Best place to buy newer home under $500K?

[Lookout Kid]

That one's listed at $550,000, is an older house, is in Clarendon Hills (which I said nothing about), and is an 18 minute walk from the train. I wouldn't want to walk that 18 minutes both directions every day in January, but "within walking distance to the train" can be interpretted several ways I suppose. If the OP is willing to go with a rehabbed older home, his options are expanded greatly. Clarendon Hills may actually be a good option for him, since it's cheaper than Hinsdale but has access to most of the Hinsdale ammenities.

[mh7]

There is no such thing as a newer 4+ bedroom house in la grange/western springs/hinsdale under 500k that is walkable to the train station. Virtually everything that has been built in those areas in the last 10-15 years will go for 650k+ and will probably be closer to the 800k+ range. If such a house did exist, it would sell in literally a matter of minutes.

[chet everett]

I think you would be surprised at how much inventory is sitting...

A little math will also show that 10 or 15 years ago one could build a home for a FRACTION of what it might have sold for at peak.

Undoubtedly there are a relatively large number people that have SMALL outstanding balances on homes that they may have bought / built 10-15 years ago, as long as they did not go crazy with "raiding the home equity piggy bank" they may be able to sell those homes and STILL net a tidy sum.

The average time on market is quite high for many homes.

There are a shortage of buyers willing to purchase other than starter homes.

Values can be had!

[Lookout Kid]

Chet, in your experience what's a "typical" percent of asking that people are getting in that area (La Grange/Western Springs, Hinsdale corridor) right now? Is it totally insane to offer $425,000 on a $500,000 house?

[Lookout Kid]

Originally Posted by mh7

Virtually everything that has been built in those areas in the last 10-15 years will go for 650k+ and will probably be closer to the 800k+ range. If such a house did exist, it would sell in literally a matter of minutes.

And they are almost always teardowns (or whatever you call the house that replaces a teardown). Most teardown/build to suit houses seem to be in the upper price bracket.

[chet everett]

As to the offer vs ask question, I have not seen a whole lot of deals close at a 15% discount. Mostly still in the low / mid 90% range. Now that does not mean that every offer at a bigger doscount is laughed at, but I really think that you do yourself a disservice wasting time on offers that are not closer to ask UNLESS YOU have some specific knowledge that indicates distress. Short sales, REO, owner facing a foreclosure and the usual divorces and stuff...

I agree that MANY of the homes that replaced teardowns are upper brackety -- but you have to also realize that 10+ years ago you COULD do a complete teardown for a FRACTION of what they were going for at peak. I personally was involved in sales of crummy little houses to builders for well under $150K, those builders could make a handsome profit turning those into homes that then sold for more than double.

Still plenty of room for sizeable appreciation...

[SloopyJ]

I definitely didn't have Chet's idea of "newer" in mind, but it did get me thinking about some areas I hadn't thought of before. If I'm willing to look at 70s housing stock that's not near a train line, that opens up options such as west Wilmette, parts of Glenview, etc., which would be an easier relo from my current Evanston locale.

Still, I would agree with other posters that my original desires - newer, walk-to-train - can't be had in Hinsdale, Western Springs, La Grange, Glen Ellyn, etc. for $500K. That's why I was thinking maybe Downers, but even there I don't think it's a slam dunk to find something.

[cubssoxfan]

SloopyJ,
If you're willing to consider west Wilmette, Glenview take a look at Arlington Heights, Prospect Heights, Palatine and Mt. Prospect. All have Metra service downtown and have lots of housing stock below $550K. All are established towns with good schools.

[chet everett]

The "18 minute" time estimate is based on a google's snail pace method -- I walk faster than that down the corridors at work!!

Clarendon Hills is very compact, with the house cited just a few blocks from the train station, heck all but a handful of homes in CH are between Ogden and 55th St which makes basically the entire town within walking distance of the Metra station. The huge plus is the D181 schools, literally one of handful of Illinois schools districts that consistently and uniformly have very high performing schools that feed into a single high school.

If you truly desire "new construction" you would have to accept a pretty big negative -- obvious stuff like busy streets and/or small lot size. The median prices in even the most desirable towns along the BNSF are of course determined by sales, but when an area is as constrained as the very small towns the spread of house prices is quite narrow. There are condos / townhomes in some towns that make those medians artifically low, but even then those properties sell for quite a pretty penny in the desirable towns so you are not really distorting the value so much as it being influenced by properties that are smaller than 4+ bedrooms desired...