Cedar Hills in Rio Rancho, NM

Where it sits, and what the street names tell you

Cedar Hills is in the older southeast side of Rio Rancho, a short hop off Southern Boulevard SE with Unser Boulevard running past it. Anyone shopping Cedar Hills homes for sale is looking at a pocket of the original Rio Rancho grid — Everest, Whitney, Foraker and Hood on one run of streets, Zuni, Hopi and Comanche on another, Bermuda, Corsica, Madeira and Nyasa a few blocks over, with the numbered SE avenues and streets threaded through all of it. The whole neighborhood is 87124.

Those names are a date stamp. When AMREP laid out Rio Rancho in the 1960s and 70s it named streets after the world's mountains, rivers and islands, and it platted far more lots than anyone was ever going to build on. Cedar Hills is one of the named plats inside that grid, recorded in numbered units. Understand that and the neighborhood stops looking random.

The houses

Mostly single-story. Mostly frame and stucco, mostly put up from the late 1970s through the 80s and 90s. Southwest Contemporary is the honest label: low pitched roofs, stucco in tan and adobe tones, a two-car garage facing the street, and a carport instead on some of the oldest ones. Sizes run small to modest by current standards. Plenty of these were starter houses when they went up and they still work that way.

Then there's the other half of the story. Because the original plat carried more lots than it ever carried buyers, Cedar Hills still has vacant ground scattered through it, and builders keep picking those lots off one at a time. So you'll find a house finished in the last couple of years sitting between two from 1984. Some buyers love that. It's one of the few places in Rio Rancho where you can buy new construction on an established street without paying master-planned money. Others find the streetscape uneven. Both reactions are fair, and I'd rather you know before you drive it.

Lots are roomy and mostly flat, and there is no homeowners association here. Nobody approves your paint color or your gravel. Nobody stops the neighbor parking a boat, either. If you want covenants doing that work for you, this is the wrong part of town.

Schools and parks

Puesta del Sol Elementary sits at 450 Southern Blvd SE, which from a good part of Cedar Hills is a walk rather than a drive. Middle school is Eagle Ridge, high school is Rio Rancho High. These are Rio Rancho Public Schools, not APS. Worth saying out loud, because buyers coming up from Albuquerque often assume otherwise.

Rainbow Park at 301 Southern Blvd SE is the anchor, and at 14.7 acres it earns the title: an outdoor pool open through the summer, a skate park, a fenced dog park with shade, volleyball and basketball courts, playground, walking paths and covered picnic areas. Star Heights Park at 800 Polaris Blvd SE, over near Unser and Wexford, is smaller at 3.7 acres but has its own skate park and a short loop path. Cielo Vista and Sugar Park fill in from there. For a part of town platted long before anyone thought about park impact fees, the coverage is better than you would guess.

Errands and the drive to Albuquerque

Southern Boulevard is the workhorse. Groceries, big-box, restaurants, the tire shop. It's all strung along Southern and Unser inside a couple of miles, so you're not crossing town for milk. Intel's campus on Sara Road SE is close enough that a fair number of people here are at their desk in under fifteen minutes.

For Albuquerque you've got two habits. Unser south into the Westside and across to Paseo del Norte, or Southern east to NM-528 and down Coors. Either way, budget honest time in the morning. The river crossings are the bottleneck and always have been. Downtown and I-25 are a real commute, not a hop. People do it every day, but go drive it at 7:30 before you decide.

Who it suits

First-time buyers who want a house and a yard instead of a townhome. Downsizers who don't want stairs. Families who like the idea of sending a kid to Puesta del Sol on foot. Anyone allergic to monthly dues.

It suits you less if you want a uniform, freshly built street with the trail system designed in from day one. Cabezon, Loma Colorado and Enchanted Hills do that better, and charge for it. Cedar Hills is one of the more established addresses in the older half of Rio Rancho, and it reads that way on the ground: grown-in trees, wide streets, real variation house to house.

Have a look at what's on the market in Cedar Hills below. Inventory in this part of Rio Rancho moves in fits and starts, and the older houses and the new infill builds rarely show up at the same time, so it's worth checking the current listings rather than going by what you saw last month.