RalphJolly

Hello rwylie77,
I am somewhat surprised by the responses to your question.
I moved to Naperville a bit over a year ago. It is close to work for me, but also within half an hour of downtown. I moved there on the advice of a number of friends who are Chicago born and bred. It is a very nice place to live, the neighborhood feels safe (I have not witnessed a crime or heard of one nearby yet) and the schools are generally thought to be as good as Chicago offers.
I would highly recommend it as a great place to start out and rent for a year.

Naperville covers a big area and offers many different neighborhoods. Because most of the growth has been recent, some of the newest developments may be "soulless" for want of a better description, but I prefer the fact that the houses in a neighborhood are generally of similar value -unlike say Downers Grove, an older and popular neighborhood where many streets contain a million dollar house and then a few doors away one that wouldn't fetch 200k

Most of the other neighborhood next to it are worth a look too -ones I like are Downers Grove, Lisle. Some work colleagues live in Hinsdale which is generally considered to be the most upmarket location around here but they give it mixed reviews.

As for your budget, $500k will get you a really nice house in Naperville. It is hard to gauge prices off the web because half of the home sellers and most of the realtors are still in denial about the abysmal state of the market.
Bear in mind that most streets have a foreclosed house and only the minority have been processed. There will be a correction later this year when they hit the market. The only deals being done seem to be at about 40% below peak prices, that's 2002 prices roughly.
As for renting, which is probably more relevant to you immediately, prices are down from when I arrived. It's a weird situation with all these empty foreclosed homes there isn't much choice, but landlords are so desperate to fill their properties that you can put a low bid in.

One of the downsides to Chicago for me is the traffic congestion, so if being near an airport is important to you, Naperville is also a good choice from that perspective.

Good luck on your move.

keira-2007

Hi there and welcome to BE.

I live in the NW Suburbs. This area is very pricey (Long Grove) but it has a fantastic school district (District 96) There is little to no crime here and Long Grove itself still has old style charm as opposed to the characterless strip malls you see in most areas. We are approx. 35 min drive from O'Hare, and a 40 min train ride to downtown Chicago and on a good day a 50 minute drive. Pick your area wisely though. We moved over here and rented, got our daughter into a great school and then a year later started looking to buy... we had left ourselves a 5 mile radius selection to keep her at the same school... We managed to do it though - now she's happy, we're happy and we are settled in nicely.

Good luck. Regards Keira.

dave2702

I would suggest Woodridge or Lisle they neighbour Naperville to the East and their edges are often known as "Paperville" because they get access to the Naperville School district but don't pay Napervilles sky high taxes


To the West of Naperville they're doing a lot of new construction e.g Sugar Grove and you'll find a better house for your money, surprisingly $500K won't go that far in Naperville proper

dave2702

Have you seen that programme on Saturday Mornings on the Biograpgy channel featuring the women police officers of Naperville. I think the only thing they ever deal with ir Auto Collisions and Drunks, maybe at the same time

USBound

i live in naperville, right inside the 203 district and we moved here primarily so our kids would get good schools.

our rent is DIRT CHEAP
we have a nice sized house
we are 1/2mile from the school, 1.5 miles from the naperville train station.
we've seen no crime, everything seems cheap to me.

i like naperville a lot and house prices are plummeting... some on our street and down from $1.4M to $600k and still dropping.

RalphJolly

"surprisingly $500K won't go that far in Naperville proper"

I strongly disagree with you Dave. I have been having a good look around Naperville -the only area that I am not considering is downtown -is that what you call "Naperville proper"?
Unless the OP wants to buy a castle of course...

You can easily get 2500-3000 sf in a nice neighborhood for 500k -go above that price and you can get something fabulous. Asking prices are quite deceptive as to what's trading. Prices have dropped dramatically so far this year, and the slump will continue due to the overhang in foreclosures and now it appears that interest rates will go up, certainly within a year's time.

Circus-of-Power

In my town that kinda money would get you a big fancy house and the whole sheriff's department....should you want it ...Move to Chicago then look for a job in the sticks ...

rochdalediva

Hi,
We used to live in Naperville, left about 4 years ago to move to the East Coast. We moved there from the UK as our first overseas move and both kids went to school there. Yes, it's true it is a little Stepford Wives but it also has a lot of good points going for it.
Good thing - Schools are great. Bad thing - the school taxes are high
Good thing - Place is very safe, my husband travelled quite a bit & I'd often even forget to worry about locking up the house when he was away. Bad thing - can sometimes feel a little too protected.
Good thing - Houses tend to be built around swim/tennis clubs, great for the kids in the summer. Bad thing - You better get on with the neighbours!

A few people have commented on the emphasis around churchs, but I think that's a MidWestern thing. Yes my car salesman did ask me if I'd found a good church yet but none of my church going neighbours tried to get me to tag along.

I don't know if you plan on visiting but be aware that the schools will be closing at the end of this month until about the third week in August. Good Luck.

lj2

I think Naperville is great. As I wrote in abnother thread to someone else:

I live in Riverside, which my family and I adore, and matches all of your criteria. Naperville is the most obvious choice although it is a 40 minute commute. Your rental range sounds reasonable.

When I came over, I spent two days with a realtor taking me around various places (no cost to me) and she showed me a lot of the burbs and available rental properties. she was extremely helpful. I would be happy to refer you if you want to IM me your contact details to pass on?