Moving to Durango, CO: 1,936 Questions Answered

What this is

This is every question we get asked about moving to Durango, Colorado, answered on camera and broken into 1,936 short, timestamped answers drawn from 139 videos. Rather than scrubbing through an hour-long neighborhood tour to find the two minutes about well permits, you can search for the thing you actually want to know and land on the exact second it gets answered.

Who is behind it

The videos are made by Jon Burden, a licensed realtor working in Durango, Bayfield, Hesperus, Pagosa Springs and the rest of Southwest Colorado with Woosa Properties. They are filmed on location -- standing in the neighborhoods, on the trails, at the trailheads and outside the homes being discussed -- rather than in an office. A lot of the material comes directly from questions asked on relocation calls, which is why the library leans heavily toward the practical and the unglamorous: driveway grades, septic transfer inspections, insurance quotes that come back at three different numbers.

Who it is for

Mostly people who are seriously considering the move and have got past the postcard stage. If you are weighing Durango against Bayfield or Pagosa Springs, trying to work out whether you can live with a well and a septic system, wondering how much more snow a neighborhood ten minutes east of town really gets, or figuring out whether your budget reaches the Animas Valley, this is built for you. It is also useful if you are already under contract and want to know what you have signed up for.

What it covers

Durango sits at 6,512 feet and averages roughly 65 inches of snow a year, but drive ten or twelve minutes east or west and you are above 7,000 feet getting fifty to a hundred percent more. That single fact shapes a surprising amount of what follows, and the library covers it from several directions: elevation and acclimation, microclimates, which driveways turn to ice and what plowing costs. On money, there are breakdowns of median prices by area, what a million dollars actually buys in each part of town, property taxes, propane, and why insurance quotes on a forested lot can range from three thousand to over ten. On land and utilities, there is a lot on wells, cisterns, water rights and the difference between a household-use-only permit and a domestic livestock well, plus septic inspections and what site development costs before you pour a foundation. Neighborhoods are covered subdivision by subdivision, with the honest drawbacks included: the ones with no walkable road, the ones where trails run behind your fence, the ones where the trees are so dense the house never gets light. There is also schools and daycare waitlists, healthcare and what Mercy can and cannot handle, the airport and where you can actually fly, skiing and the fact that Purgatory is under thirty minutes with no bumper-to-bumper approach, and a large amount on the outdoors.

How to use it

Start with the search box. It looks through all 1,936 answers at once, so plain questions work well: try well permit, ice dams, septic inspection, Bayfield schools, or property taxes. If you would rather browse, the topic buttons underneath narrow everything to one subject. Below that, Start Here collects the videos most people watch first, Newest shows what has just gone up, and the full library is laid out underneath. Opening any video lists its answers with timestamps -- click one and YouTube starts at that moment. Nothing here is gated and there is no form to fill in first.

A note on what it is not

These are opinions and observations from someone who lives and works here, not professional advice. Figures quoted in the videos were accurate when filmed and move over time, particularly prices, insurance premiums and interest rates. Nothing here is legal, tax, financial or investment advice, and it is not a substitute for a home inspection, a survey, a title search or a conversation with your own lender. If a specific property matters to you, go and look at it.