by Neil Kearney | Jul 11, 2015 | Visiting Boulder |
This self-guided Boulder walking tour is one of a series that I created for those who would like to explore Boulder by foot. You may want to combine this tour with the one for Mapleton Hill.
Download The Whittier Neighborhood Walking Tour in PDF
The following detailed directions will take you on a walking tour through the historic Whittier Neighborhood on the east end of Downtown Boulder. This neighborhood is just east of downtown and is one of Boulder’s oldest. The houses are generally smaller than on Mapleton Hill but the streets are charming, and the properties are well kept. You will find a mix of small cottages, larger Victorian houses and now there is a nice mix of modern homes as well. The tour is 2.75 miles in length including a half mile optional walk on Sunset Hill.
- Begin on the Pearl Street Mall atthe intersection of (1) Broadway and Pearl Streets.
Boulder County Courthouse From Pearl Street Mall
Head east (away from the mountains) walking along the Pearl Street Mall.
- At 14th Street take a left. As you head north you will pass the historic Boulder Theatre, the Methodist Church (built in 1891) and the Shambhala Meditation Center. Stay on the right side of the street.
- Take a right on Pine and walk directly in front of St. John’s Episcopal Church. This section of town has Boulder’s oldest and most beautiful churches.
- Take a left on 15th and head up the hill. At Mapleton cross the street and head up
the alley. At the end of the alley keep walking up the steep hill on the sidewalk. At the top of the sidewalk you will be on Sunset Hill. Continue straight and take a round trip walk down Sunset Street (optional .5 mile section). You will see an interesting mix of original houses and new houses that take advantage of the great view. Walk up the right side and back on the left side. If you are in a hurry you can skip this Sunset Hill walk.
- Take a left (east) on High Street, and continue to the end of the street.
- At the east end of the cul-de-sac take the hidden staircase that is just to the left of
1650 High Street. Follow the staircase down to Bluff Street and walk down to 22nd where you can take a detour up Lovers Hill Park and take a rest on the quiet bench. Here you will find a good view of the red roofs of the CU campus and another quiet hilltop cul-de-sac.
- When you are back down on Bluff continue east and then take a right on 23rd
- In one block take a right at Mapleton and head back west. Continue on Mapleton for five blocks.
- Take a left at 18th Street, here you will find Jessie Fitzpatrick Park one of Boulder’s pocket parks. As you cross Pine and Spruce you again fee the transition between residential and commercial.
- Right on Pearl. As you hit Pearl you will be in the heart of the East Pearl retail
district. Here you will find boutiques, restaurants and coffee shops. Continue along Pearl until you reach your starting point again.
by Neil Kearney | Jul 9, 2015 | Visiting Boulder |
When I visit a new place my most favorite thing to do is to walk and explore. By taking it slow you can get a deep sense of the flavor of the place, explore nooks and cranny’s that would be missed by car and take a good look at how people live. A few years back, in anticipation of a trip to San Francisco I bought a book that gave detailed walking tours highlighting the hidden staircases of San Francisco. I only had time to do one of the walks but in doing so, I explored an area of town that I had never seen, stumbled on a great restaurant and at the end of the day felt very satisfied in the journey.
In that spirit I’ve created a few Boulder walking tours that highlight fun neighborhoods to walk through. The tours are detailed but feel free to explore on your own off the designated route. You may want to combine this walking tour with the Whittier Neighborhood walking tour.
This tour starts in the heart of downtown Boulder at Pearl Street and Broadway on the Pearl Street Mall and sets a course into the oldest and most prestigious neighborhoods in Boulder, Mapleton Hill.
I think the easiest way to do the tour is to download and print the PDF. You can do that by clicking this link: Boulder Walking Tours Mapleton Hill
Here are the directions if you don’t have ready access to a printer:
- Begin on the Pearl Street Mall at the intersection of Broadway and Pearl Streets.
Pearl Street Mall
Head west (toward the mountains). The pedestrian mall will end in one block and when it does cross the street and stay to the north side of the street. Along this block you will see some good choices for dinner or lunch.
- At 10th Street take a right and start heading out of the commercial area into the residential areas. In one block
- Take a left on Spruce and head west once again. It’s best to get to the north side of the street, especially when you cross 9th Use the cross walk and head west on Spruce to 8th. On this block you will start to see smaller examples of Victorian homes.
- Take a right on 8th Street for a quick jog to Pine Street. As you head up the hill you
will find that the houses and lots begin to grow in size. Many of the homes you see are some of the 1,300 homes in Boulder that have been protected by the Historic Preservation program. This means that the owners need to keep the homes looking the same on the exterior.
- Take a left on Pine Street and continue all the way to 4th. Along this stretch you will see some beautiful large houses and some well-preserved smaller homes.
- Take a right at the “T” at 4th.
- And then take the first right on Highland Avenue. As you walk east on Highland you will notice some of the largest and most expensive houses in town. Be sure to notice the peek-a-boo views of The Flatirons to the west.
- At 8th cross the street and head uphill (left) towards the old Mapleton School. It is now an early childhood center. Walk through the park at the back of the building and then continue to the left until you hit Mapleton Ave.
- Head east on Mapleton. Mapleton Avenue is especially nice because of the center median. Stay on the south side of the street and enjoy your walk all the way down the hill to Broadway. On the right just before the steepest section you will see two of Boulders largest and most ornate homes.
- Take a right on Broadway and continue back to your starting point.
The entire tour is approximately 1.5 miles.
by Neil Kearney | Jun 25, 2015 | Uncategorized |
I recently sold a beautiful home in Erie. My sellers had already moved to another state and needed help from afar. Here is what they had to say about using me as their Realtor.
“Hi Neil,
We just wanted to take a few moments to thank you so much for all your tremendous help in the recent sale of our home! From our very first contact to the very last, it was such a pleasure to work with you!
As you know, ours was a “long distance relationship” (plus a tenant!) and thus there were some added complexities; however, you managed to keep the process on track for us and worked so hard to streamline everything as much as possible. In addition, your extraordinary marketing tools (the custom website of our home, the ads, flyers, etc.) brought many qualified people to our house, and most importantly, a buyer in a short period of time.
Once we were under contract and hit some of the typical snags, you were there every step of the way to guide us in our decision making and offer suggestions and advice. You went the extra mile to help us out with the things that we couldn’t handle personally because we were on the other side of the country, such as working with our roofing contractor to get some repairs done. At other times it was just a matter of “holding our hands” and we appreciate the support! Thank you!
You can be sure we will recommend you to our friends/family in the Boulder area whenever we hear of a real estate need. In fact, we have already! Please know that we do sincerely appreciate ALL your hard work and wish you much continued success both in your business and personally!”
Mark and Lisa Wilson
by Neil Kearney | Jun 5, 2015 | Uncategorized |
Yesterday a team of us from Kearney Realty Co. volunteered our morning to do yard work for an elderly lady a few blocks from our office in downtown Boulder. We participated in Project H.O.M.E (Help Our Many Elderly) which was organized by the Boulder Area Realtor Association in Conjunction with Boulder County Care Connect. As an association we used to do this type of thing all the time but lately it had fallen by the wayside. This year was a great time to pick it up again. As a side note I wore my Project H.O.M.E t-shirt from 1996.
Kristy Kearney, Debra Flora and Kathleen Winegardner and I tackled the yard of a local resident who can no longer take care of her yard. You could tell that in the past she had spent many hours in her yard but when we arrived we found it filled with weeds and very overgrown. It was an oversized condo yard so it wasn’t huge but it sure hadn’t been touched for quite some time.
Throughout the morning we removed trash, pulled weeds and cut branches and generally cleaned everything up. We had a great time helping out and know that it made a big difference for one of our local residents who doesn’t get out of her house much anymore. Here are some photos from our day. The first two show the “before” photos and the last two show the “after”.
by Neil Kearney | Mar 17, 2015 | Boulder County Housing Trends, For Buyers, For Sellers |
The Boulder real estate market is currently characterized by low inventory and good buyer demand. It’s a sellers market. Many home buyers are finding that the houses that they are interested in buying are also coveted by other buyers. This leads to a multiple offer situation. A great situation to be in – if you are a seller. But for a buyer it’s a difficult situation. To see some perspectives on multiple offers from both sides, read this article.
In our area, multiple offers are most often handled in this way- the listing agent receives an offer and then lets all other agents who are showing or have showed the house know that they will be presenting the offer at a certain time and day. If another offer does come in, the first offering party is advised of the second offer and is offered the opportunity to revise their offer. For the buyer, the information available is usually only limited to the number of offers that will be looked at and when to expect an answer. This year many homes are being listed knowing that there will be much initial interest. They state clearly in the MLS listing that showings start on Saturday and all offers will be reviewed on Monday. Being the first to show the house or the first to submit an offer doesn’t seem to have any advantage.
This information gap leads to much buyer anxiety. How much should we offer? What are the other offers? Are we crazy to offer $X? Will there be another better house coming down the line that is less hassle and not priced so high? Will it appraise if we go over full price? It goes on and on and each of these questions are rhetorical.
Since I can’t answer these questions for my clients with any clarity. I rely on experience to advise them the best I can and ultimately I leave it up to them to pick a number. Sometimes we use an escalation clause to calm the anxiety a bit and to hedge an overpriced offer. In the end it’s an inexact science and the results favor the bold.
So far this year (through March 16th) there have been approximately 728 sales in Boulder County. In 27% of these transactions the buyer paid more than the listing price for the property. I can only assume that most of these 198 transactions had multiple offers. So in an effort to bring some data to the unanswerable, here are the statistics from those multiple offer situations.
- The average successful offer over all price ranges exceeded the listing price by 3.4%.
- The highest percentage paid over the list price was 44%. It was a foreclosure that was priced “well” below the current market value.
- The average price paid over list in transactions under $250,000 (39% of all transactions) was 4.42%.
- The average price paid over list in transactions between $250,000 and $500,000 (44% of all transactions) was 2.79%.
- The average price paid over list in transactions over $500,000 (17% of all transactions) was 4%.
- In 37 of the 198 transactions the buyer paid $2,000 or less over list price.
- The average premium paid across all price ranges was $13,010.
- The median premium over list price was $6,600.
- In the City of Boulder the average premium paid for those properties that sold above list price was 4.52%.
