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“We did the same thing with WildWing,” he said.

Back from the dead

As some zombie neighborhoods languish, there are signs of life.

Hoover is behind the redevelopment of both Dry Creek and WildWing, a zombie neighborhood which sits on Timnath Reservoir, where a 282-acre expanse of lots originally designed for high six- and seven-figure homes has been sitting dormant since the original developer’s bank foreclosed on WildWing four years ago.

“We’re going to bring it back to life because we think the market is ready for lakefront lots,” Hoover said. “The lots ranged from $200,000 to $350,000.”

Thanks to the lakefront views of the mountains, that’s how much the land alone was being sold for before the housing bubble burst.

Today, Hartford envisions marketing WildWing lots for between $65,000 and $280,000.
“We’ll probably have houses starting in the next 45 days,” Hoover said. “I think it’s going to move pretty fast, but we have 282 lots, so I think that’s going to take us six to seven years for full build-out.”

The southern half of Dry Creek also has been resurrected from the dead, with its developer offering $180,000 new homes with $1,000 down and $1,000 monthly payments.

The sales pitch: “You can buy yourself a nice 1,200 to 1,800 square-foot house with a garage for less than it costs to rent one in Fort Collins,” Hoover said.

And, he said, homebuyers aren’t being shy about offering up their down payments.
“We’re selling a house about every other day,” Hoover said. “It’s much better than expected.”

Pent-up demand

Chalk buyer enthusiasm for homes in Dry Creek and elsewhere up to pent-up demand, said Eric Thompson, president of The Group in Fort Collins.

Fewer new homes have been built in Fort Collins in the last five years than there has been demand for, and now the market dynamics are right for builders to start building again, he said.

Zombie neighborhoods were developed at a time where the market was oversupplied and the banks were overreaching, he said.

Now, partly thanks to the oil and gas industry expanding in Northern Colorado, affordable neighborhoods such as Dry Creek are as popular as ever and vacant neighborhoods once considered for multimillion-dollar homes are getting a second look from developers after sitting dormant for years, he said.