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Its funny but I am trying to lure my son out of his Logan Square "paradise". I doubt if he will be able to afford a good home there if he is going to buy someday. Mostly the good buildings would be beyond his reach leaving a bunch of crappy beat up frame houses over priced. If I were to lure him, he might bite on Oak Park or Berwyn but you better believe he would never ever live in Glendale Heights or Lombard. Some suburbs just might have a certain appeal to some people, not really keeping it real but more of an acceptable alternative to the city. Its hard to explain.
You touch on another interesting problem. If you don't have a lot of money, it can be pretty hard to choose a community. Up until maybe 10 years ago, people just drove until they qualified and were more or less safe. But a lot of the exburbs have seen low income influxes and do not seem to be trending up. Buying a tract home an hour from the City will bring a lot more things to worry about than not being real.
I mean, sure, one can move to Oak Park and be pretty much assured a future of good tidings (unless you have to take a pay cut or lose a job, in which case you may be screwed). But what about a recent grad couple with a budget of $225k? This board is rife with posts about how hard it is to get into desirable suburbs on such a budget, and these posts are correct.
So what then? Brookfield? Sure, it's nice and has some good schools, but it's a small community and doesn't have unlimited housing options (and not all of it is served by RB). Forest Park? I like it and looked there myself, but it suffers from the same school problem Berwyn does, so I looked at that as a choice between a Ford and a Mercury. So where else? Summit? Northlake? Broadview? Bridgeview? A lot of these homebuyers we're talking about are simply being practical versus real.
Well, I think part of it is the expectations of this generation just getting out of school (and I feel like I can say this since I am part of the group I am talking about!). Ok, they want good schools if they are starting a family, fair enough. But they have a limited budget and they NEED 2200 sf, 4 bedrooms, and 2.5 bathrooms RIGHT NOW. Laminate countertops in the kitchen? Forget it. There's a wall between kitchen and dining room? Take it off the list. No master bath with jacuzzi tub? Pshh. And if they have to walk more than 2 blocks to the Metra, that's just ridiculous.
Those finishing up school, getting married, and buying houses grew up in the era of the "bigger, better, and now" mentality. Problem is, in the 90's/early 2000's, people were willing to push far away from the city to get a brand new home in a new development. Now, we want all of these perks but within a 30 minute commute to the city! It's just not going to happen, and then we are unhappy with our options and get into debates about school quality, degree of safety, entertainment options, commute, etc because sacrifices need to be made. Maybe a young couple doesn't need that many sf, maybe they don't need a formal living room, a family room, and a rec room in the basement. Maybe 1.5 or 2 baths is enough. Maybe the kitchen is clean and functional but doesn't have quartz countertops. Maybe some of those other upgrades can be done incrementally over the years.
Anecdotally, my wife and I had very different expectations when looking for a house last year, and it mirrored our personal experiences. My parents have lived in the same house in Downers since getting married. They had little money but bought a small 2 BR, 1 ba house, no basement, about 1000 sf so their kids would be in an excellent school district. Eventually the laundry room was converted to a 3rd BR as myself and 2 siblings got older, but I never had my own bedroom. They still live there today (but now everything is updated) even though they could afford nicer, because "that's all the space they need". My wife also grew up in Downers, but her parents built a brand new house when she was born, and further added on years later to make it a 4 BR, 3.5 BA home. When we went searching for houses, we had incredibly different minimum space expectations - I was looking for a 3 BR 1.5 BA with a main and secondary living space. She was looking for 4 BR plus hopefully an office, 2 living spaces on main floor and a big basement, big kitchen, etc. Well, she quickly learned that she couldn't get that near the city for our budget, but it was a fascinating situation and I think provides insight into this issue.
Well, I think part of it is the expectations of this generation just getting out of school (and I feel like I can say this since I am part of the group I am talking about!). Ok, they want good schools if they are starting a family, fair enough. But they have a limited budget and they NEED 2200 sf, 4 bedrooms, and 2.5 bathrooms RIGHT NOW. Laminate countertops in the kitchen? Forget it. There's a wall between kitchen and dining room? Take it off the list. No master bath with jacuzzi tub? Pshh. And if they have to walk more than 2 blocks to the Metra, that's just ridiculous.
Those finishing up school, getting married, and buying houses grew up in the era of the "bigger, better, and now" mentality. Problem is, in the 90's/early 2000's, people were willing to push far away from the city to get a brand new home in a new development. Now, we want all of these perks but within a 30 minute commute to the city! It's just not going to happen, and then we are unhappy with our options and get into debates about school quality, degree of safety, entertainment options, commute, etc because sacrifices need to be made. Maybe a young couple doesn't need that many sf, maybe they don't need a formal living room, a family room, and a rec room in the basement. Maybe 1.5 or 2 baths is enough. Maybe the kitchen is clean and functional but doesn't have quartz countertops. Maybe some of those other upgrades can be done incrementally over the years.
Anecdotally, my wife and I had very different expectations when looking for a house last year, and it mirrored our personal experiences. My parents have lived in the same house in Downers since getting married. They had little money but bought a small 2 BR, 1 ba house, no basement, about 1000 sf so their kids would be in an excellent school district. Eventually the laundry room was converted to a 3rd BR as myself and 2 siblings got older, but I never had my own bedroom. They still live there today (but now everything is updated) even though they could afford nicer, because "that's all the space they need". My wife also grew up in Downers, but her parents built a brand new house when she was born, and further added on years later to make it a 4 BR, 3.5 BA home. When we went searching for houses, we had incredibly different minimum space expectations - I was looking for a 3 BR 1.5 BA with a main and secondary living space. She was looking for 4 BR plus hopefully an office, 2 living spaces on main floor and a big basement, big kitchen, etc. Well, she quickly learned that she couldn't get that near the city for our budget, but it was a fascinating situation and I think provides insight into this issue.
We ended up in Brookfield. It was never on our radar until the very end. Our budget was just over $300k and we were looking at small houses in La Grange to "get in" and moving up in the future. But in Brookfield that is a pretty healthy budget, so we were both able to get things we wanted. My wife was able to have her 4 BR/ 2.5 BA with multiple living spaces (now she questions whether the house is too big, go figure). The house was updated except for the kitchen, which we are now updating a year later. Yet, we are 2 blocks away from metra/downtown restaurants and bars, and there are very good schools here. I'm happy because we came in underbudget, its still a very cozy bungalow home with a lot of charm, and importantly its (relatively) close to downtown. Definitely a bigger house than I would have looked for as a first house (per my last post) if I were in charge (obviously I'm not!). It's not LaGrange or Riverside, but hey you have to make sacrifices!
We ended up in Brookfield. It was never on our radar until the very end. Our budget was just over $300k and we were looking at small houses in La Grange to "get in" and moving up in the future. But in Brookfield that is a pretty healthy budget, so we were both able to get things we wanted. My wife was able to have her 4 BR/ 2.5 BA with multiple living spaces (now she questions whether the house is too big, go figure). The house was updated except for the kitchen, which we are now updating a year later. Yet, we are 2 blocks away from metra/downtown restaurants and bars, and there are very good schools here. I'm happy because we came in underbudget, its still a very cozy bungalow home with a lot of charm, and importantly its (relatively) close to downtown. Definitely a bigger house than I would have looked for as a first house (per my last post) if I were in charge (obviously I'm not!). It's not LaGrange or Riverside, but hey you have to make sacrifices!
Many years ago I was helping a young couple shop for a starter home. I thought I had them "narrowed down" to what I thought was a pretty decent little slice of a town that they were familar with but had never lived in. Then after having showed them a couple houses in this area the abruptly cancelled the rest of the appointments that I had arranged. I was able to get a hold of the wife and she admitted that her husband had talked to a friend that did grow up in this town and the friend casually mentioned something like "well most of the town is pretty nice but you couldn't pay enough to live down in the section near such & such park". Never mind that I had really found some gems in that part of town that were in really good shape, priced well, convenient to everything they had on their list... I was able to scramble, get together a whole other list of homes in a whole other town and they did eventually buy a nice starter home. Fortunately none of their pals waved them off...
Buying any home is really all about compromise. I cannot tell you how many times I have had a client with a budget that is deep into the "price on request" category not understand that even with all the money in the world you cannot bend space and time -- having a place that is both super conveneient to all the wonderful things you want and tucked away like a secret "bat cave" only happens in the movies.
Similarly if you value having success oriented neighbor you ought not be surprised that they spend a lot of time working and not much time laying about dying for unannouced guests, low income neighbors that are exceedingly committed to academic success or some similarly unrealistic combination that only happens on sitcoms...
My son wonders if Humbolt Park gentrifies, and Logan square contintues to gentrify will some of the bad push west and go to Berwyn. What I don't like about Logan is someone got shot there even last night. Also the houses that are "affordable" meaning under 300 K are really crappy frame houses mostly that are in bad shape. It seems Berwyn is safer than most areas in the city and the housing stock is old but of higher quality. Easy access to city.
My son wonders if Humbolt Park gentrifies, and Logan square contintues to gentrify will some of the bad push west and go to Berwyn. What I don't like about Logan is someone got shot there even last night. Also the houses that are "affordable" meaning under 300 K are really crappy frame houses mostly that are in bad shape. It seems Berwyn is safer than most areas in the city and the housing stock is old but of higher quality. Easy access to city.
I’d guess not from Humboldt Park. The vast majority of Berwyn’s Hispanic population is Mexican (which makes up around 49%). Berwyn doesn’t have a significant non-Mexican Hispanic population (around 8% or so). The percentage that Hispanics make up of the total population actually declined by a couple of points between 2010 and 2012 according to the ACS, probably largely due to the foreclosure crisis.
Berwyn would have been just as likely to get an influx from the de-populating North Lawndale and East Garfield Park as it would from Humboldt Park, and that really didn’t happen (the African American population is just north of 7%) .
IMHO, I think Berwyn is heading more in the direction towards Cicero rather than Oak Park. Berwyn nowadays has many low income hispanics coming in from the east. In fact, hispanics make comprise 60% of Bewyn's modern day citizens. It's not that bad, still a large italian presence, but I'm unsure of it's future. If it falls into the realm of Cicero (which again IMO is what will happen), the future isn't looking good for Berwyn. If it succeeds, it will be a nice diverse west suburb for mainly working class people. Either way, there is basically zero chance that Berwyn will be the next Oak Park. They are two different suburbs completely.
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Nice perspective ....
