Desert Ridge Trails in Albuquerque, NM

Where it actually sits

Desert Ridge Trails sits north of Paseo del Norte in Albuquerque's far Northeast Heights, boxed in roughly by Wyoming Boulevard on the west and Ventura Street on the east. The bulk of it carries an 87113 address, and the eastern edge runs into 87122. Anyone shopping Desert Ridge Trails homes for sale should know the scale up front: this is a compact, finished pocket, not a master plan with gates and a golf course. You can walk the whole thing in twenty minutes.

Street names give away the era. Blue Cypress. Silver Sage. Curving lanes hung off Barstow, laid out so there's no reason to drive through unless you live here. For a lot of buyers that's the whole appeal.

The houses

Most of it went up in 2003 and 2004, and the covenants were recorded in 2004. Southwest Contemporary throughout: stucco in tans and clay tones, low-pitched roofs behind parapets, arched entries, front-facing two-car garages. Single-story and two-story plans sit side by side on the same block.

Lots are production-sized. Block walls, xeriscaped fronts, a patio and a bit of grass out back if the owner kept it up. Nobody is keeping horses here. If land is what you want, drive a mile east into North Albuquerque Acres and pay for it.

That's the honest trade-off. You get the school assignment and the Paseo access without buying the acre, and generally at a friendlier number than the big-lot addresses just east. People who want a turnkey house from this century and no yard project tend to land here. People who want acreage, or a 1970s custom with some quirk to it, usually don't.

Parks, and one trail that doesn't connect

The neighborhood has its own city park. Desert Ridge Trails Park at 7300 Blue Cypress NE runs about two acres with a playground, a picnic shelter and an open field big enough for a real soccer practice. It's small, and it's on the city's Adopt-A-Park list, so how sharp it looks depends on who's showing up to work on it. Barstow Park at 7907 Barstow NE is the other close one.

The bigger draw is North Domingo Baca Park at Wyoming and Carmel, roughly 58 acres. The Multigenerational Center there has a weight room, indoor basketball, climbing walls and a game room, plus low-cost weekday breakfast and lunch. Outside you get a skate park, an off-leash dog area, tennis and bocce courts, and a two-mile loop.

Now the caveat. The South Domingo Baca Arroyo Trail looks continuous on a map and it isn't. From Ventura east to Holbrook is fine. The stretch between Barstow and Ventura was never finished, and it's fenced and overgrown. You'll learn that once, on a bike. For a proper long ride, get on the Paseo del Norte trail and head west across the north side of the city.

Schools and errands

Three APS schools serve this area and all of them are close: North Star Elementary at 9301 Ventura NE, Desert Ridge Middle at 8400 Barstow NE, and La Cueva High at 7801 Wilshire NE. It's the La Cueva feeder pattern, which is why a good share of buyers look at this part of town at all. The elementary and the middle school are both walkable, or a short bike ride, from most streets in the neighborhood.

Errands are close to trivial. La Cueva Town Center and Paseo Village, both at Wyoming and Paseo del Norte, handle coffee, casual dinner and everyday shopping. Target and Lowe's are a few minutes west on Paseo. From the driveway it's about four miles west on Paseo del Norte to I-25, and the North I-25 and Journal Center office corridor is a short hop, which matters if that's where you work. The Sandias fill the eastern skyline, and the ground tilts up toward them, so the higher streets pick up a genuine mountain view.

The association

Desert Ridge Trails has an HOA, managed by HOAMCO's Albuquerque office, and dues are billed quarterly for most owners. They cover the common areas, road maintenance and a security component. The figures are in the panel beside this, and by Albuquerque standards they're modest. The association isn't heavy-handed day to day, but the 2004 covenants are real and they get enforced on the visible things: paint, parking, what's stored where the street can see it.

One thing to ask about before you write an offer. The adjacent Estates at Desert Ridge Trails association fought an owner over short-term rentals and lost at the New Mexico Court of Appeals in 2013, where the court held that renting a single-family house short-term isn't by itself the kind of business use a single-family residential purposes covenant bars. Associations amend their documents after rulings like that. If short-term rental matters to you in either direction, read the current CC&Rs and every amendment, not somebody's summary of them.

Desert Ridge Trails doesn't turn over quickly, so it's worth watching. Browse the current listings below to see what's available in the neighborhood right now, and reach out if you'd like to walk one.