Neighborhoods in St Louis | Kirkwood

Hey, are you looking at neighborhoods in St. Louis? My name is Johanna Dueren and I’m a realtor with Circa Properties here in beautiful St. Louis, Missouri. And today we are touring the Kirkwood Neighborhood.

Before I start this tour, I wanted to share with you what I found on my footage from my 12 year old camera man/production assistant, who I’m sure did not think that this was going to make it into the video, but I am going to teach him a lesson and add it. This is apparently what you get when you pay somebody with ice cream instead of real money. So just keep that in mind. Okay, onward to the task at hand, let’s talk about Kirkwood. So Kirkwood really is smack in the middle of St. Louis. There is that one little wee part of Kirkwood, that’s just on the West side of 270, but for the most part, all of it is within the 270 loop. It’s just north of highway 44, super easy access to downtown, to the airport. You couldn’t really be more centrally located.

Usually I like to start my neighborhood tours in the residential part and come back to the commercial area. But the downtown Kirkwood area is such a huge part of Kirkwood that we’re starting there. You can see there’s so many little wonderful restaurants, little bars, lots of shopping, lots of wonderful little gift shops. And it’s a really great community. I mean, coming up here on the right hand side, you’ll see the Kirkwood Public Library. There’s a great City Hall. There are lots of just opportunities to do things within walking distance of most of Kirkwood.

Okay. Let’s talk about housing in Kirkwood. I think the perception is that you absolutely cannot get anything in Kirkwood for under $400,000 that is livable. And I just don’t think that that’s true. There are lots of opportunities for smaller houses and maybe something that isn’t right within the downtown area, but there is really a little bit of everything in Kirkwood. So as you’ll see here, we are on one of the streets with a bunch of the grander houses, but as we get farther down the road on the same street, there are lots of more moderately sized and priced houses, that are still right there within walking distance of downtown Kirkwood. So do they come up as often as something between the three to 500 range? Maybe not, but they are there and they are available. The other thing about Kirkwood is that there are lots of opportunities for rentals, for condominiums, and for apartments. So there’s a wide range of housing all over the neighborhood.

What you are seeing here is a lot of the more historic homes in Kirkwood, lots of big grand front porches, lots of kind of the higher ceilings and the more historic homes, but there is really a little bit of everything in Kirkwood. So if you travel a little farther west in the Kirkwood area, there are a lot of opportunities for mid-century homes, every once in a while, you’ll see new construction pop up in the area. So I cannot say that there’s just one thing that defines Kirkwood, as far as housing. When you are closer to the downtown area, it’s going to be more of these older historic homes, but that doesn’t define Kirkwood. There is opportunity for everything.

One of the biggest draws of the Kirkwood area is the school district. So it’s really nice to have such a strong school within a closer proximity to the city, and kind of the central corridor in St. Louis. Kirkwood schools are consistently ranked in the top five in the state of Missouri. So I think that’s what drives the price of the housing a little bit higher too, just because it is so popular, you can still be close in, but have a fantastic school district. And the only thing that I think some people feel like they’re giving up is you typically may have a little bit smaller yard. You’re not going to get a half an acre or a full acre in Kirkwood. These are going to be more historic homes with smaller lots. So unless you end up with one of these grand lovely mansions on one of these corners in Kirkwood, you’re probably not going to have a huge yard space.

As far as pricing goes, it really runs the full gamut. So currently we are in July of 2020, there are 87 houses on the market and Kirkwood, ranging from $105,000 up to $1.6 million. So I will say typically for a  

regular three to four bedroom with two to three bathrooms, you are probably going to be somewhere in the range of 350 to maybe 500. So that’s where Kirkwood gets some of the presumption that it’s going to be a lot more expensive, but there are lots of opportunities to buy under 300 in Kirkwood.

There are certainly lots of opportunities if you’re willing to put a little bit of elbow grease into something. There are a lot of older, more historic homes in the neighborhoods. So lots of opportunity for sweat equity. Another big draw to the Kirkwood neighborhood is the train station right here in the middle of downtown Kirkwood. So if you need to take the train to Chicago, take the train to Kansas City. You can hop on the Amtrak right here. Yes, there are train tracks that run through a good part of Kirkwood, but it’s just kind of, part of the territory, comes with the area. So you get used to it.

If you’re looking for more information about the Kirkwood neighborhood or any other neighborhoods in St. Louis, please don’t hesitate to reach out. And I would love it if you would subscribe down below, I put out new videos every week about St. Louis neighborhoods and real estate things in St. Louis. And I guess if you want production advice from my 12 year old on how to act like a total goofball on film, then feel free to reach out for that as well.