considering a move to St. Charles, any advice? (Chicago, Elgin: appointed, foreclosures)

[jojojo27]

Currently reside in Tinley Park, far southside of Chicago. Husband has been transfered up north and we are considering a move. I want a town similiar to all our town has to offer. Very community friendly, family fun, parades, bands on the weekends, festivals, halloween happenings etc. We spend alot of time in our community doing things with the kids and I want to enjoy that same fun environment as well as great schools and moderate housing. Housing in all cities go from affordable to CRAZY. We are looking anywhere between 280-360K for a home. I'm not opposed to fixing it up the way we want it. I just want the space, 4 bedrooms, nice large yard and great neighborhood to work with I have been searching areas and found St. Charles to be very similiar in community/family plus great schools. Great downtown area. I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice to offer me about St. Charles? Which parts are better than others. Schools? Any advice would be great. Thank you so much.

[US-Traveller]

Your budget is pretty low for what you are looking for, but you'll enjoy St. Charles and the surrounding areas.

[chet everett]

I would not consider St. Charles "up north".

Where is the job that your husband has been transferred to?

St. Charles to even some place like Barlett could take over 30 minutes, towns further north and much farther east or west could add to the commute tremendously...

[jojojo27]

He is up in Woodale and will be doing alot of work from there and parts of Wisconsin. We have a lot of family out this way so I don't want to be too far north.
As far as budget, unfortunatly I'm not a millionaire. I'm a stay at home mom with #3 on the way. Don't carry any debt and don't want any debt other than a mortgage. $280-360K gives us a house with a life and I have found many, many homes within that price as well as foreclosures. Could swing up to about 475K but not wanting to go that far. Would rather spend a tad less on a house and then spend some dough fixing it up the way we want it.
So are there any other suburbs up north that are community focused, with a great downtown area and great schools that I should consider? Have heard mention of LIbertyville but haven't had a chance to check it out yet.

[chet everett]

I think you need to do some more specific narrowing down on BOTH your commute expectations and budget.

St. Charles is NOT convenient to Wooddale at all, and the commute from St. Charles up to Wiscosin via ANY set of roads / expressways / tollways would be absolutely BRUTAL in the extreme! Take a look at a google map of Wooddale: wood dale il - Google Maps

See how it is inside a 'box' formed by 294, 290 and 90? That box is about the most traffic plagued section of the metro area. BAD commute times!

In that same view of the map there are probably about a few dozen towns, but only a few have well developed traditional downtowns.

Of those very few are going to have anything even close to the low end of your price range.


Wooddale itself is not a particularly expensive town, but without knowing just how important schools no worse than Tinley Park and a developed area at least as pleasant the area you are accustomed to is in your search I am reluctant to make suggestions.

$280K is darned little to spend in any desirable suburb. Even with the fall off in home prices that would not get you into any sort of single family home at all in many towns. Upping you range to $360 helps, but again with out knowing what sort of trade offs you are willing to make the range is pretty broad. Going way up $475 (a HUGE $195K more than your starting point!!!) gives much more to choose from, but I suspect you would be sorely disappointed to find out that new construction is NOT going to be available for that in any the established towns that have well developed downtowns and such.

If I told you that in some towns / desirable sections of town you might find something that at $475K would still need HUNDREDS of thpusands of dollars in work would you be surprised???

You might have some luck in Lombard, which is one of the closer towns to Wood Dale, has a pretty traditional downtown, and is among the more affordable towns on the map I linked to...

Good Luck!

[aragx6]

What about Glen Ellyn? Should be pretty easy to Wooddale, the downtown is cute, the schools are good and you can get an older home in the low 300s pretty easily.

[chet everett]

Glen Ellyn has lots of stuff over $2M, not that any of it is moving, but it is clogging the MLS. Most of the stuff that is under $500K is nowhere close to the walkable downtown, and the stuff with the "county addresses" (2Nxxx or 22Wxxx) might as well be in another town.

There are some listing under $300K, a lot of those are raised ranches and split levels for the 1960s, some of which are adjacent to streams and such, so really have to shop carefully to make sure it is not in flood plain...

Not saying there is nothing with some appeal, but I know that Tinley Park has lots of 4+bedroom homes with massive master suites and even luxury baths for the kids rooms. You will not find that in GE, but if you want some old timey charm:
339 Cottage Avenue, Glen Ellyn IL 60137 - Trulia

[gardener34]

Glen ellyn is not really easy to get to wooddale either.
While I am a st. charles area resident and could give you some good tips - St. Charles is not the most convenient location for anything commuting related until they possibly get that stearns road/elgin o'hare extension done) Once they get that open, it hopefully will help you out. I am just concerned that it is gonna fill up with traffic the second they open it.
Farther east you get into Bartlett. Lots of nice homes in your price range. DuPage county, and I think parts are in Cook though. So I don't know what difference that would make i.e. schools, taxes, etc. But it would be a little (small bit) closer to WoodDale. I think you would have to check out which schools they would attend in Bartlett, that is an issue there I think.
If you still like St. Charles - who wouldn't - good schools, lots of forest preserve and recreation, reasonable prices - I recommend staying on the East side developments because it is currently a big pain in the butt to cross over the river during rush hours. There is really no bad part of St. Charles, I would approach any unincorporated areas carefully because Kane county zoning is real bogus in those areas. I would check the zoning codes on the kane county website to see what exactly they allow on that particular property you are looking at. And maybe even call the dept.
You will easily find something in your price range out here.
Good luck!

[vandre]

Also take a look at Roselle. Decent schools and short commute to Wood Dale.

I just bought a fixer-upper (2-stories, 30yr old SF, 1600 sq/ft 3bd/2ba) for less than $200k, close to Metra and/or Elgin Ohare

[chet everett]

What school districts serve Roselle?