.
Foothills land sits above the valley on ground that is harder and more expensive to build on. Slope, drainage coming off the mountain, retaining walls and the genuinely buildable footprint all sit behind the price.
Two houses on the same street with the same square footage can be a long way apart on price, and the difference is almost always the land and what it looks at.
A view over city open space or over a drainage that cannot be built on stays. A view across a vacant lot that somebody else owns does not.
This is the single most expensive thing buyers here get wrong, and it is knowable before you write an offer.
Most foothills neighbourhoods have them, and they are stricter than buyers coming from elsewhere in the metro expect. Roofing, exterior paint, window replacement, solar panels, driveway changes and landscaping can all need written approval before the work starts.
Melissa gets you the covenants and the association documents during your inspection period. Read them before you plan anything, particularly if solar or an addition is part of why you are buying.
You are on the edge of 2,650 acres of Sandia Foothills Open Space, which is the reason to live here and also the thing to be clear-eyed about. Native pinon and juniper, deer and coyotes, and the trailheads at Elena Gallegos and Embudo Canyon within a few minutes of most of these streets.
Buyers who want that will not be talked out of it. They should just know what they are buying.
Verified transactions over the prior five years, 112 of them buyer side.
Total verified sales volume across those transactions, averaging $423,100.
Licensed in New Mexico since 2018, and a professional real estate photographer since 2016.
The strip running along the base of the Sandias on the east edge of the city, roughly from Tramway eastward and up. Sandia Heights, High Desert, Glenwood Hills and the streets above Academy are the names people usually mean, and Four Hills sits in the same relationship to the mountain at the south end. Each one is a different market with its own covenants and its own price per foot.
You are paying for elevation, the view and the lot. Most of the foothills sits well above the valley floor, the land is harder to build on, and a west-facing lot that holds the city lights prices differently from the same house fifty feet lower with a wall in front of it. The house is often the smaller part of the number.
The covenants first, because most of these neighbourhoods have architectural review and it governs roofing, paint, windows, solar, driveways and landscaping. Then the lot: slope, drainage off the mountain, retaining walls and what is actually buildable. Then access, because some streets are steep and some are private.
It holds value better than almost any other feature in Albuquerque, but only if it is protected. A view over open space or a drainage that cannot be built on is permanent. A view over a vacant lot is not. That distinction is worth more than it costs to check.
Tell Melissa what you are trying to do and when. If the answer is that you should wait, she will say so.