Places to live near LaGrange, IL (Chicago, Cicero: apartment, to rent, townhouse)

[Reese13]

My husband was offered a job at Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) in LaGrange. We are originally from Florida and North Carolina. We are not crazy over the style of the homes in Chicago, well, at least most of them. Does anyone know of a nice, safe, newer looking area near LaGrange or outside of it? Neighborhoods that are somewhat our taste. We just can't get used to the way some homes look here. We know most areas are old, that is why we are looking for something not so old. We want to rent first so we are looking for either a single family home, townhome or apartment, although the apartment would be our last choice. Our price range we are looking to stay in is around $900-1800/mth.

[chet everett]

The style that is most common around Chicago is definitely different than what is found in Florida or the boom town parts of the Carolinas. Your best best for a nice uniform subdivision of newer homes is probably going to be townhouse developments. There are some newer developments on in-fill sites in LaGrange, as well as close by Westchester, Brookfield and Western Springs. There are similar areas a little further away in Darien, Woodridge, Orland Park and Plainfield.

From an investment standpoint you will probably do much better renting. In most of the towns I listed you will need to be prepared to rent at the top of your range...

To many folks in the areas near La Grange the older homes are considered charming and often upgraded with things like state of the art kitchens, luxury bathroom and other higher end features.

I had friends that worked at EMD and lived in even older areas like Cicero, where there were once tens of thousands of manufacturing jobs...