DENVER Living in Colorado, for many, means spending a lot of time worrying about how to make the rent or the mortgage, or whether they’ll ever be able to buy a home. Housing costs have been on a long and sometimes sharp climb throughout the state. In Colorado Springs, home prices have risen 119% since 2015, according to the Common Sense Institute. In the Denver area, the average sale price for homes this year is $617,000, up from $304,000 a decade ago.