Advice please!! (Chicago: for sale, condos, homes)

[foxybabe13]

I currently live in Florida and I am looking to move back up north. How is the job market, housing...etc in Chicago these days??? I understand the cold but it doesnt bother me. I do sales and marketing and also finishing my psychology degree. Can anyone give me some good input please! Thanks in advance!!
~Jen~

[Kevin J]

You need to ask more specific questions in order to get any useful information. But I can give you the following general answers to your general questions. The most recent unemployment figure for Chicagoland (the metro Chicago area) was 9.6% in November. The rate for the state of Illinois was the same in that month.

I can't tell you anything about the job market for sales and marketing, other than that they obviously follow general economic trends. So in a service economy where fewer people are working and spending, you can bet that sales and marketing jobs will not be growing.

Housing in general is a buyer's market, which is to say there are more properties for sale than there are viable buyers. But there is great variation from one area to the next (city vs suburbs, various city neighborhoods) as well as in single family homes vs condos.

[tonythetuna]

You better have money saved up. The job market sucks.

[CoolSocks]

If your psychology degree is only a bachelors, you will have some difficulties finding a job in the pysch field. A psychology degree is really only valuable if you bump it up to a masters or doctorate. I have three friends who have graduated with bachelor degrees in psychology in May of '09 and two are unemployed and one is working at McDonalds.

If you also have a background in marketing that might help and you could try finding a job in advertising. However, if you do want to utilize your new psych degree, you could try applying to psychiatric hospitals, they tend to accept people with bachelor degrees in psychology and working at a psychiatric hospital is definitely a learning experience.

[Dem Bones]

Get a job before you move here. That's my advice.