Towne Park in Albuquerque, NM

A walled pocket off Eubank

Towne Park sits behind a wall at Eubank and Chico NE, a few blocks north of Central, and it looks nothing like what surrounds it. Drive past on Eubank and you'd miss the entrance. Inside the gate there are 486 single-family homes on about 73.5 acres, strung along Towne Park Drive, Central Park Drive and Clyburn Park Drive, with lawn and mature trees where most Albuquerque tracts of the era poured more asphalt. Buyers looking at Towne Park homes for sale are usually after exactly that: a small, enclosed, quiet neighborhood on the east side of 87123.

The place opened in 1984 and was sold out by 1993. It was a University of New Mexico project, built with California developer Robert E. Towne and the local Charter Building and Development Corp. The homeowners association dates to that first year.

The land lease — ask about it first

This is the thing nobody tells you until closing, so hear it now. Towne Park was one of Albuquerque's first leased-land residential neighborhoods. The ground belonged to UNM under a 68-year lease, and it moved to the Sandia Foundation in a land swap in the 1990s. Later the Foundation let owners buy the dirt under their own houses, and a lot of them did.

So two houses on the same street can sell on completely different terms. One owns its lot. The next still pays ground rent on top of the mortgage and the dues. That changes the monthly number, and it can change which lenders will write the loan at all. Ask before you fall in love with a floor plan. A listing agent who can't answer that question has told you something about how carefully the file was put together.

The houses

Mid-eighties construction, mostly single-story, two and three bedrooms, generally somewhere between about 1,100 and 1,600 square feet. Stucco, tile and pitched shingle roofs, the plain Southwest contemporary look that dominated Albuquerque building in that decade. Lots are small on purpose. Front yards are minimal and the association keeps the common green, which is the whole bargain here: give up the big back yard, get parks and pools and somebody else's mower.

It's been built out since the early nineties. No new construction, and no dirt left inside the wall to put any on. What trades is what's already there, which you can see in the listings on this page.

Who it fits

Retirees have liked Towne Park since the beginning and still do — one level, small yard, lock it and go. It also draws people working at Sandia National Labs or on Kirtland, because the commute is close to the shortest in the city. It is not the place for someone who wants a shop out back, a boat in the driveway, or a free hand with paint colors. The covenants are real.

What the association actually does

Dues here buy more than a sign at the gate. Two swimming pools, tennis courts, a basketball court, a playground, two green parks and walking paths, plus the clubhouse on Towne Park Drive with an exercise room and a sauna that residents can rent for gatherings. The streets inside are private, so road maintenance comes out of the association budget instead of the city's. So does the perimeter wall and the gates. That's the honest reason the dues sit where they do, and it's worth understanding rather than resenting.

HOAMCO handles day-to-day management, with an on-site clubhouse office during the week. Exterior changes go through an architectural committee on a written request. Slower than doing as you please. It's also why the neighborhood still looks cared for four decades on.

Getting around

Eubank runs straight south to the Kirtland gate and up north to I-40 in a couple of miles. Central is right at the south edge for buses and everyday errands. Los Altos Park is a short hop up Eubank at Lomas — 32 acres, lit tennis and softball, an indoor pool. Los Altos Golf Course at 9717 Copper NE is the city's oldest, open since 1960, and forgiving enough that beginners actually enjoy it. The skate park sits next door. Wade Circle and Jeanne Bellamah parks fill in closer to home.

Schools are Albuquerque Public Schools: Tomasita Elementary and Kennedy Middle, both on Tomasita NE, feeding Manzano High on Lomas. Confirm boundaries with the district before you buy on them.

The honest read

Towne Park is one of the more settled addresses at the south end of the Northeast Heights, and turnover tends to be low because people who move in stay. The Sandias sit off to the northeast, though this is flat ground and you're not buying a view. What you're buying is a gate, a wall, mature landscaping and a short drive to the base. What you're accepting is a small lot, a rulebook, a monthly payment to the association, and that land-lease question you need answered in writing.

Browse the current listings in Towne Park below. Inventory inside the wall is limited — 486 homes and no room to add more — so if something here looks right, it's worth a call sooner rather than later. Ask us to confirm whether a particular home's lot is owned or still on the ground lease before you write an offer.