High Resort in Rio Rancho, NM

Where it is, and why the hill matters

Turn west off Pat D'Arco Highway onto High Resort Boulevard and the road starts climbing. It climbs for about two miles, past the ball fields, until it runs into Broadmoor. Everything hanging off that stretch is what people around here mean by High Resort, and it sits square in the middle of Rio Rancho, all of it in 87124. The grade is the first thing I point out to buyers. Lots at the upper end look back east over the valley to the Sandias. The ones down near the highway mostly look at each other.

Most High Resort homes for sale were built between the late 1980s and the mid-2000s, which makes this one of the more settled addresses in mid-city Rio Rancho. It's built out. New construction here means somebody finished one of the last infill lots, not a builder opening a phase.

What the houses are like

Stucco, mostly. Pitched tile or shingle roofs on the 1990s product, flatter parapet rooflines on the Southwest Contemporary and Pueblo Revival plans. Single story is common, and single story moves fastest, because plenty of the buyers here are coming out of something bigger with stairs in it. Two-story plans show up more in the later pockets.

Lots are graded pads behind block walls. Front yards run to rock and drip line rather than grass, which is normal in this city and a mercy in July. Two-car garages as a rule, three on the larger floor plans. Nothing about the streetscape is dramatic, but the trees people planted in the nineties have finally filled in, and that changes how a street feels more than buyers expect.

The pockets inside High Resort

It isn't one subdivision. It's roughly a dozen plats that all took the name. Gleneagles at High Resort and High Resort Village are the two you'll hear named most often, and the Village is the one with a real organized front, since the High Resort Village Community Association is listed in the City of Rio Rancho's own homeowners association directory. The Village itself came in stages, so a listing may read as Village 1, Village 2, Village West, or the Casitas, which are the smaller attached-feel homes on tighter lots. Beyond those you'll see Stonehenge, Broadmoor, the Ridges, the Cascades, the Estates and Las Casas de Suenos, all carrying the High Resort tag. The differences between them are lot size, age by a few years, and how strict the covenants are. Ask before you assume the rules on one street apply on the next.

Golf names, no golf course

Gleneagles. Broadmoor. Stonehenge. Cascades. If those sound like famous courses, it's because they are, and buyers ask me about it constantly. There is no golf course inside High Resort, and there is no working golf course anywhere in Rio Rancho. The city's only one opened in 1970 as Chamisa Hills Country Club, later became Club Rio Rancho, and shut down around 2016. The clubhouse burned in 2019. Roughly 250 acres of it still sit south of here off Country Club Drive as private ground with no announced plan, and part of the old course is under the ball fields on High Resort Boulevard. Treat the names as period marketing.

The trail and the ball fields

The Rio Rancho Sports Complex sits at High Resort and Loma Colorado. It's 78.5 acres: baseball and softball diamonds, lighted tennis, basketball, a skate park, a putting green, a fenced dog park, playground, covered picnic tables. If you have a kid in Little League you'll spend most of your spring there.

Alongside the boulevard runs the High Resort Boulevard Trail, two paved miles from NM 528 up to Broadmoor, where it hands off to the Broadmoor Boulevard Trail. The east end ties into the 528 rec path. Fair warning: no shade on any of it, and westbound is all uphill. Go early.

Errands, schools, getting to work

Shopping is at the bottom of the hill. Rio Rancho Marketplace over on Ridgecrest has Albertsons and Target, there's a Walmart Neighborhood Market on 528, and Smith's is close. Restaurants along the highway are chain-heavy with a few local standbys. Presbyterian Rust Medical Center is on Unser five minutes south, which matters for care and because it's one of the larger employers nearby.

Schools are Rio Rancho Public Schools. Depending on the street, elementary is generally Ernest Stapleton or Martin Luther King Jr., then Lincoln Middle over on Lema, then Rio Rancho High. Boundaries do get redrawn, so confirm the specific address with the district rather than trusting a listing sheet.

For commuting, 528 south to Paseo del Norte is the standard run toward Albuquerque and the I-25 corridor. Unser south is the alternative, and it's the one people complain about at a quarter to eight in the morning. Heading north, US-550 through Bernalillo puts you on the interstate.

Who it suits

Buyers who want an established street, a short drive to fields and a trail, and a house that's past its new-build teething problems. The trade-off is age. Roofs, stucco and water heaters here are into their second round, and some kitchens are still original. Inspect properly and price accordingly. If you want brand new, you'll be looking farther north or west in the city. If you want to be five minutes from a ballgame and twenty from Albuquerque, this holds up well.

Have a look through the listings below to see what's on the market in High Resort, from the smaller Village casitas to the larger lots up toward Broadmoor. If one particular plat or street interests you, ask and I'll tell you what I know about it.