Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque, NM

Mesa del Sol sits on the mesa top southeast of the Sunport, roughly six miles out from downtown Albuquerque, and it doesn't look like anywhere else in the city. Anyone shopping Mesa del Sol homes for sale is looking at new construction or close to it: the first houses went in around 2011 and builders are still delivering lots. Addresses here are all SE, in 87106. Wide streets, young trees, big sky. The Sandias sit on one horizon and the Manzanos on the other, and on a clear winter morning you can see both from a front porch.

Getting in and out

This is the first thing I tell buyers. There's no I-25 interchange at Mesa del Sol yet. You come in on University Boulevard over the Tijeras Arroyo bridges, which the city widened and rebuilt with about $8 million in transportation tax funds, or on Bobby Foster Road. That's it. An interchange has been studied for years and it's the thing residents ask about most.

What you get in exchange is a short drive to a lot of jobs. Kirtland Air Force Base and Sandia National Laboratories are minutes north. Netflix runs its production campus out of Albuquerque Studios right here, and Fidelity, Kairos Power and United Poly Systems all have operations on the mesa. Downtown, UNM and CNM are a quick run up University or I-25. The Sunport is close enough that you'll hear the occasional departure.

The houses themselves

Southwest Contemporary, mostly. Stucco, parapets, clean lines, with a fair number of pitched-roof plans mixed in. You won't find heavy Pueblo Revival here and you won't find anything old. Six builders have worked the residential side under Titan Development, including D.R. Horton, Pulte, Abrazo, Twilight, Westway and Richmond American, so plans repeat within a phase but vary a lot between them. Single-story and two-story, two- and three-car garages, casitas and multi-gen suites on some elevations.

Lots run modest by Albuquerque standards. Compact and xeriscaped, some backing a park or open space, some served off alleys. If you want a half acre and mature cottonwoods, this is the wrong mesa. If you want a house with a warranty and a floor plan drawn this decade, it's one of the better values in the southeast quadrant.

The neighborhoods inside it

Innovation Park is the original village, built around the Aperture Center and the employment core. It holds the earliest homes and it's where the walk-to-work idea comes closest to real. Montage at Mesa del Sol is the bigger residential piece, platted for roughly 870 lots, and it's what most of the listing activity refers to. You'll see it written a dozen ways (Montage, Montage 4, M4, Montage at Mesa del Sol) but it's one neighborhood. A further phase, Artiste, is planned at around 200 lots.

Street names are worth learning, because they tell you where you are. The developer named them for 20th-century American artists and photographers: Rothko, Diebenkorn, Motherwell, Cunningham, Strand, Stryker.

The association

Mesa del Sol is an HOA community and a fairly hands-on one. The association operates as MdS Community Company and is managed by HOAMCO, which runs a lot of books in this market. Dues cover the common areas, the pool, grounds maintenance, the clubhouse and fitness building, and some road maintenance. Architectural review has teeth. Expect to submit for wall changes, landscaping, solar and paint.

Plenty of buyers like that. The streetscape stays consistent and nothing gets away from the neighborhood. Others find it more prescriptive than an older Albuquerque address where nobody asks about your gravel. Read the covenants before you write an offer. They're developer-era documents and they're specific.

Parks, schools and what there is to do

There's a central community park, smaller parks scattered through the phases, a dog park, and walking and biking paths tying most of it together. A pool complex and the Sol Fitness Club serve residents. The International School at Mesa del Sol runs pre-K through 12 on site as an APS-chartered IB school, admission by lottery, so it's an option rather than an assignment. Isleta Amphitheater is right down University, and New Mexico United's championship-grade field is up here too.

Retail is still thin. There's a cafe and some services at the Aperture Center, and apartments with ground-floor retail have been moving forward, but a real grocery run means driving off the mesa. Plan on it.

Who it suits

People working at Kirtland, Sandia, the studios or along the Sunport corridor get the most out of living here. So do buyers who want new construction without paying Northeast Heights money for it. Families should confirm current boundary assignments with Albuquerque Public Schools directly, since the district schools serving these addresses sit off the mesa and that means a drive.

It suits you less if you want walkable errands tomorrow, shade trees, or a second way out at five o'clock. The wind on an open mesa is real. So is the view.

Homes here turn over across several phases and builders, and what's available changes week to week. Browse the current listings below to see what's on the market in Mesa del Sol, and reach out if you'd like to walk a few.