Chicago upper middle class worth it? (Aurora, Naperville: real estate, renting, insurance)

[Chicagoin204]

Are Chicago's upper middle class suburbs worth the high cost of living there(eg. High real estate prices, and high property taxes)?

[nikitakolata]

I think so. We get a lot for our money compared to what you'd get outside of other major cities like New York or San Francisco. I have a very nice life in Elmhurst. We can walk everywhere just like when we lived in Chicago but I don't have to worry about crime, the schools are much better and the school system is more straightforward, and I can still take public transit (which takes about the same amount of time, coincidentally) to get to work. I have no desire to move back to Chicago.

The schools alone make up for the difference in property taxes; if we lived in Chicago I'd have a property tax bill of $10,000 and need to pay for private school. Instead I pay $18,000 and I can send as many kids to the public school as I have. We can always move to a smaller house or town with lower taxes after our DD is out of school, too. I also use the library here more since it's conveniently located for me.

[G in MP]

Depends where I guess. I could drive from Barrington all the way to the lake, and hit nothing but nice neighborhoods with very low crime, well kept streets, abundance of shopping, good schools, etc.

Is Lake Bluff up there next to N. Chicago, or Oak Park butting up against the west side, are those places worth it? Hmm, I dunno, I'll let people who live there answer that.

[JJski]

Try east coast or west coast big cities... and Chicago prices (inner ring high caliber towns) won't feel so bad...

[RJA29]

I could move into a custom built new house in my current school district for about $1MM flat. An older house for $400K. Good schools, and I'm a 30 minute train ride to downtown. Show me another major city with that type of value for the buck. NYC? Nope. SF? No way. LA? Not even close.

[doodlemagic]

Originally Posted by Chicagoin204

Are Chicago's upper middle class suburbs worth the high cost of living there(eg. High real estate prices, and high property taxes)?

What's a middle class suburb? That means many different things to a lot of people. Some people may be thinking Naperville, Barrington, etc while others may be thinking Bolingbrook and Forest Park.

[chet everett]

Originally Posted by doodlemagic

What's a middle class suburb? That means many different things to a lot of people. Some people may be thinking Naperville, Barrington, etc while others may be thinking Bolingbrook and Forest Park.

For folks who have not experienced the full scope of what the region offers it hard to find a comparison. Even though there has been massive out migration, mostly from the areas hardest hit with loss of traditional blue collar jobs, the breadth of what is available is still impressive. For "normal folks" who might have a degree or specialized training (thinking anything from health related fields to broadest sorts of 'technology support' roles...) one can have a pretty decent life and NOT feel hopeless about inability to have a safe home with reasonable commute, though my gut says that for folks that accept some compromises can do that even areas like NYC metro, Boston and Silicon Valley too...

The difference is that for the most part those areas are not as deeply in deniable about the burden of looming pension obligations. Illinois really is sitting on ticking bomb that threatens to massively alter the mostly good schools the area has had, destabilize real estate values, and force anyone who can to get the heck out -- this is not hyperbole. This is from NPR, a source mostly known for if not true "balance" than at least having some faith in the value of things that are, like itself, funded by the government. The folks who do the reporting and run the radio shows / podcasts are realistic when it comes to the enormous gulf that exists in what sort of retirement they might have from the barebones NPR vs the promised-but-utterly unfunded gold plated pensions -- Illinois Issues: The Next Pension Time Bomb | NPR Illinois

[doodlemagic]

Originally Posted by chet everett

For folks who have not experienced the full scope of what the region offers it hard to find a comparison. Even though there has been massive out migration, mostly from the areas hardest hit with loss of traditional blue collar jobs, the breadth of what is available is still impressive. For "normal folks" who might have a degree or specialized training (thinking anything from health related fields to broadest sorts of 'technology support' roles...) one can have a pretty decent life and NOT feel hopeless about inability to have a safe home with reasonable commute, though my gut says that for folks that accept some compromises can do that even areas like NYC metro, Boston and Silicon Valley too...

The difference is that for the most part those areas are not as deeply in deniable about the burden of looming pension obligations. Illinois really is sitting on ticking bomb that threatens to massively alter the mostly good schools the area has had, destabilize real estate values, and force anyone who can to get the heck out -- this is not hyperbole. This is from NPR, a source mostly known for if not true "balance" than at least having some faith in the value of things that are, like itself, funded by the government. The folks who do the reporting and run the radio shows / podcasts are realistic when it comes to the enormous gulf that exists in what sort of retirement they might have from the barebones NPR vs the promised-but-utterly unfunded gold plated pensions -- Illinois Issues: The Next Pension Time Bomb | NPR Illinois

In regards to what you said most people I know who live in Naperville or who's folks live in Naperville have degrees are work professional office type jobs own businesses.

I have plenty of friends who's themselves or their parents worked as mechanics, hvac guys, as handymen, printing press shops, etc who have good lives, send their kids to decent schools, live in safe neighborhoods, etc. I'm more familiar with the west burbs but Aurora, Bolingbrook, Villa park, Lombard maybe Lisle.

I was renting my folks house for a few years in Naperville at a discount because they weren't ready to sell but were living out of state. My dad was trying to sell me the house, I said screw that no way in hell am I paying $1200 or $1300 per month in property taxes, moved to another west burb, downsized into a smaller place and my property taxes are $3600 per year even on SFH with a decent sized yard. I'm much more comfortable with those numbers on top of the fact that the house itself is cheaper.

[ToriaT]

Yes its worth it. A lot of where people are moving out of Illinois are not great places, compared to a world class city. There are problems everywhere. I just visited my brother in law in Los Angeles. He has an 800 k house he can't sell, methane gas leaks, wild fires all around. The santa ana winds were terrible and whistled all night and we were under a wiild fire alert, a day before we went there, there was a tsunami alert for the whole west coast. EArthquake insurance is too expensive so he does not have it anymore. If one hits he will lose all his money. Traffic is horrible too and there is not a grid like Chicago where you can take many routes if there is a traffic jam because there roads have to funnel through hills. It actually made me uncomfortable to even be there.

[RamenAddict]

Originally Posted by Chicagoin204

Are Chicago's upper middle class suburbs worth the high cost of living there(eg. High real estate prices, and high property taxes)?

The real estate prices aren’t really that high in terms of what you get in comparison to other comparable areas. My sister is in an upper middle class area in Silicon Valley and the schools are awful, so she’s probably looking at spending tens of thousands per year, per kid to send her children to private schools if she doesn’t move to a good school district. Those are solidly in the upper class suburbs that have costs that are probably 33% to 50% higher. At least with the higher property taxes in an upper middle class suburb, you can send 2 or 3 kids to school for the same price. Chicago also has some relatively reasonably priced areas where you can still get the good schools without the insane house prices, so you’ll save on the mortgage (although you might still pay high taxes).

Where I just came from, FL, a lot of the good school districts are the ones that would be under water if a bad hurricane came. Heck, some of them are under water even in a regular storm... so that’s a real plus here. Insurance rates are absolutely ridiculous for those homes, so even though the property taxes are lower, you pay for it in other areas. As others mentioned, when there is water, there is no grid because you have lots of bridges, so the traffic is the pits. The worst traffic here doesn’t rival the worst traffic in Florida because you don’t have people funneling trough just a few bridges to get over a big river, intracoastal, bay, etc.