St. Charles (Chicago, Elgin, Schaumburg: brokers, buying a home, transfer)

[ProgMichael]

Originally Posted by msujohn

I'm heading up next week to house hunt. Look foward to checking out the area and to determine what areas/subdivisions we like. Thanks for all the advice and comments. Any other info would be greatly appreciated.

Good to hear, let us know how it goes. Very diverse housing stock in St. Charles. Lots of older homes around downtown, newer developments on the outskirts.

[CindyStrahota]

I have lived in St. Charles since 1994 and I am also a Realtor. You are more likely to find what you are looking for on the west side of St. Charles. The new Stearns Road bridge will reduce your commute to Schaumburg depending on where in Schaumburg your office is located. Also, Randall Road takes you right to I-90 expressway (about 8 miles north to I-90) and then you can take the expressway to Schaumburg.

If you want a larger (about an acre) lot then I would look at the following subdivisions: Thornley on the Fox, Red Gate & Red Gate Ridge, Three Lakes & Meadowview Farm (a little further west...so a little more time on your commute).
You may also want to look at Fox Mill (St. Charles) and Thornwood (in South Elgin but in St. Charles school district). These are smaller lots .25 to .33 acre but these are pool communities.

[msujohn]

Cindy - thanks for the advice. Any thoughts on schools? I have 2 kids in 2nd and 4th grade. Trying to get advice from as many people as I can. Are there elementary schools or middle schools that I should stay away from or some that are just much better than others?

[ProgMichael]

Hey msujohn, why don't you take a look at this and see if it helps: St. Charles Schools - St. Charles Illinois School Ratings - Public and Private

Cheers!

[chet everett]

Be very careful not to confuse the info on the site linked above that is sourced from objective public data with the highly suspect subjective data that any smoe can submit...

[yousah]

Chet- how ironic that you tell someone not to trust something on the internet. I'm always amazed at the real estate information that you provide. How can you be so far off in the your answers to so many people? It's probably because you have no direct experience in these areas and are just an internet junkie who likes to respond in every forum. Unfortunately, it's also very misleading to the unfortunate people who are looking for qualified advice.

I'm a real estate broker and appraiser and right now there 116 listings in St. Charles under $600K that have lot sizes of .8 acre and larger- the majority on the west side of town. It is extremely easy for the orignal poster to get what they want in that price range. The vast majority of properties on the far west side of town are located on large lots.

Your advice about assessors lowering the assessed values resulting in devastating the local budgets couldn't be more wrong. Assessors can lower assessed values any % and it would be met with higher tax rates. So if the assessor suddenly decreased everyone's assessments in half then the tax rate would be double. The taxing bodies figure out their total levy and divide it by the total assessed valuations in their area to determine the rate. No matter how you figure it, the taxing bodies will get the money that they need.

And you are comparing St. Charles to Barrington and Kildeer? Are you kidding?

[yousah]

With respect to property taxes, yet you have a better chance to be successfully win an appeal based upon your recent purchase price. However, assessors use a 3-year rolling average, so it's unlikely that your assessed value would be brought down to the actual sales price itself and unlikely that you would see a large reduction in the total amount due.

One difference is that there are some exemptions available and you might be looking at housing where the homeowners are taking advantage of different exemptions. One of the more common exemptions is the senior exemption. If you purchase from someone who is 65 yrs old or older then you would lose that if you aren't that old. There are about a dozen other exemptions and you can research that information online.

Just off the top of my head I think that St. Charles is mostly covered by the St. Charles Township and possibly Wayne Township to the east and one that I can't remember right now to the west. They all have online sites and you can visit the Kane County Treasurer's office site for tax info on any property in the county.

[chet everett]

I would strongly recommend that anyone considering the validity of advice take some time to research the history of any member's posts.

I believe this thread and other in which others have disagreed me have consistently shown that my advice is based on direct experience including selling / owning investment properties and selling residential real estate in the region for over 25 years. In addition I have worked in other fields, and commuted to work locations in a number of the region's important employment centers. I am well aquatinted with the traffic volumes between places like St. Charles and Scaumburg and most of the other folks agree that when choosing a home it is foolish not to give physical proximity a priority as well as factor in the difficulty of traveling on roads that were never designed to facilitate trans-regional commutes...

When it comes to property taxes in the region there is NO ARGUEMENT that the system in place is far from perfect. There is no such "rolling average" in the laws governing either the township assessor or any of the various property tax appeals boards. It is true that the assessors WILL NOT summarily lower assessed valuation based on a single sale and the result is that anyone shopping for a home in the region ought to give serious thought to their ability to afford the long term property taxes on any holme they are considering ESPECIALLY those which are under- assessed compared to their neighbors. I have personally experienced rather large INCREASES when ourchasing such homes.

Insults and falsehoods do not go unnoticed by users of these forums. One does not earn thousands of reputation points without encountering both appreciative readers and a fair share of kooks...

[ProgMichael]

Originally Posted by msujohn

Cindy - thanks for the advice. Any thoughts on schools? I have 2 kids in 2nd and 4th grade. Trying to get advice from as many people as I can. Are there elementary schools or middle schools that I should stay away from or some that are just much better than others?

St. Charles is a well-to-do community and District 303 schools all have a good reputation. Of course you should do your homework, but if you're concerned about any busts in the crowd, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[yousah]

There is no such "rolling average" in the laws governing either the township assessor or any of the various property tax appeals boards.

Wow, just more lies. This is directly from the Illinois Dept of Revenue-

Why are three years’ worth of sales ratios used?
Using sales ratios from three years provides some predictability when the market is fluctuating. It prevents extreme changes from happening in one year. When the market is rising rapidly, the effect is to “smooth” out the increases and owners are not forced to pay a dramatic increase in a single year. The same is true when the market decreases. This
helps taxing districts with determining their budgets and how much must be raised from property taxes.

Here's the source http://tax.illinois.gov/publications/pubs/PUB-136.pdf

Or course, what do I know? I only work with homeowners on property tax appeals and have sat across from pretty much every county Assessor during the appeal process, hundreds of times over the years.

Your 'reputation' is simple. You have managed to come on these boards and spew out information that sounds official so that people are tricked into believing your information is correct.

In this thread alone you've made the ridiculous statment that the original poster would be unable to find housing in St. Charles in her price range around one acre. You then managed to show that you have no idea how the tax appeal process works because you failed to understand the relationship between assessed values and the tax rate. You've now tried to mislead others as to how the assessed value is determined (3-year rolling average).

My only interest is making sure that people aren't getting bad advice. It's very unfortunate that you feel that you have to make thousands of posts in these forums as if though you are an expert in all of these areas. You clearly are not, and it's really sad that you junk up these forums with falsehoods that are misleading people.

So much for reputation.