Best southwest suburb of chicago for Cheap taxes & still SAFE??? (Cicero: real estate, rent)

[Gaskin87]

Hi everyone I'm new to this site and I need some help here. I'm a recent college grad (about a year ago) and I found a decent job paying 35$k a year and im saving almost every penny i earn (minus $355 in mo expenses) + im engaged and looking to move out within the next year. My parents and most of my friends are from Orland Park, IL. I would like to move out and find a place NEAR Orland and SAFE like orland park, but without the insane taxes and house prices. What would be a good city to look into thats close by orland (like within 15-20 mins), safe like orland, and taxes that arent as high for a starter home. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! (Since it is "illegal" for a realtor to help me with some of these questions)

[ofcjim40]

Well you should already be pretty familiar with the area if your parents and friends live there. I don't think we really have to go into what are the safer or more desirable burbs in that area because you should already know that. If I were to guess I'm assuming you want to stay west of Cicero Av. It's not very hard to go on Realtor.com, put in what your budget and search criteria is and end up with your answer. As someone who's recently been in college this kind of deductive research should be second nature. Also you haven't given us what your budget is or what you consider "high" taxes.

Since you said you are engaged and are looking to move out in a year, I assume you are buying the place with your future spouse. Are your jobs and careers already set where you want to lock yourselves into a geographic location? Will you both have steady secure income or can survive on one salary if need be? One year gives you a ton of time to drive around neighborhoods, go to open houses and just overall see what areas you like or don't like with your own eyes.

Doing a quick look on Realtor I found many older starter homes in fine parts of Orland from $199,000-220,000 with taxes in the $4-5000 range. Not going to find much better than that. If that's not affordable you should rent until you can afford then, but a mortgage on that price of property will be lower than most rents. That's dirt cheap for the housing market, these houses would have been 30G+ more 4 years ago.

[urza216]

None us are certified experts (whatever that even means). We're just people from the area like you..

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Crestwood give you a huge tax credit at the end of the tax year
property taxes......

safe - yes
most of the south burbs are safe , granted there are pockets of burbs that are unsafe at time

for the most part if your not dealing in drugs, weapons , prostitution etc
you will stay clear of trouble

this stigma of the south burbs being unsafe is statistically not true

most of the south burbs are safer than most areas in the usa

[knighthood82]

Originally Posted by sunnyandcloudydays

Crestwood give you a huge tax credit at the end of the tax year
property taxes......

Not anymore.... That money goes to all their lawyers now.

[Vasily]

If a half-hour drive isn't a showstopper, I'd definitely look at Bolingbrook -- restricting your search to places within a 15-20 minute drive of Orland Park is going to severely limit your options. See this thread on Bolingbrook:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/chica...lace-live.html

Unless you're inheriting a huge chunk of money to put down on a house, you may have difficulty finding a mortgage at income of $35K a year *anywhere* in the USA. Even at $70K a year (assuming your future wife works), lenders are likely to look askance at the sparse credit record of a recent college grad in this economic climate. If it were me, I'd see home purchase as more of a long-term future plan.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by Gaskin87

Hi everyone I'm new to this site and I need some help here. I'm a recent college grad (about a year ago) and I found a decent job paying 35$k a year and im saving almost every penny i earn (minus $355 in mo expenses) + im engaged and looking to move out within the next year. My parents and most of my friends are from Orland Park, IL. I would like to move out and find a place NEAR Orland and SAFE like orland park, but without the insane taxes and house prices. What would be a good city to look into thats close by orland (like within 15-20 mins), safe like orland, and taxes that arent as high for a starter home. Any and all thoughts are appreciated! (Since it is "illegal" for a realtor to help me with some of these questions)

Not sure buying a house on $35K makes much sense.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Originally Posted by knighthood82

Not anymore.... That money goes to all their lawyers now.

Nice thing too is if a casino goes into the south burbs I have heard there are villages that will be passing on the tax breaks like crestwood did to the taxpayer.

should be a win win situation if your a homeowner in the southland
for once taxes on property could be going down

[knighthood82]

Originally Posted by sunnyandcloudydays

Nice thing too is if a casino goes into the south burbs I have heard there are villages that will be passing on the tax breaks like crestwood did to the taxpayer.

should be a win win situation if your a homeowner in the southland
for once taxes on property could be going down

I wouldn't bank on that. There will be too many hands in that bucket to count. I'm guessing that the state will keep the lion's share of the revenue and disperse just enough to keep the other surrounding communities content. The same thing happened with the Indiana casinos. The cities that have casinos (Hammond, EC, Gary) managed to bloat their budgets with casino cash and are still crying poor. It turned out to be nothing like the cash cows they envisioned. The town that I reside in only receives $70,000 annually from the boats - a relative drop in the bucket compared to total budget revenues. It comes out to less than $5 a resident (and that's from 4 casinos). That amont of revenue could be replaced by just 1 restaurant opening up and paying real estate taxes. Casinos are certainly not worth the crime and corruption that comes with them.

[sunnyandcloudydays]

Originally Posted by knighthood82

I wouldn't bank on that. There will be too many hands in that bucket to count. I'm guessing that the state will keep the lion's share of the revenue and disperse just enough to keep the other surrounding communities content. The same thing happened with the Indiana casinos. The cities that have casinos (Hammond, EC, Gary) managed to bloat their budgets with casino cash and are still crying poor. It turned out to be nothing like the cash cows they envisioned. The town that I reside in only receives $70,000 annually from the boats - a relative drop in the bucket compared to total budget revenues. It comes out to less than $5 a resident (and that's from 4 casinos). That amont of revenue could be replaced by just 1 restaurant opening up and paying real estate taxes. Casinos are certainly not worth the crime and corruption that comes with them.

probably true but i really dont see any crime around the already existing casions over in indiana the shoe and majestic and even four winds in michigan