Crest View: Boulder homesteading

Angela McGrath Moss, a broker with 8z Real Estate, is helping to create an identity for Crest View, a Boulder neighborhood with big lots.

Driving around Crest View in Boulder is like coming home for Lane Hornung.

Well, it is coming home, since he lives in this neighborhood just south of North Boulder and east of Broadway. It takes its name from the Crest View Elementary School.

Hornung, co-founder and president of 8z Real Estate, a sponsor of InsideRealEstateNews, knows the neighborhood, defined by its big residential lots, like the back of his hand.

“I call it urban homesteading,” said Hornung, while driving around the neighborhood with 8z broker Angela McGrath Moss. Hornung defined urban homesteading as a place with big enough lots – typically quarter of an acre to a full acre in Crest View – where a large home can be constructed, and there is enough land for a swing set for your kids in the backyard.

In Crest View, you’re not out in the sticks. But you also don’t even have to drive to downtown Boulder to find a good coffee shop, retailer, or restaurant.

“By urban homesteading, I mean a place where you not only have good-sized lots, but a place where you can easily walk or ride your bike to a place where you can get a cup of coffee – and by coffee I mean a nice latte with a good head of foam,” he laughed.

Moss, who herself lives in the Crest View area, is in the process of building more of an identify of this neighborhood, which encompasses a number of subdivisions such as Carolyn Heights, Moores and Githens Acres. Many of the names, frankly, may mean nothing to many of the people who live in the approximate 1,200 homes in an area roughly bordered by Broadway, Linden and Violet Avenues and 26th Street. In Martin Acres, a neighborhood of smaller homes at the other end of Boulder, 8z Real Estate broker David Lorraine points out that people there describe themselves as living in Martin Acres, as much as living in Boulder.

That is not so much the case in Crestview, at least not yet, said Moss, who previously sold high-end homes in the Vero Beach, Fla. market for 18 months before moving to Boulder. She has close ties to Boulder. Growing up, her family made frequent trips in the station wagon from Kansas City to Boulder. And her brother, Shaun McGrath, formerly was the mayor of Boulder.

“We are really looking at creating more of an identity for Crest View,” Moss said. “Martin Acres has been Martin Acres for a long time. Crest View has a lot of new areas. The way we have defined Crest View is to take a lot of these subdivisions, like Carolyn Heights and Githens Acres and putting them under one umbrella.”

She and 8z Real Estate plan to create a Web site that will help brand the Crest View community. She could see the creation of a Crestview homeowners group, a la Martin Acres. The homeowners association is not an HOA that charges fees for maintenance of common areas, such as found in many new subdivisions and condo buildings. Rather, it provides neighborhood information on the Web that might promote upcoming events, provide details of new and existing businesses, and address other issues that may be of interest to people living in the area.

Trails: Boulder’s beaches

As in many places in Boulder, Crest View has easy access to bike and running trails. “The trails are our beaches,” Hornung says. “You pay a premium for beach-front property and in Boulder, the closer you are to the trails, the more you pay for housing.”

What really distinguishes Crest View from other areas of Boulder is the size of the lots, Moss said.

“I do think the thing that sets it apart from other neighborhoods in Boulder is the size of its lots,” Moss said. “It definitely does have bigger lots than most Boulder neighborhoods. There are not many places where you find quarter-acre lots – that often are actually a little bigger than that – to half-acre and one-acre or slightly bigger than one-acre lots.”

Here is an example of one of the bigger homes in Crest View.

There is a big swing in housing sizes, as well as prices. Some of homes there are still the post-World War II ranch vintages, and other small homes built in the 1960s and 197os.

But it is one of the few Boulder neighborhoods where a “high end buyer who can build a new, 4,000-square-foot plus square-foot-plus house that complies with the FAR (floor are ratio) regulations,” she said. ”Martin Acres, (at the other end of Boulder, which has smaller homes on smaller lots) for instance, does not have the opportunity to attract these buyers because their lots are too small to comply with the FAR regulations for a new, big house. Therefore, Crest View will always have a large swing in home prices.”

However, she said there does not seem to be the type of push-back from people who don’t like big houses, as you sometimes find in established Denver neighborhoods, which have seen smaller homes replaced with bigger ones.

Big, but energy efficient

“I have not heard anything like that,” Moss said. “What I hear is: “That is not for me.” If someone does not need the space, they do not pass judgement on you for wanting the space.” Also, even big homes in Crest View, as well as in Boulder County, tend to be super energy efficient and sustainable. “People in Boulder are definitely aware and and becoming even more educated about the value of building green,” she said. “While you see larger homes in Crest View, you would be had-pressed to find a McMansion that is just a big box that is not energy efficient.”

She said that Crestview has a lot of appeal to families with kids. Increasingly, she said residents who are in the area like to stay there as they move-up, either adding on to their existing home or buying a bigger one. Many of the sellers put their homes on the market when they become empty nesters, and no longer need big yards and houses, she said.

“It’s nice to have a big yard and be so close to downtown,” she said. “It’s an ideal market area with shops and restaurants in the adjacent North Boulder, or NoBo area.”

Crest View homes come in all sizes

Hornung also pointed out that the ranch-style homes with basements, make “great pop-tops. They have great bones.” He noted there are a number of high-end additions to homes in Crestview that are quite handsome, architecturally, as well as being built with many green features.

Here is an example of a seamless addition on an existing home in Crest View.

Staring at goats

And it is clear that this is Boulder.

Goats graze in a yard in the Crest View neighborhood.

There are people who raise goats in their yard, who have $1 million-plus homes behind them, serving as a backdrop to the livestock. Another homeowner raises vegetables that it supplies to a local restaurant. As in most places in Boulder, it’s not uncommon to find deer in yards.

“Crest View is eclectic,” Hornung said. ‘There is no other word to describe it.”

For a look at homes available in Crestview, be sure to check out this link at COhomefinder.com.

Crestview	Q3 2009	Q3 2010	Difference from '09	Boulder City Stats
Average Days to Offer	80	61	-24%	14%
Average Days to Sale	119	102	-14%	No Change
Median Sold Price	$1.05 million	$650,000	-38%	15%
Year-to-Date Sold Price	$1.1 million	$644,706	-42%	7%
Highest Sold Price	$2.75 million	$1.03 million	-63%	-60%
New Listings	8	5	-37%	-2%
New Listings Dollar Volume	$5.89 million	$3.2 milion	-45%	-3%
Active Listings	N/A	32		N/A
Active Listings Volume	N/A	$39,753,620	N/A	N/A
Number of Sales	9	7	-22%	-32%