Chicago suburbs vs NoVa Real Estate Market

[Anonymous]

Chicago is wonderful! OP- list out your price point and must-haves and I'll steer you in the right direction. I know the city and burbs inside and out.

[Anonymous]

Ok what is with the Chicago boosting here? I did the move here and it doesn’t completely suck but its not great. Housing market is terrible right now, so if you’re in a house in the DMV, stay put.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago is wonderful! OP- list out your price point and must-haves and I'll steer you in the right direction. I know the city and burbs inside and out.

Are you from there? Everyone I grew up with has moved away

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is Chicago (suburbs) a more or less expensive market than NoVa? I know this is a DC forum but taking a chance that someone here came from Chicago as ppl move to the DMV from all over. Very randomly looking at a job in Chicago - just a distant possibility now nothing certain at all. IDK Chicago enough to know where to look to gauge prices. In N. Va. we’d be looking for a townhouse, 3 bed/3 ba, probably 2000 sqft and with a one car garage; not interested in super old housing stock but 90s onwards is fine. So here we’d look at suburbs like Vienna and probably be in the 800-900k range. What would be comparable in Chicago - nice suburb with good schools but need not be like Bethesda or McLean? Higher or lower pricing? I know taxes are higher but that’s about all I know.

I mean, with that budget you could live in a place like this https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1334-Arbor-Ave-Highland-Park-IL-60035/4908106_zpid/ in the gorgeous, leafy suburb of Highland Park (former home of Michael Jordan and other celebrities), with excellent public schools. Depends on where you're working though and what you want your commute to look like. But you'd be solid with that budget and there are a lot of options.

but the property taxes on that home are about $20k/year. So need to factor that in too. So if your budget would be $750k in NoVA, you'd have to adjust it way down in Highland Park to get a similar PITI. (Lake County--where HP is--has particularly and egregiously high property taxes, fwiw). When we moved to IL, we learned quickly that you should look at budget through the lens of monthly payment, NOT purchase price.

Not to mention that your driving commute would be close to 90 minutes each way. Maybe 80 minutes if you're lucky.

I lived in Highland Park. There's really not a culture of driving to work like there is here. Metra all the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is Chicago (suburbs) a more or less expensive market than NoVa? I know this is a DC forum but taking a chance that someone here came from Chicago as ppl move to the DMV from all over. Very randomly looking at a job in Chicago - just a distant possibility now nothing certain at all. IDK Chicago enough to know where to look to gauge prices. In N. Va. we’d be looking for a townhouse, 3 bed/3 ba, probably 2000 sqft and with a one car garage; not interested in super old housing stock but 90s onwards is fine. So here we’d look at suburbs like Vienna and probably be in the 800-900k range. What would be comparable in Chicago - nice suburb with good schools but need not be like Bethesda or McLean? Higher or lower pricing? I know taxes are higher but that’s about all I know.

I mean, with that budget you could live in a place like this https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1334-Arbor-Ave-Highland-Park-IL-60035/4908106_zpid/ in the gorgeous, leafy suburb of Highland Park (former home of Michael Jordan and other celebrities), with excellent public schools. Depends on where you're working though and what you want your commute to look like. But you'd be solid with that budget and there are a lot of options.

but the property taxes on that home are about $20k/year. So need to factor that in too. So if your budget would be $750k in NoVA, you'd have to adjust it way down in Highland Park to get a similar PITI. (Lake County--where HP is--has particularly and egregiously high property taxes, fwiw). When we moved to IL, we learned quickly that you should look at budget through the lens of monthly payment, NOT purchase price.

Not to mention that your driving commute would be close to 90 minutes each way. Maybe 80 minutes if you're lucky.

I lived in Highland Park. There's really not a culture of driving to work like there is here. Metra all the way.

And then what, if your office isn't close to Ogilvie? Take a cab? Walk over the bridge and then take CTA/bus? Asking because I consider Metra to be really inconvenient to many downtown office locations. Not comfortable walking much in the downtown area after work as there has been a lot of crime with people in my building just walking a few blocks home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op here - just to clarify I’m not against older housing stock if it provides the space we need, is well maintained and somewhat beautiful. Like I see older housing stock in Richmond that I think is great and very worth looking into (if I had some reason to be in Richmond) but I see the 1940-60s, 1000 sqft brick homes near me in Arlington which I assume are going for 900k-1mil now (IDK haven’t looked at a listing lately), and it’s like nope I’d rather have a cookie cutter TH further in the suburbs.

Yuck. To each their own.

Arlington housing stock is ugly and lower middle class housing in most parts of the country.

+1. Kudos to those you want to pay 900k+ for a 1200 sqft brick house from 1940 which isn’t beautiful in any way because . . . Arlington. You can have it. I agree with OP - older construction can be beautiful as it is in Richmond, DC etc but Arlington ain’t that - give me cookie cutter over that any day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's the property taxes that are the barrier to getting in. While the housing prices are lower, their taxes are sky high.

A $900K house in Naperville for example has a property tax of $20K. A $900K house in MoCo would have around $10K in property taxes.

But you get a nice house for 900k in Naperville rather than a tiny sh!tshack in MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the property taxes that are the barrier to getting in. While the housing prices are lower, their taxes are sky high.

A $900K house in Naperville for example has a property tax of $20K. A $900K house in MoCo would have around $10K in property taxes.

But you get a nice house for 900k in Naperville rather than a tiny sh!tshack in MoCo.

Naperville is not a suburb of Chicago lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the property taxes that are the barrier to getting in. While the housing prices are lower, their taxes are sky high.

A $900K house in Naperville for example has a property tax of $20K. A $900K house in MoCo would have around $10K in property taxes.

But you get a nice house for 900k in Naperville rather than a tiny sh!tshack in MoCo.

Naperville is not a suburb of Chicago lol

It absolutely is a suburb - a western suburb easily accessible on Metra. And it’s older than Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Native east coaster who lived in the Midwest for seven years here. Since you’re from NJ and living in DC I thought I’d mention the one thing that was hardest for me to get used to is that you can’t drive to sh*t in 4 hours or under. This makes it so totally different than the NE corridor. Ok in Chicago you can drive to a few more things but not a lot.

[Anonymous]

Chicago suburbs will be cheaper. These certainly aren't perfect comparisons to Vienna due to the broader differences in the Metro areas, mainly Chicago is a much bigger city and older. With that caveat and assuming you want Metra access take a look at Des Plaines, Arlington Heights, Park Ridge, Elmhurst, Western Springs, Glen Ellyn and La Grange as very rough comparables. You are overall likely to be thrilled by school quality from K -12 and easier/somewhat less costly childcare options and, as many have rightly said, shocked by local taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chicago suburbs will be cheaper. These certainly aren't perfect comparisons to Vienna due to the broader differences in the Metro areas, mainly Chicago is a much bigger city and older. With that caveat and assuming you want Metra access take a look at Des Plaines, Arlington Heights, Park Ridge, Elmhurst, Western Springs, Glen Ellyn and La Grange as very rough comparables. You are overall likely to be thrilled by school quality from K -12 and easier/somewhat less costly childcare options and, as many have rightly said, shocked by local taxes.

???? that one doesn't belong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the property taxes that are the barrier to getting in. While the housing prices are lower, their taxes are sky high.

A $900K house in Naperville for example has a property tax of $20K. A $900K house in MoCo would have around $10K in property taxes.

But you get a nice house for 900k in Naperville rather than a tiny sh!tshack in MoCo.

Naperville is not a suburb of Chicago lol

It absolutely is a suburb - a western suburb easily accessible on Metra. And it’s older than Chicago.

yea what exactly is Naperville if not a suburb?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the property taxes that are the barrier to getting in. While the housing prices are lower, their taxes are sky high.

A $900K house in Naperville for example has a property tax of $20K. A $900K house in MoCo would have around $10K in property taxes.

But you get a nice house for 900k in Naperville rather than a tiny sh!tshack in MoCo.

Naperville is not a suburb of Chicago lol

It absolutely is a suburb - a western suburb easily accessible on Metra. And it’s older than Chicago.

yea what exactly is Naperville if not a suburb?

It's definitely a suburb, it's getting far out there but it still counts. You aren't from the area if you don't know that.

[Anonymous]

Look in DuPage County. The areas along the BNSF Train have good train schedules, excellent schools, good housing stock. If you're working downtown, you'll want to prioritize being in a community with Metra access. La Grange and Western Springs are on BNSF and also very nice (but Cook County). Union Pacific West line also has good schedules. Consider Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, Elmhurst.