Looking to move to Chicago Suburbs (Naperville, Bolingbrook: low crime, townhouse, purchase)

[P4rD0nM3]

Hey guys, I'm planning to move to a Chicago suburb in about a month or so since I will be switching jobs. Do you guys have any recommendations?

My ideal community is something like this (in no particular order).

- Maybe a 30 minute drive to the loop? I like to drive.
- If I leave my garage door open I should not be expecting uninvited visitors at any given time.
- If I leave my vehicle's doors unlocked, I should not be expecting someone to rob my vehicle.
- Parking a luxury car should not be a problem or at least not make me paranoid to take a look at it every half an hour.

These might seem ridiculous but I basically want it to be a safe community.

I am looking to purchase a house.

[ayubimope]

Lombard

[damba]

Originally Posted by P4rD0nM3

Hey guys, I'm planning to move to a Chicago suburb in about a month or so since I will be switching jobs. Do you guys have any recommendations?

My ideal community is something like this (in no particular order).

- Maybe a 30 minute drive to the loop? I like to drive.
- If I leave my garage door open I should not be expecting uninvited visitors at any given time.
- If I leave my vehicle's doors unlocked, I should not be expecting someone to rob my vehicle.
- Parking a luxury car should not be a problem or at least not make me paranoid to take a look at it every half an hour.

These might seem ridiculous but I basically want it to be a safe community.

I am looking to purchase a house.

Housing budget? Otherwise, we could encourage you to live just about anywhere 30 minutes from downtown within reason. Even knowing that, you need to find better criteria to narrow down your search.

Understand, even in a 'good' suburb you still can get opportunistic type of theft if your garage door is open and your bike is sitting there in plain view. (Question: who doesn't lock their cars anymore???)

[P4rD0nM3]

Hmm, budget wise I'm not really sure. I live in the Quad Cities so my house here is pretty cheap and the cost of living is pretty low. I'm looking at around 300K? Or like 1.5-2K/month? I'm not really sure if I should be expecting double or triple of a decent home. Living in small towns for such a long time kind of skews my POV and experience.

I've only been to a few suburbs like Naperville and Bolingbrook. I've heard Highland Park is nice too. I guess asking which ones to avoid would be better.

[chet everett]

...but I think there are some townhouse communities in Westchester that would have very low crime, affordable housing, and easy commute. High school is terrible, but no mention of that...

If OP wants a single family house, better schools, even shorter commute Riverside or Brookfield are top choices.

[ToriaT]

You are living in a dream world. No safe suburb is 30 minutes from the loop (driving time) certainly not in rush hour. Wheaton where I live is one of the safest and you probably need a bit more than that to make it on a Sunday morning the time best for traffic. You can't drive to the loop for any job unless it provides nominal or free parking. Parking will cost you upwards of thirty dollars a day and there is no cheap street parking. Any place in the Chicago area, you can't leave your car doors unlocked without a chance of something taken. Don't leave valuables in your car exposed and never leave a wad of change in your car visible. Even in Wheaton. Garage thefts and car thefts are even common here. You would be crazy to leave your garage door open for very long anywhere in the Chicago suburbs especially if you left the side door to your house open. Its happened to me that the garage door was left open all night and nothing happened but you can't count on it. 300 K for a house is a low budget here and most of the nicer, safer suburbs have prices higher than that. If you hunt you can find something but it sure won't be your dream house. Mostly a nice, larger, family sized home starts at 400 and goes up from there in the nicer suburbs. As far as luxury cars go, there are many in the Chicago area so I don't think that will be that much of a problem. You could look at Riverside, LaGrange, or Brookfield they are about the nicest and closest to the loop.

[P4rD0nM3]

If 300 K is on the low end then I can bump it up would 600K be adequate? Like I said I'm not really sure what to expect and I'm basing it off prices in Quad Cities. I do appreciate everyone's comments.

[P4rD0nM3]

@ToriaT, I'm looking at Wheaton right now. Looks like there's houses near the Town Square and they range from 400-600K. Would you recommend that area?

[MSchemist80]

30 minute drive to the loop pretty much excludes every suburb during rush hour. It can take 30 minutes to go 2 miles. For commuting to loop Metra is a better bet.

[IrishIllini]

You'll have a hard enough driving to Lakeview in 30 minutes during rush hour, let along the western suburbs. Look into Metra.