Moving to chicago??? (Oak Lawn, Carpentersville, Lockport: condos, house, job market)

[rhc0607]

My husband and I are looking to move to the Chicago area. We want a single family house, no condos, but I'm not sure how to navigate the neighborohoods(heard there are 77 of them!!) We are looking for a house in the 200-300K, nice schools, and close to transportation. We are from Texas and want to experience four seasons and snow in the winter time. I am a teacher and was also wondering if the job market for teachers is competitive? Ideally we would live a bungalow style home that we could fix up. Any suggestions????

[NYrules]

In that price range you may need to look further out. If you are a teacher needing a job, then I would recommend you look into a school district which is growing. Currently Lockport is experiencing a MAJOR boom due to the opening of I-355 this upcoming Veterans Day. People are flooding into the area as fast as they can. You can still find a house in Lockport in that price range (200,000-300,000), but they are disappearing fast.

[Windy City John]

better up your housing budget

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by rhc0607

My husband and I are looking to move to the Chicago area. We want a single family house, no condos, but I'm not sure how to navigate the neighborohoods(heard there are 77 of them!!) We are looking for a house in the 200-300K, nice schools, and close to transportation. We are from Texas and want to experience four seasons and snow in the winter time. I am a teacher and was also wondering if the job market for teachers is competitive? Ideally we would live a bungalow style home that we could fix up. Any suggestions????

Well yes, there are 77 neighborhoods in Chicago, but that's just the city. Do you want to live in the city, or a suburb? There are well over 200 suburbs of Chicago.

Transportation downtown for work? Or just near a decent highway/expressway/tollway? Metra maybe to downtown from a suburb?

There are a lot of nice areas on the northwest side of the city with decent housing, but a little more expensive. You could also try the southwest sides of the city, or maybe Oak Lawn or areas down southwest. Southwest is cheaper than west or north - if you're looking for the 200-300 market. If you're looking for a bungalow type housing to fix up, I would look in the city itself.

[Windy City John]

Look at Oswego, Montgomery, Plainfield, Carpentersville

[cmoscinski]

Great homes, SUPER prices and very reasonable taxes and school system is great (RB and LT are both VERY good schools).

You can find a very nice home for $200K-$300K no problem.

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