Is Kankakee really that bad???? (Bourbonnais, Bradley: middle-class, hotel, house)

[asmond1]

I was born and raised in Kankakee county, I have lived in other areas of the state and currently live in a suburb of Atlanta GA for the past 11 years. I am so excited to be able to move back to Kankakee County next month. Kankakee County is just like the rest of small town America and if you like that kind of environment it is a good place to live. If you have a job there that's great, but I think most people commute to larger cities nearby.

The main problem you have in a lot of areas in the county is that it is economically depressed. Kankakee was thriving prior to the 70's because it was an industrial town with plenty of factories. When the factories relocated nothing replaced it. The other problem is you have a lot of prejudice and corruption. Most of the areas these people are saying are bad is the areas where minorities live. And just from reading some of the comments some of the people who responded to you are allowing there prejudices and fears rule there common sense. Every city has bad areas, poverty and disinfranchisement breads corruption, stagnation and deterioration of communities. If you can afford to move to an area where there are people who are of a like mind to yours as it concerns the lifestyle you want for your life. I am sure you will find that in Kankakee county.

The one thing I will say about all these people who keep saying Bradley and Bourbonais has all these shopping areas, that's all they have. regardless to where you live in the county there really is no industry except for the retail industry. From my vantage point Bradley/Bourbonais seems like its an economic disaster waiting to happen. How can anyone talk about the city of kankakee and esteem bradley/bourbonais when you can throw a rock from downtown kankakee and hit the city centers of bradley/bourbonais. That's just ignorant. If the county seat is so terrible, it stands to reason that you are looking at the future of the county. It seems to me that the most viable option is to invest in the county seat and build a stronger base for the "growth" in the surrounding areas, otherwise the "growth" in places like bradley/bourbonais is really inflated more so than substantive. And the true test of real growth is time.

I say ignore all these negative comments and go see for your self. honestly when you consider the sense of community and that kind of thing (excluding economic factors) Kankakee county is a decent place to live.

[nickz]

asmond1 is completely right. Commercial development is really the only thing
in the Tri-City area. So if you like to shop, then its for you. But as for like Six Flags
and stuff. I wouldnt expect that stuff down here anytime soon. Though asmond1, Im not sure if youve been up here lately or not. But there is actually a sort of nightlife
developing. Surprisingly, its not just the cheap bars and dives that it used to be. Theres actually a really trendy new club that opened up by the Paramount where they built the new police station. Its a formal dress apparel place with valet parking and its doing quite well oddly enough. Then there are a few more outside of the "downtown" area.

[GivMeABreak]

Anita, Anita , Anita, It sounds as if you fled because you couldn't sell your house. Other homes have sold that were on the market for a shorter time than yours. The 1 story frame house across the street and south of yours, SOLD ! The small 3 bedroom brick home on the corner to the north, SOLD, in 2 short months and they received more than they originally ask for it. I currently have our home listed, on the same street as yours and we are asking 30K more than what we purchased it for 3 years ago and we are moving in to the city of Kankakee. Please don't bring down the Kankakee area just because you have had some bad luck or bad experiences. It's not he best place to raise a family or to live or to look for work, but, it's not as bad as you make it sound. I'm curious. Why did you live here so long? 23 years !?

[Drover]

Originally Posted by GivMeABreak

Anita, Anita , Anita, It sounds as if you fled because you couldn't sell your house.

That doesn't make the remotest bit of sense...

[GivMeABreak]

You are absolutely right. I should have said, "you slam the Kankakee area stating that you could not give away your house, but yet, other homes in your neighborhood are selling." And, also adding, you must have fled from the area for other reasons, not just the housing market. Thank you for the correction. My bad.

[Anita Clark]

"Drover" right in questioning. That person is chastizing themselves with the name. One home mentioned sold a few short years ago-HUD paper auction. Another sold back in 2007. There are no homes there selling, nor no others listed in that immediate neighborhood. There is another foreclosure on Aspen, however.
One of four house owners in Kankakee County will receive a foreclosure notice in the next short years as the market continues to descend there. Right now that County has the highest county foreclosure rate in the State of Illinois. We had two realtors(some on other internet sites call them realturds, I say they are BTW backwards), one you can read about on Outrageous Agents(buyer and seller complaints alike). One sat in her car across the street for open houses, missing opening the door for a couple, as returned early. She had her arm out the window on the cell phone a habitually dumped her ashtray not there, but back in front of our yard as she departed. The other refused to release our listing except at a $ price we did not avail her of. She has shocked decent agents on other sites with that greed-driven behavior. We paid $150 bill for Tribune ad the first agent placed. Both of them brought in low-ball subPRIMATE offers. That county was full of subprime store-front lenders and it was easiest for realtors to wrack up a sale by flattering buyers with those loan temptations, each loan for which the lender paid an average of $1,000 bonus to the realtor. They didn't like that I knew this. A sale is a sale, just that. Realtors report sales. It is not a completed sale unless is CLOSES. Realtors like the one flogging herself with my name, do not count all CLOSED sales-they are self-serving and do not want to educate the public on the total sum complilation of ALL sales including REO sales, by-owner sales. Nor do they promote anything that shows their high failure.
Our 2007 real estate tax bill shows an increase for that broad area of failed housing prices already repressed by the note of the 111 school district, and other. Counting up why, six(6) taxing bodies(including some part-time employees) are on that bill. I know for fact that some of them have voted their own retirement funds(like the part-time members of the County Board-I happened to be at that meeting years ago when they established this fund for themselves). I have recently looking a tax bills from other areas in other states and am stunned by the self-serving greed in such a poor area as Kankakee. This will further push property prices down for those who want to sell.
The only tie I have to that area is that property for sale; I am glad I am gone. And I have many friends in fact there, some of which are excited to visit me where I am now. Good people, not representative of the high drug, gang, shooting, thieving that prevails in some other parts of that County. I did see some when back there early this year and will see them soon again. We did attempt renting, no qualified viewers-didn't have the jobs they said they did, wanted a five year lease for a lower price, seven people and five cars(most likely more),lost job and home, trying to yet sell their home to 'size-down'(some of which had those blessed subprime mortgages), and the proverbial just get into a rental "rent to buy". In more savvy areas this rent to buy is done with a hefty several thousand dollar option from the renter at the commencement of the lease, non-refundable if they don't perform.
I have a plethora(by previous request) of online nationwide, regional, local, specific locale reports on housing, housing market, economic-governmental, quasi-governmental, top profilers(obviously not realtors), top end market reports, reporting retractors(not detractors, note), other fielded at me daily.And I read rapidly scanning many other print sources, talk to others, read blogs-but analyse and draw my own conclusions between all the consortiums and variances. It does not look good for Kankakee County. I will hold that property indefinitely at that throw-away firm $100,000 cash to conventional loan or cash terms for a buyer. Otherwise they can 'go on up to road' and purchase a 'comparable' for $15,000 more up to $39,000 more currently being marketed. There isn't much that I miss.
Time for buyers there to educated on their own-no realtor, no agent will help you there. In bad times, no one can work a selling miracle, but by owners have many more marketing options than any agent allows-it irks those agents-I see this all the time. I don't care. Try reading, for starters, even just some blogs on CraigsList,Chicago. Get a taste for behaviors of parties involved in sales transactions. Do keep in mind that agents are not bound in behavior by law. They are bound only by their pledge of 'ethics' to each other, even just peculiar behavior known by some offices aside from any other affiliations you may think they have.

[Anita Clark]

Rebecca, we know that you run a real estate operation in Albrightsville, PA. Easily found elsewhere off this site, also. As Craig's List puts it in discussion forums, are you a Troll-(comical,incendiary, or other unsavory interlooper( site hopper)? I think so. Tell the Kankakee property owners here why you are bored and have the need to behave this way, you who are with Coldwell Banker in PA. What an image, another realtor makes the business look even worse. ink

[GivMeABreak]

Got me pegged, don't you? Also, Please, know your facts before you display them here on a blog. Embarrassing.

[nickz]

A lot of my friends live right across the street in
Highle Estates. Thats a nice place to build a house. Plus
you guys will get to go to Herscher High School.
I go there, its a really nice learning institution. Ofcourse, Ive
gone to Herscher my entire life...we live here lol.

Your kids will go to Limestone Grade School then in
highschool be transferred over to Herscher.

Hope you like it out here!

[Shy Town]

I presently live in Chicago Illinois in the Beverly Hills area. I must say for people to talk about their home town the way you guys do is shocking! I was born and raised in Chicago Il. I use to live in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city. Now I'm in my adult hood and now I live in one of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the city.There's one thing we all learned growing up in my child hood neighborhood, you never down where you live. You take pride in where ever you are. Yes we knew that we live in a mess but we new we weren't mess. You couldn't pay us to down our neighborhood. Now that neighborhood I can't even efford to live in now. Some of my friends I went to school with have return and invest in the area, I have a business there also. It's a good idea not to complain but to change what you don't like. What's surprising about the comments to me were so sad that you could up lift the neighboring surburbs and tear your own down so easily,WOW! I would have never known these horrible thing were going on there. I visited there three years ago and I thought this was a beautiful place to live I fell in love with it instantly, and I was considering buying a home out there. Thanks for spoiling that dream of friendly neighbors and community. You can't assume people to see the good in your town or want to invest in the economy there if you don't think that it's worth it. Good luck with everything you may see wrong, I see beauty and possibilities. I am still considering buying there. I hope that everyone there doesn't feel this way! Believe I've seen worse!