Job Moving to Schaumburg - Need Guidance (Elgin, Palatine: estate, house)

[Josh2006]

Guyz,

My job is moving to Schaumburg. I am looking for a Townhouse/condo/single family house with upper limit of $300K and less than 40 mins commute one-way. Need suggestions for what burbs I should be looking at. Just looking at the map I am coming up with following places -

Schaumburg
Palatine
Arlington Hts
Buffalo Grove
Hoffman estate
Prospect Hts
Elgin
Volo (?)


Our family has a one yr old. So we need at least 3 BR space. Can I find something livable with less than 10 yrs of age in surrounding areas? Resale value in next 5-6 years is my big consideration. Need guidance/ recommendations from the group regarding these areas or other close by places.

Does condo/Townhouse has comparable appreciation in this areas as to the single family home?

Thanks for the help,
Josh

[chet everett]

NO is the easy answer -- existing condos/townhomes almost never appreciate as well as single family detatched. Different story for SOME new developments, and there are always exceptions (like buying a distressed property and fixing it up OR turning around a whole complex, but that is rare...)

You can add towns like Itasca, Wooddale, Roselle, Mt. Prospect, Elk Grove Village and Rolling Meadows to your search. Schaumburg is big and pretty much all roads lead to it.

Smartest strategy is probably get the best deal in the best town. $300k spent on a fixer upper in a better town is going to have better appreciation that $300k spent on a gem in a crappy town.

40 min circle form Schaumburg is HUGE -- you have a lot of territory to cover. If you or wife don't any preferences you have a lot of ground to cover. The more specific your desires are the narrower you search can be. Any "I'd love" or "I hate" decisions will actually be usefull now...

[Josh2006]

Thanks Chet. I know 40 mins circle is huge. I am just keeping my options open for the price range that i have. Ofcourse I would like to live as close to Schaumbug as possible. I really need to narrow down my search to few burbs. Which of all these places listed have good school district? I know Schaumburg is BEST. How about the rest?

[chet everett]

Oh please don't ask me what is best (I have had enough work just trying to justify that some towns are "good enough" on another thread...).

In your situation, with a long long time till high school the biggest school success factors are coming from mom & dad. That said you should aim for the best schools that you can afford -- over time those prove to have the greatest price stability/appreciation. My personal bias is toward smaller districts over larger, toward smaller schools over larger, and toward smaller towns over larger. Other things to consider are towns with a narrower range of home prices over wide range, smaller number of rentals over larger. Finally the biggest single factor is median home price -- of course you aren't going to want the absolutely cheapest home in a really posh area (it might be cheap because it is right on freeway or next to landfill..) but aim as high as you can for best appreciation/ price stability. Don't forget "location location location".

[Josh2006]

Guys, ANy thoughts on Wauconda, Elgin or Mundelein? I see that there are lot of new developments coming up in these areas. Very reasonable too. Are these safe areas? How about the reputation of school districts?
I really need something which is affordable now, but will hold/appreciate value within next 4-5 years.

THanks,
Josh

[sbd78]

Originally Posted by Josh2006

Guys, ANy thoughts on Wauconda, Elgin or Mundelein? I see that there are lot of new developments coming up in these areas. Very reasonable too. Are these safe areas? How about the reputation of school districts?
I really need something which is affordable now, but will hold/appreciate value within next 4-5 years.

THanks,
Josh

I'm not familiar with Wauconda and Mundelein, Elgin has some really nice areas and some not so nice areas. I would imagine that the new Elgin developments you are seeing are most likely in the the nicer areas. If schools are an issue, Elgin's schools are not so good (U-46 district). However, the new areas may fall into other school districts so you may want to check what school district they are in. Often a town's boundaries and school district boundaries are not the same.

[chet everett]

All three towns have significantly more challenges facing their schools than the better towns on your first list.

Mundelein High is on the Academic Watch List for failing to meet progress standard. It has a large minority population that is expected to increase.

Wauconda is not as dominated by minorities, and has somewhat better academic results, though it suffers from some large class sizes and has an unusual structure to deal with its growing schools -- one facility is k-4, another in 5-6, another is 7-8 and they have a Unit district with a single large high school. They may need to address this in the time frame you are contemplating.

Elgin problems have already been discussed.

My greatest concern is that in this economic environment a newer area is far more risky than an established area. People with lots of equity in an stable community are going to weather an economic storm far better than an area that was experiencing rapid growth. Developers may very well be offering more reasonable homes in response to challenging market conditions but if this slow down is prolonged you may be the "last one in' -- if the developer is still building new AND dropping price when you decide that you'd like to upgrade in 4-5 years you'd face some challenges. Now if you had a much longer horizon that would not be so important.

A quality property in a desirable town is likely to be more salable in the shorter time frame you are considering. Of course such a property may be more difficult to find in a more expensive community. Even so, if you seek out a property that is in a desirable area but needs some work you will be money ahead. With many more sellers than buyers the fixer uppers ought to be more than eager to accept a lower offer...

[gardener34]

You forgot to add streamwood and bartlett to that list.