Us Real Estate: Holiday Home Locations

[Mesoscale]

My parents are thinking about buying a holiday home somewhere in the US that they can move out too when they retire but untill then we can go out there for holidays and stuff!

They asked me to look into it for them as im 'good on computers' well i want them to go somewhere were they have hot summers, decent thunderstorms (my decision for them for when i go visit them haha), snow in the winter and be close to a mountainous area that has alot of open space but is close to a large city! there not too picky about the sea but they like there to be some lakes close by, my parents dont want anything really below kansas as when they retire they dont want to have to live with excessive heat although i know anywhere in the US can get heat waves but they want it to be hotter then england.

I know its really being picky but is there any regions you know of to start looking at real estate which is remotley close to this?

thanks guys!

[Paul Sherman]

Absolutely Simple. All of the above virtually fits into the 2 Major Cities in Colorado.

In fact it is almost as if you have picked Denver or Colorado Springs and then read off the Spec for living there

Denver and Colorado Springs are Big enough to be close to everything you could possibly need, nice and Clean they are situated at the Foothills of the Colorado Rockies. Abundant Snow in Winter as they are both Cities at a location of 1 Mile High. They also get numerous Thunderstorms from Late April through to October. Climate wise the temp will almost certainly touch 100f but not much more than a few times per year. Pretty much most of May and June will see Thunderstorms form in Upslope Flow and move across the Denver and C Springs areas before rolling out across Eastern Colorado as fully fledged Supercells. Denver does Get Tornadoes but these tend to be weakish Landspout Tornadoes or CZ Tornadoes (Like our Uk Ones) but on the odd occasion they do get the odd strong one as well.

Down side to Colorado is the price of Real Estate places it in the Top 10 most costliest in the US Whereas Oklahoma and Kansas are in the bottom 10.

Paul S

[Mikel Nimbus]

As Paul said, I think you have summed up Denver, CO pretty well. The times I've been in the summer, it has been nicely 'hot' with its fair share of decent storms. A weak/moderate storm out there is much better than anything we get over here. I believe winters can get on the very chilly side, but so can most of the US. As with any huge landmass, extremes in temperature are to be expected.

[Snow Queen one]

Have you thought about New England it gets hot there too in the summer and very cold in the winter it is near the sea but also has some big towns. I have seen people cross country sking to work in the winter there. On top of that it has the wonderful fall colours that everybody raves about. Very clean too and not too touristy. Hope that helps.