Moving to SW Chicago (Naperville, Bolingbrook: 2015, to rent, mortgage)

[str8]

Need some advice/insight on places to live. My wife and I will be moving to the southwest Chicago surburbs from West Virginia. We have a 4 year old son, a 6-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. I'm going to be working in the Bolingbrook area, my wife in the medical field and is currently looking for jobs. We would like our commute to be 30 minutes or less, we are still deciding if we are going to rent or buy since neither of us have ever been to or spent time in the Chicagoland area and we think our stay in the area will be 3-4 years, it could be longer, but that's our current plan.

Seeing our criteria for what we want in a house, would you rent or buy if you were planning on being in this area for 3-4 years and where would you rent or buy:

We would like:
- a safe neighborhood
- really good district, our two oldest kids will be going 2nd and 3rd grades
- a little privacy, closer to 0.5 acres or more
- a house with close to 3000 sq feet or more
- within 20-30 minutes of shopping and restaurants
- updated, ready to move in house
- a house with a pool or community pool
- 2 car garage, preferably 3

Currently, we've looked at Frankfort, Naperville, Bolingbrook, Oswego, Yorkville, Plainfield; but we are not how those compare or how those would rank from best to worst.

Any help, comments, further suggestions would be great.

[GWoodle]

Moving in I would rent for a year until you have a better idea what your plans are.

To your list of towns add Woodridge, Romeoville, Darien. You will have to compute what travel distance is from home to work. One constant would be a lack of public transit.

Probably should plan ahead for a decade when your 6 & 7 year old attend high school. Your elementary or middle school feed into the high school.

Naperville may be the largest of them so gets the most promotion. Most of them are comparable when it comes to safety.

[fusillirob1983]

Originally Posted by str8

Need some advice/insight on places to live. My wife and I will be moving to the southwest Chicago surburbs from West Virginia. We have a 4 year old son, a 6-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son. I'm going to be working in the Bolingbrook area, my wife in the medical field and is currently looking for jobs. We would like our commute to be 30 minutes or less, we are still deciding if we are going to rent or buy since neither of us have ever been to or spent time in the Chicagoland area and we think our stay in the area will be 3-4 years, it could be longer, but that's our current plan.

Seeing our criteria for what we want in a house, would you rent or buy if you were planning on being in this area for 3-4 years and where would you rent or buy:

We would like:
- a safe neighborhood
- really good district, our two oldest kids will be going 2nd and 3rd grades
- a little privacy, closer to 0.5 acres or more
- a house with close to 3000 sq feet or more
- within 20-30 minutes of shopping and restaurants
- updated, ready to move in house
- a house with a pool or community pool
- 2 car garage, preferably 3

Currently, we've looked at Frankfort, Naperville, Bolingbrook, Oswego, Yorkville, Plainfield; but we are not how those compare or how those would rank from best to worst.

Any help, comments, further suggestions would be great.

Can you provide a price range or monthly payment amount? It's hard to pin down without that. It's also hard to give a recommendation on rent vs. buy for 3-4 years the way home prices and mortgage rates have gone the last couple years. If your price range is $1 million or more then I would imagine you would be less sensitive to the financial impact of only owning 3-4 years. If your price range is $400k-$500k then you may be better off renting, depending what kind of rent prices you can find.

[str8]

Rent: $3500-$4500
Mortgage: $550k-$700k or $4500-$5300/month mortgage

[fusillirob1983]

Originally Posted by str8

Rent: $3500-$4500
Mortgage: $550k-$700k or $4500-$5300/month mortgage

If you want the best school district nearby to Bolingbrook look in District 203 or 204 in Naperville at that price range.

Plainfield schools may be a slight step down but you can get a lot of house for your money. Look at particular boundaries and school performance at the Illinois Report Card website https://www.illinoisreportcard.com/ . For both districts, some schools are better than others, although you likely can't go wrong with most schools in Naperville District 203, but check the website if you'd like. If schools are the most important thing just look at Naperville. Also look at the school district boundary maps, which I linked below, if you end up having preferred schools to feed into. For district 204, there is also Builta Elementary that I believe technically has a portion of Bolingbrook feed into it.

https://www.naperville203.org/cms/li...Area%20Map.pdf

https://ipsdweb.ipsd.org/Documents/B...et_Current.pdf

I honestly wouldn't bother with any of the other towns suggested as both of the above border Bolingbrook and fit your budget and give you a pretty good commute. If your wife ends up looking for jobs in downtown Chicago, of the towns listed so far, only Naperville has a train.

The question of whether or not to buy vs. rent is worthwhile is kind of up to your risk level at that price point though. Worst case, if you buy, you're at least paying down some principal.

The only other towns I think may be worth mentioning are Downers Grove and Wheaton. Again, I'd say look at Illinois Report Card and particular school boundaries for Downers Grove https://www.dg58.org/school-boundary-map and Wheaton https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/d...vised_2015.pdf . The schools north of 55th St in Downers Grove tend to perform slightly better than south, but it's a further commute from Bolingbrook and Naperville schools are probably slightly better. Both of these towns have train stations should your wife find a job downtown.

Wheaton could also be a consideration, but all points in Wheaton are a further commute than Naperville probably. Schools are generally comparable to Naperville, if not just slightly not as strong, but still one of the better districts in the western suburbs (probably better than Plainfield, Oswego, Yorkville, etc).

[movin1]

When I lived there, I remember seeing that property tax rates varied quite a bit in the Chicago area and suburbs. If you choose to buy a home vs renting, be sure you know what the property taxes will add to your monthly budget.