Forest Park and high home prices (Chicago, Oak Park: house prices, neighborhood, buyers)

[Westburbgal]

I’ve recently seen homes ( albiet nice homes) selling for upper 400k and 500k in Forest Park. Considering how the schools are terrible , this is a a bit surprising. I would think if someone had that much to spend they would look at other areas. Is this a new trend or just a few uninformed buyers who will lose out on resale value.( Zillow has the homes estimated value at much less than what the purchase price is listed) Any thoughts?

[OPRFmama]

There’s been a big push to improve the local schools, and they’re making progress. Geographically and culturally, it’s a pretty desirable area. It’s the last stop on both the green & blue lines of the CTA so it makes for an easy commute for downtown Chicago workers, and it has a vibrant downtown business district with some of the region’s best restaurants. It’s generally a more affordable alternative to Oak Park.

A word of caution on Zestimates: read the fine print... they’re not very accurate most of the time! Reason being, they haven’t been inside ANY of the homes they’re valuing. Here’s more info: https://www.zillow.com/zestimate/#acc — it’s a better idea to ask your agent to research and prepare a market analysis for any home you’re considering purchasing.

[OKParker]

Forest Park is definitely coming up due to its blue line access and Madison St restaurants/stores. It also has some nice pre-ww2 architecture. It had definitely been a working class neighborhood for the a while, but its starting to get some more middle class people.

Definitely lots of cheap housing there still, but I think certain areas are becoming more desirable

[Chicago_Person]

It's not a bad neighborhood at all.

[Westburbgal]

I definitely don’t think it’s bad, but the schools are. Typically house prices and taxes reflect that ( see oak park).