Chicagoland's view of NW Indiana (Naperville, Evanston: renting, theater, income)

[Maintainschaos]

Originally Posted by My Kind Of Town

Maybe I'm in a unique situation, but my property taxes currently sit at a 10 year low as of the new tax bill I received last week. Not exactly sure how but they decreased again despite an increased assessment value and now stand at ~1% of home value. I continue to hear that others are experiencing property tax increases in the Chicagoland area but I'm not seeing it where I live. Perhaps Hinsdale is bucking the trend. Whatever it is, I'm not complaining!

One has to take several of the previous posts with heavy grains of salt once one sees the uncanny resemblance between one particular past resident Indy/Indiana booster and several of the "new" posters with very little history, few rep points, and an uncanny penchant to pontificate the greatness awaiting one across the IL/IN border. The patterns of verbiage, the particular locations boosted/denigrated, and even the descriptions of dissenting view points as simply "Illinois logic" add up to a single common denominator...

[My Kind Of Town]

Originally Posted by damba

City of Chicago or suburbs?

West suburbs - Hinsdale

[My Kind Of Town]

Originally Posted by flamadiddle

1% in Illinois would be extremely rare and likely a mistake. I've never seen such a low property tax rate in Illinois and I look at homes/taxes all the time. Mine went down too, but that's because I challenged them last year. I'm currently paying 2.5% of my home value, but I've seen some areas in the Chicago metro paying as much as 6%.

Glad you hit the property tax lotto, but you're not the norm...

We’re down to $5k and I’d guess our home is likely valued at $475k based on a comparable home half a block away that sold last year for $470k. Honestly, it’s fairly common to see tax rates under 2% in my area but yes it does seem close to 1% is uncommon.

[flamadiddle]

We took a ride out to NWI a couple weeks ago to have another look. What I noticed was that as soon as you crossed the Indiana state line, there were new homes going up everywhere. However, they were mostly lower cost homes, which means that 20 years down the road, these subdivisions could be ripe for the same downfall that destroyed the Illinois burbs across the border. I really like the Valparaiso area, their downtown is really nice, you have a college close by, Dunes are a short trip and 5 minutes south is nothing but farms. We've also expanded our search to the South Bend (Granger) area since I work from home. It checks a lot of boxes, lower taxes, lots of snow (love snow) and a solid midwest vibe.

[ColdAilment]

Originally Posted by flamadiddle

We took a ride out to NWI a couple weeks ago to have another look. What I noticed was that as soon as you crossed the Indiana state line, there were new homes going up everywhere. However, they were mostly lower cost homes, which means that 20 years down the road, these subdivisions could be ripe for the same downfall that destroyed the Illinois burbs across the border. I really like the Valparaiso area, their downtown is really nice, you have a college close by, Dunes are a short trip and 5 minutes south is nothing but farms. We've also expanded our search to the South Bend (Granger) area since I work from home. It checks a lot of boxes, lower taxes, lots of snow (love snow) and a solid midwest vibe.

The South Bend/Mishawaka/Granger area is experiencing a mini renaissance at the moment, lots of new construction happening in the area an over the past 5 years. Only 40 minutes from lake Michigan beaches too!

[DoseTheClowns5]

Originally Posted by ColdAilment

The South Bend/Mishawaka/Granger area is experiencing a mini renaissance at the moment, lots of new construction happening in the area an over the past 5 years. Only 40 minutes from lake Michigan beaches too!

And South Bend/Mishawaka offers more amenities than any suburb of Chicago. Having Notre Dame alone elevates the city immensely.

[My Kind Of Town]

Originally Posted by dosetheclowns5

and south bend/mishawaka offers more amenities than any suburb of chicago. Having notre dame alone elevates the city immensely.

lol

[Maintainschaos]

Originally Posted by DoseTheClowns5

And South Bend/Mishawaka offers more amenities than any suburb of Chicago. Having Notre Dame alone elevates the city immensely.

lol I hope you mean "more amenities than any suburb of Chicago [in Indiana that far flung from the central city]"

[DoseTheClowns5]

Originally Posted by My Kind Of Town

lol

Facts to much for you? Find a Chicago suburb that hosts football games that attract 80,000 fans. Yeah thought so.....

[Maintainschaos]

lol now we've narrowly defined "amenities" as hosting a football game with an arbitrarily defined large crowd.