Quincy Illinois (Chicago, Washington: real estate, property taxes, house)

[kmcd715]

hi, we are moving to Quincy Illinois soon, and I've never been there and cant find any apartments online. We are going to rent an apartment until we find a house to buy. any info would be great!!!!!!!!!!

[Jonathon]

Hi I'm thinking of moving to Quincy from New York where did you eventually end up finding and apartment, was anyone able to help you through your listing???
Jon

Originally Posted by kmcd715

hi, we are moving to Quincy Illinois soon, and I've never been there and cant find any apartments online. We are going to rent an apartment until we find a house to buy. any info would be great!!!!!!!!!!

[Kaz]

The dearth of information being offered about Quincy is a bit scary...nobody from there?

Thanks,
Kaz

[kyla]

The paper for Quincy is the Quincy Herald Whig, maybe they will have apt listings. Also there are a couple of century 21 realtors that may help. Quincy has grown alot in the past few years, and now has every box-store you could hope for. Many really lovely homes. The area nearer the river is a bit lower on the economic scale, so a bit rougher too. Good luck!

[Jersey5]

We lived in Quincy for 4 years and loved it. Happel & Schlipman is a local realtor that has lots of listings and they really know the area, not sure if they do apts. Also, get involved in groups, check with newcomers or other organizations. It is a bit of a culture shock at first if you are moving from a larger city(we moved from chicago). The closet big shopping is St. Louis., but it's a great place to raise children. You can get a lot of house for your $. Close to the river and the "tree" streets can get iffy sometimes. Overall, not to rough. Good Luck.

[Rosinante]

Originally Posted by Kaz

The dearth of information being offered about Quincy is a bit scary...nobody from there?

Thanks,
Kaz

Kaz,

Allow me to speak from my experiences after having attended college in Quincy from 1969 to 1972.

The short description of Quincy is that I thought after graduating that it was the best place I'd ever lived. I wanted to experience what life would be like in a small midwestern town, so I transferred there from a major university very near Washington, D.C. Yes, it was a bit of a shock to face the extremely cold winter weather that can blow through town (I remember seeing the bank clock downtown reading minus ten degrees at noon), but it hadn't taken me long to fall in love with the town. It had everything I needed -- friendly people, perhaps the most important of these things -- and I found myself a bit apprehensive about returning to the hustle of big city life. My career took me to Boston, Washington, Memphis and Baton Rouge over the course of these past 35 years, all the time reminiscing over the ease and simplicity of small-town living.

Having studied Quincy's evolution over the past several months, my wife and I are seriously considering a return. It appears as if Quincy has taken on many of the commercial traits of larger cities, and, from what one realtor I've contacted tells me, "Broadway is crazy with traffic." (Broadway is [or was] the main east-west street in town. Traffic is one of the things I'm hoping to escape.)

I note too that Quincy's crime statistics have crept above the national average, but upon closer examination, it appears as if more crimes are commited here in Baton Rouge in one day than Quincy has endured over the past five years.

My posting to this thread hopes to answer your question somewhat, but it also asks one to those who live there. Has the traffic really gotten "crazy" on Broadway, or can you still get from the river to Quincy Mall in less than 15 minutes?

[jessiegirl_98]

Hi all,
First, since Quincy is so cheap to buy in, there aren't as many rentals as there are in larger cities. I know both the Happels and Schilpmans. I would call them and ask them for help. There are some nice condos that have sprung up for rent. Anyway, your best bet is to go through a relator for listings.
Regarding Broadway, it's all relative. I now live in Chicago and I laugh when people talk about the "crazy traffic" in Quincy. The short of it is that you can get virtually ANYWHERE in Quincy in 15 minutes.
For crime, it is VERY safe. Right along the river is probably the worst part, but I still have friends that live there. The farther west you go (especially west of 12th street and maine or father north), you are going to have no problems.
Again, as someone said, from a large town to Quincy you will have a HUGE culture shock. It's a nice, safe small town, but still not a lot of shopping, etc. Let me know if you have other questions!

[jessiegirl_98]

Just a bit more about renting. I would call a relator, but there are a few (very few) ads in the Quincy paper. Check out this link
The Herald-Whig - Search for ads

[tlw]

It is still quite easy to get most anywhere in Quincy in 15 mins. East Broadway has become rather busy with business traffic. In my eyes it is rather ugly in that area though. Alot of independent business people have been driven out by the cookie cutter chain stores and restaurants that have sprouted up. I feel that Quincy has fallen prey to the direction that alot of small towns have done. That is, tax incentives and literally "giving the farm away" for another Friday's, Starbuck's, Ruby Tuesday, used car lots, retail chains. If you have been to one of these, you have been to them all!

The town has never cashed in on the biggest asset it has................being on the Mississippi River. It has much more potential terrain wise than St. Louis to really do something with it but virtually nothing has been done.
Another big asset of the city is the beautiful old homes and architecture, much of it built in the mid 1800's. I have never seen so many gorgeous old buildings anywhere else particularly in the midwest. They continue to tear them down also. When the beautiful buildings in Quincy are gone it will look like any other town in the midwest...................it's too bad.

Don't get me wrong, I actually have great feelings for Quincy, but I feel they have stagnated and made some terrible moves. The population is not up as someone stated. It's about 39,000. Granted there are a few more folks outside the city limits now. In the early 70's the population was closer to 50,000 in the city limits and that's before all the annexation they have done. They had a Chicago Cubs minor league team at one time.
They have lost alot of REAL industry over the years. Motorola is long gone and had over 4000 employees. Many of the other manufacturing plants there used to run 2 and 3 shifts. The plants that are left run one. You cannot replace these type of jobs with another box store or Mc Donalds.

Quincy at one time had one of the best and most progressive school systems in the country. I took science, instrumental music, and French in the 4th grade!!!!!! The music system there has been decimated. It used to rival any of the Chicago area schools. The Quincy Junior High building is still one of the most beautiful and striking school buildings you will ever see. I had the absolutely greatest teachers at every level.

So, just my 2 cents. If anyone moving there has any particular question or query, feel free to ask or private message me. Quincy still has it's many positives, just seems to have kinda lost it's swagger.

[Rosinante]

Originally Posted by tlw

It is still quite easy to get most anywhere in Quincy in 15 mins. East Broadway has become rather busy with business traffic. In my eyes it is rather ugly in that area though. Alot of independent business people have been driven out by the cookie cutter chain stores and restaurants that have sprouted up. I feel that Quincy has fallen prey to the direction that alot of small towns have done. That is, tax incentives and literally "giving the farm away" for another Friday's, Starbuck's, Ruby Tuesday, used car lots, retail chains. If you have been to one of these, you have been to them all!

A big Thank You, tlw, for painting this less-than-rosy picture of Quincy. It will certainly help my wife and I to think more clearly about the steps we'll need to take to make the move back a more palatable experience. I hope those grand old homes being torn down that you mentioned aren't the ones that graced both sides of Broadway.

As for the "cookie cutter" persona that the chain stores and restaurants bring to the city, I recall seeing something in the Herald-Whig Answer Book noting that the prospects of having a Red Lobster in Quincy weren't very bright. "Thank Heavens for that!" I thought after reading this. I prefer to do my dining out where there's a potential to have something that exceeds the expectation of standardized institutional food.

But the cookie cutter mentality in all of us enables the big box stores to encroach on our lives by offering a lower price on a lower quality product -- probably made in China, too, so this is a fact of life that appears inescapable wherever we are.

A few other thoughts have come to mind since the last posting: I rented an apartment at 24th & Chestnut, and recall that the city did not salt the streets in town after a snowfall. Is this still the case?

Secondly, by comparison, it appears as if property taxes are much higher in Quincy than here in Baton Rouge. I pay an annual tax of $187 that also includes fees for fire and crime prevention here, and my home is well above the statistical median value. City-Data's site says that the median property tax in Quincy is about $1600 on an average home, which is said to hover around $80K. Did I misread this, or would a $200K home be subject to several thousands in real estate taxes?