Do you need to be near CTA or Metra with a decent commute and good schools? Thought so Please look in Elmhurst, LaGrange, Wilmette, Glenview or Arlington Heights. I used to call my reverse commute to OP-RF the "Chicken Bones Express" because it was so filthy on those trains with more opportunistic crime than one would expect.

You might need to look at duplex-style or townhome-style residences but the suburbs mentioned above have plenty of green space to run around and play.

Seems like that's the cost of a completely unrenovated house in Oak Park. That's the joy of older home ownership. Better price on the purchase but you have to pay to do the upgrades.

Do you have to be in Oak Park? There are other suburbs with excellent school districts where you can get a more updated house. But the commute to the city may be longer and the architecture may not be as appealing.

If your children are very young and you like the area you can rent in neighboring Forest Park until you need Oak Park schools. The elementary schools within Oak Park vary, so bear that in mind too. You can get a reasonably nice town house in Oak Park or River Forest for about your budget, but it is a very old suburb and single family houses at your price will be old foursquare, not great Victorians or bungalows. I can't believe that wiring is really the norm however. Avoid that. Also consider Riverside or Park Ridge which are less expensive but desirable.

That's not poor stock but not updated.

Poster from above. Oak Park is one of the pricier burbs, like Evanston. You'll have to go to a less trendy burb to get affordable. Oak Park is generally for wealthy folks.

We live in a suburb (no I won't say which one) about 20 minutes southwest of Oak Park with good (not great) schools where a 3 bed, 2 bath home might sell for 300K or just under. We bought our home several years ago before the market rebounded for about half that. Taxes are under 8K a year. But yeah, we dealt with the cloth wiring too. And a bunch of other pain in the rear stuff. But that's home ownership. Yes, you can buy a condo in a nice area of the city that might have an okay public school for about 400-500K. But then your kid will have to try and test into a decent high school. Suburbs are far easier in terms of dealing with school.

Try looking on the south side of OP versus north of Lake steer. Considerably lower taxes and home prices. Even cheaper if you go south of the Eisenhower. Living near Rehm pool is a great location with cute homes.

Anonymous wrote:Not with two kids

what?

Not with two kids

Houses are overrated everywhere. Condos in the city are cheap!

I’m a DC transplant to Chicago and am trying to buy my first home in Oak Park. I have been stunned by the poor quality of the housing stock here—for $520k, you get a house with cloth wiring (phased out elsewhere in the 1940s), with major foundation or other structural issues. I am looking in Oak Park but friends in the city say the same thing for houses in better school districts. Has anyone else noticed this? Property taxes are out of control up to 3.5%) so I’m starting to feel like we won’t be able to afford anything here either. We were so excited by Chicago’s more affordable housing it this definitely seems like part of the explanation!