Moving to Chicago Next Month, Plan of Attack (Lincoln, Clinton: sublet, apartments)

[dangr]

You guys rock. I've been lurking around, reading old threads about moving to Chicago and found it all really helpful. However, I'm still in need of some advice:

1) Where to live where Fiancée won't be completely miserable commuting to Milwaukee and still get a to experience living in Chicago.

Our Predicament: I'll be working in the Loop, Fiancée will be working in Milwaukee (ideally taking Amtrak up but would maybe drive if that made more sense). She can work at home for part of the week, so she'll only really need to commute up to Milwaukee on Tuesday afternoons and back to Chicago on Friday evenings.

More about us: We are in our late 20s/early 30s, young professionals ($200K household income). We are moving from Philadelphia (where we rent a cute little trinity with our 23lb dog in Queen Village for $1700+utilities). Our budget would be around the same but would probably pay more because we already have it in our mind that Chicago is more expensive than Philly (which is probably not true). We enjoy things like eating out (from hole-in-the-walls to the latest foodie destination) and running/biking outside when its nice out.

We plan on buying a place by the end of the year but wanted to rent for a bit to get acclimated to the Chicago neighborhoods. We are set on living in the Chicago neighborhoods for the foreseeable future (as oppose to a suburb between Milwaukee and Chicago). We like the West Loop and parts of Lakeview (Roscoe Village). We've also been told by friends that we should look into Logan Sq. and Ukrainian Village. I like up-and-coming-hipster-populated areas (No.Libes, Fishtown in Philly), she likes quiet, family friendly neighborhoods (Art Museum Area, Queen Village in Philly). So a balance would be nice. She has no desire to live in truly up-and-coming neighborhoods where it'll be another 5-10 years until it's "gentrified."

I guess, ultimately, proximity to public transportation for Fiancée to get to the train station within 30 minutes would be nice and/or easy access to I-94 if she decided to drive (we currently do not own a car so we'd have to purchase one after we move). With that in mind, any suggestions? Should we look into other neighborhoods as well, i.e., University Village, Avondale area? Andersonville seems awesome based on what I've read, but I'm not digging how long the commute would be to get to the Loop (~45 mins?!). I've been using Google Maps to figure out transit times, is this accurate?

2) Best Plan of Attack for Landing a Place in a Day.

Ideally looking for a mid-February move-in date (although we probably won't move in until the last week of February).

I plan on getting into Chicago on Friday morning (Jan 31st), looking at a few options, putting in an application, and signing a lease all within a day and a half. Is this even possible? Do I have the luxury to looking at places in person or should I just send in an application for a place sight-unseen, show up on the 31st to sign the lease and hope for the best?

I'm currently using domu.com, craigslist, Zillow for the search. Any other recommendations? In Philly, I could just walk around and call numbers on for rent signs. Is that possible in Chicago?

Thanks in advance for any insight and advice! Looking forward to this move from the cold to the colder, ha.

[marothisu]

Before I give any advice, I just want to make sure I read this correctly. She will go to Milwaukee on Tuesdays, stay in Milwaukee until Friday and come back down to Chicago?

[dangr]

Originally Posted by marothisu

Before I give any advice, I just want to make sure I read this correctly. She will go to Milwaukee on Tuesdays, stay in Milwaukee until Friday and come back down to Chicago?

Correct. She would stay with her parents in Milwaukee Tuesday through Thursday nights. Not ideal, but eventually she'll transfer to Chicago.

[marothisu]

Okay, well that makes things a little easier in that case. I will admit I don't know Philly extremely well, but I'll try and understand the best I can to what you want.

So what I'm hearing is that you want kind of a family ish oriented area but near arts, hipster/art type of stuff around, but not necessarily up and coming (but still growing with enough to do) but still kind of cool. The first areas that come to mind are Wicker park or Bucktown. The nice thing about that area is that it's on the Blue Line, which is pretty short to the Loop, but it also leads to O'Hare airport if you guys travel and runs 24/7. The areas are also close to an interstate. Though that interstate can be really busy at times, if you know which times it's not that busy at then it can be useful too if you drive certain places.

The areas used to be hipster areas of town, and though they're now gentrified, they still have shades of their former hipster selves there mixed in with nicer stuff. There's some pretty nice housing in the area, though the only problem is that 2+ bedrooms are more common in the area. When you find a 1 bedroom, it will probably be a minimum of $1600 or $1700/month as a result, but they're usually pretty nice.

Ukrainian Village/East Ukrainian Village is cool and just south of Wicker Park. For your budget, you could find a 2 bedroom place actually (funny how the price changes in such a short distance). There's a bunch of nice single family homes that have been built, or are being built, in that area as we speak. Kind of in the process of gentrification, but still has enough of the more hipster type of stuff going on.

Logan Square is a big area, and technically Bucktown is part of the Logan Square community area. There's a good mix of people there - families, hipsters, "young professionals", etc. Good amount of business opening there as we speak in some areas and there was already some there. There's actually a Michelin starred restaurant in Logan Square too for the record. There is some serious food in the area - not necessarily FINE dining, but some of it is pretty nice casual and others have been pretty well recognized (look up Fat Rice and Billy Sunday).


Andersonville is cool but you're right about the commute - maybe a little less, but the problem is that Andersonville is not directly on the train. It's like a 10 minute walk or depending on the street, you could catch a bus there. Google Maps for public transit times is pretty accurate, but during peak hours you should add some time to it because some legs of certain train routes can get pretty busy. Roscoe Village is also good - a lot of things there, but the problem is that there's a good amount not on the train line. However some is if you can find anything closer to that. Lincoln Squar0e/Ravenswood near Andersonville is also cool. I'd say more family friend and there's some arts stuff there, but I'd say it's more of the folksy type. The area is fairly family oriented, but the main strips are "quaint" with a good number of food places. The single family homes are the semi large older SFHs (you can find them in Andersonville too) and nice - not cheap usually. The rent, however, is cheap and you could find a 2 bedroom for your price. The commute from there to the Loop is probably 35 minute? Maybe more at peak hours. The mayor also lives in Ravenswood

For rentals, Zillow is really good too.

[gelert]

Personally I'd take a hard look at west loop and Fulton river district - being near union station will save your wife tons of time. Driving from Milwaukee into Friday rush hour can be pretty rough

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by gelert

Personally I'd take a hard look at west loop and Fulton river district - being near union station will save your wife tons of time. Driving from Milwaukee into Friday rush hour can be pretty rough

They aren't bad, but you can still get to Union Station easily from an area like Wicker Park/Bucktown/UK Village. Take the Blue Line to Clinton, which is about 15 minutes, 20 max. From there, it's like 2 blocks walk to Union Station.

[dangr]

Awesome information, guys. So, am I correct in understanding that the best "El" line to be near for us and our situation is the Blue Line?

If we lived in Lakeview (there's just so much inventory there compared to the other places mentioned), we would use the Brown Line? Would the Brown Line take her to Amtrak within say...30 minutes?

Oh, one last quirk... we plan on buying a place of our own around August/September. Would our best bet be to find a short term lease (are they common?) or sign a full year lease and try to sublet the balance of our term after we find a place?

[chet everett]

Wow. I would not even consider buying a place if one half of the family income is tied to a job in Milwaukee. Despite promises of "transfer to Chicago office" lots of things could go wrong and you'd be stuck in cities that are not really conducive to any kind of commute. While Chicago has nice rail service that makes it fairly easy to get from Amtrak to other spots the transit situation at the Mikwaukee end if things is really not feasible for anything other than trip out of the airport...

Some posters have blinders on and seem to take every opportunity to suggest that Wicker Park is the be-all-end-all of residential experience in Chicago. The diffculty that comes from living in a very popular area is that rents are high and selling prices are even higher and if the situation for the OP expecting a transfer falls through they will be alone in a very party oriented place. Not good.

[oakparkdude]

Is her job in Milwaukee downtown (i.e. close to the Amtrak station)?

I agree with Chet, I would not even consider buying until she's guaranteed (or even better, started) her new job in Chicago.

[dangr]

Ha, I guess I'm being optimistic that we'll be living AND working in the same city by the end of Summer. Generally speaking, however, if I signed a 1-year lease, would subletting it in the Fall be tough? The inventory for apartments advertised as "short-term" is pretty bare at the moment.