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Husband and I need your opinions. We are moving our family to Munster soon - from Chicago. He thinks Munster is going to go downhill and disintegrate within the next 10 - 15 years due to Lansing and other riffraff spilling over. He suspects that any house property value will essentially be worth *nothing* in 10 - 15 years and we will not get a penny back from investing in a house. (Probably looking into $500,000 range as we need 4 bedrooms.) From what I've researched Munster has continued to improve over the last decade or more, and I don't see that changing based on the great school system, and the proximity to downtown Chi. PLEASE, use your crystal ball and tell me in your honest opinion how you foresee Munster down the road. Do you think the property values will withstand the test of time....etc.
You should check the NWI subforum as this has been asked and debated before. As a NWI resident, Munster will maintain its position as a premiere town in Lake county. People take a lot of pride in that town and has a high volume of professionals living there due to the proximity to Chicago and professional services offered in town. If I were to guess Munster will continue to appreciate with the developments that are coming along Calumet Ave as well as supply and demand as the town could be seen as close to being maxed out on new home building with a handful of teardowns starting to occur. And who knows maybe in 10-15 years they will have a functioning commuter rail stop there too for Chicago commuting, currently the nearest stops are 10-20 minutes away.
Husband and I need your opinions. We are moving our family to Munster soon - from Chicago. He thinks Munster is going to go downhill and disintegrate within the next 10 - 15 years due to Lansing and other riffraff spilling over. He suspects that any house property value will essentially be worth *nothing* in 10 - 15 years and we will not get a penny back from investing in a house. (Probably looking into $500,000 range as we need 4 bedrooms.) From what I've researched Munster has continued to improve over the last decade or more, and I don't see that changing based on the great school system, and the proximity to downtown Chi. PLEASE, use your crystal ball and tell me in your honest opinion how you foresee Munster down the road. Do you think the property values will withstand the test of time....etc.
Yes, I agree you should do a search in the NWI forum for Munster as there is a lot of commentary already that you can look through and consider. Below is one with some comments regarding this discussion. You will see there are some IL posters that like to do some bashing on the NWI from time to time. You see the same thing on the IL board with some pro-Indy posters doing the some IL bashing. So keep that in mind when looking at various comments. Below are a few links to get you started....
Just remember that Lansing IL and Munster IN are 2 totally different communities in 2 totally different states even though they are in close proximity. They are subject to very different state tax climate situations and the schools are not at all comparable. There are many examples of areas nationwide which are nice which continue to be nice even though they are in close proximity to "not so nice" areas because the schools remain strong, spillover crime is nipped in the bud and towns managers/council are thoughtful in planning. As you are from Chicago I will throw Oak Park out there as an example you may be aware of. Just north of Oak Park is Austin. Yet, Oak Park has done a good job keeping the community strong regardless of its neighbor to the North. Back to Lansing, I know some folks there that can't move to Munster because they are simply priced out. Now these folks I would have no problem with as neighbors but it underscores how pricing can impact "spillover" or whatever you want to call it from one community to the next. Instead of moving to Munster, they skip a few towns and go to Highland, M-ville or CP instead....
As an Illinois poster living in Oak Park I see Munster getting better.
Only thing getting worse about Munster is affordability which I think helps insulate it from white flight like we have done in better parts of Oak Park.
And yes white flight is the appropriate term. There is some white flight with Hispanics but not nearly as much as with blacks and whites. Asians, Indians and middle easterners are not associated with white flight generally, regardless of their pigmentation.
The posts above have pretty much covered what I believe as well and the forums that were linked in one of the above posts has some of my opinions on there as well.
But I will say this: the concern about Munster going downhill has been a concern for the past 40 years. Given Munster's geographic position and relative proximity to some areas that have declined and/or saw flight, it should have gone way downhill about 15 years ago. Instead it has improved. A lot of the folks whom people were afraid would move to Munster from places like Hammond, EC, Gary, etc are priced out (even out of some rentals which are hard to come by anyway). Merrillville, on the other hand, has been the one suburb that has declined the fastest in NWI. The general mantra in NWI is "move south". However, the northern border of Merrillville is as far north as the southern border of Munster (53rd Ave/ Main St). Merrillville was developed to accommodate white flight from Gary in 1971 and by 1995, it started going downhill.
If one was concerned about Munster going downhill, then they should have the same concern for almost any other suburb in NWI. Some folks thought that moving to Crown Point from Munster would be safe because "move south", but while CP is a great city with a great school district (in the CPCSC boundaries), the city is seeing white flight from the northern end of the city in the Merrillville district and this will impact the name and reputation of CP as a whole. That is a suburb that I would be more concerned about. As JVR said, most riff-raff circumvent Munster and head more towards the Merrillville area. Munster has some of the strongest property values in the area. Also, fun fact: during the housing collapse, Highland (which is pretty middle class and modest) had the lowest foreclosure rates in the area. The highest? Crown Point (which while overall is modest, has more pricey areas than Highland).
Where in NWI would your husband rather move that he feels would be less likely to go downhill than Munster?
The posts above have pretty much covered what I believe as well and the forums that were linked in one of the above posts has some of my opinions on there as well.
But I will say this: the concern about Munster going downhill has been a concern for the past 40 years. Given Munster's geographic position and relative proximity to some areas that have declined and/or saw flight, it should have gone way downhill about 15 years ago. Instead it has improved. A lot of the folks whom people were afraid would move to Munster from places like Hammond, EC, Gary, etc are priced out (even out of some rentals which are hard to come by anyway). Merrillville, on the other hand, has been the one suburb that has declined the fastest in NWI. The general mantra in NWI is "move south". However, the northern border of Merrillville is as far north as the southern border of Munster (53rd Ave/ Main St). Merrillville was developed to accommodate white flight from Gary in 1971 and by 1995, it started going downhill.
If one was concerned about Munster going downhill, then they should have the same concern for almost any other suburb in NWI. Some folks thought that moving to Crown Point from Munster would be safe because "move south", but while CP is a great city with a great school district (in the CPCSC boundaries), the city is seeing white flight from the northern end of the city in the Merrillville district and this will impact the name and reputation of CP as a whole. That is a suburb that I would be more concerned about. As JVR said, most riff-raff circumvent Munster and head more towards the Merrillville area. Munster has some of the strongest property values in the area. Also, fun fact: during the housing collapse, Highland (which is pretty middle class and modest) had the lowest foreclosure rates in the area. The highest? Crown Point (which while overall is modest, has more pricey areas than Highland).
Where in NWI would your husband rather move that he feels would be less likely to go downhill than Munster?
Agreed on most points. People from Gary/Hammond/EC are also moving to Portage in accelerated rates since the mid 2000s, Portage has a good amount of subsidized housing and lower middle class housing that Munster doesn't, making Portage more susceptible than a place like Munster in the long term. The biggest thing I wonder is will the wealth continue to stay around and be attracted to Munster as it ages? There are places that are much newer, and this goes for not only NWI, but the Chicago suburbs and elsewhere. In terms of wealth, is St John the new Munster?
Agreed on most points. People from Gary/Hammond/EC are also moving to Portage in accelerated rates since the mid 2000s, Portage has a good amount of subsidized housing and lower middle class housing that Munster doesn't, making Portage more susceptible than a place like Munster in the long term. The biggest thing I wonder is will the wealth continue to stay around and be attracted to Munster as it ages? There are places that are much newer, and this goes for not only NWI, but the Chicago suburbs and elsewhere. In terms of wealth, is St John the new Munster?
Munster has been considered a relatively mature area for at least 10 years now and the wealth has seemed to remain. Some folks say that "Munster isn't what it used to be" in terms of wealth which I believe is false. If anything, wealth has increased. It is just that wealth has grown in other towns as well like Schererville and Dyer (beyond Briar Ridge CC) as well as in Saint John and parts of Crown Point, Valpo, and Chesterton.
As far as Saint John, the average family income is higher primarily due to their being more working age people at the height of their careers than in Munster where there are a lot more retirees. Many retirees are wealthy but their "income" may appear to be low (and many times, is not reported on census data). This (in addition to housing values) was discussed in a thread here before:
With regards to the housing values, what was discussed in the thread is that the same home in Saint John is worth less than in Munster (same finishes, plot of land, everything). 5 years later, and this is still true.
The other thing is that while the Median family income in Saint John is higher than in Munster, as of the 2010-2014 American Community Survey done by the Census, the Mean family income in Munster is still higher than Saint John. With Munster having more economic diversity than Saint John as well as more housing diversity, this is very impressive and is further proof of the long-term desirability of Munster. Saint John is its own place as is Munster. Saint John would never be the new Munster especially since it has many different characteristics (e.g. two separate schools districts within the town, not as much older housing, has newer housing that isn't just executive style/price). I would also say that the desirability of the feeder towns into LCHS (Dyer, Schererville, part of Griffith) have a much greater impact on Saint John than Lansing, Hammond, Highland would have on Munster. While parts of Lansing and Hammond have gone downhill, it hasn't had that much of a negative impact on Munster's overall desirability (some spillover in crime, but not so much) especially with regards to the school district. However, if Dyer and Schererville were to go downhill, this would negatively affect the entire Lake Central school system and any town feeding into it including Saint John. An example that this could be looked at is Merrillville. Its schools also take students from Crown Point and Hobart. While the areas of each city zoned to Merrillville schools are not "bad", they are not as desirable as the rest of their respective cities and it has negatively impacted the areas of those cities zoned to Merrillville as far as property values (although the values are still higher than in Merrillville itself).
The problem is now, due to the declining desirability of the northern end of CP, there is active white flight going on from that area. Ironically, not much flight at all in the Hobart area zoned to Merrillville as it is newer and actually further away from Merrillville with some buffer.
With regards to fighting white flight while neighbors decline?
The anti-block busting campaign as well as less affordable housing really worked in Oak Park to prevent white flight.
Without expensive housing stock and continued block by block white flight, Oak Park would have would have ended up like many other inner western suburbs with declining schools
With regards to fighting white flight while neighbors decline?
The anti-block busting campaign as well as less affordable housing really worked in Oak Park to prevent white flight.
Without expensive housing stock and continued block by block white flight, Oak Park would have would have ended up like many other inner western suburbs with declining schools
I don't know if it would be that extreme. While there have been rumors of what folks thought would happen to Munster, there hasn't been any noticeable flight from the town. The biggest movement of folks from Munster was during the 90s when more upscale neighborhoods opened up south of 45th. This wasn't "flight" from other areas of Munster as much as it was pent up demand for more upscale homes and subdivisions.
I have thought about how this area could possibly benefit from certain practices like no for sale signs on lawns. The only place I know right now that appears to forbid this is Lakes Of the Four Seasons.
I think it will be a popular TV show, Oh wait, I thought you said "Munster's", sorry.
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