Huntley, vs Crystal lake vs Cary (Chicago, Naperville: real estate, low crime, house)

[lexi800]

My husband's job is being relocated to the northwest Chicago suburbs from NYC. We currently live in the NY suburbs. We will be moving in the late spring 2010. I have been researching Huntley, Cary and Crystal Lake and would appreciate any input.
We have 3 children aged 11, 8 and 5. Schools and low crime rates are our prime concern. We are looking for a family oriented community. We are looking for a 4 bedroom house for under 400,000. I have been doing mostly internet research and would like to hear from anyone who lives in or has personal information of any of these areas.
Thanks in advance for any help!

[bulldawg1594]

neither of them are diverse, but they are pretty good schools overall and all have good football teams.

[jlawrence01]

Originally Posted by lexi800

My husband's job is being relocated to the northwest Chicago suburbs from NYC. We currently live in the NY suburbs. We will be moving in the late spring 2010. I have been researching Huntley, Cary and Crystal Lake and would appreciate any input.
We have 3 children aged 11, 8 and 5. Schools and low crime rates are our prime concern. We are looking for a family oriented community. We are looking for a 4 bedroom house for under 400,000. I have been doing mostly internet research and would like to hear from anyone who lives in or has personal information of any of these areas.
Thanks in advance for any help!

Live in Woodstock, work in Crystal Lake.

As for crime, well unless you are in bars all night, the crime rate is very low. Sure, occasionally someone steals a lawn ornament off of a lawn occasionally but generally, it is isolated.

All three areas have very good schools. Crystal Lake has three high schools. If I ask everyone at work, which is best, you will get strong support for all three high schools. Most have solid reasons for their choice.
Many professionals moving into the area will tour all three choices and choose their home location based on the schools they prefer.

You will be able to find a $400k in all three communities, maybe even less if you are not too picky.

The reason that we chose not to consider Huntley was the existence of a Del Webb community in that area. In our experiences in other areas, large communities of seniors equates to underfunding of school districts. Also, the traffic along IL-47 in Huntley is among the worst in McHenry Co.

Real estate taxes in this county are outrageous but might be OK with you moving from New York.

Internet research is fine, but NOTHING replaces actually buying a cheap Southwest flight into Midway or Milwaukee and checking it out. Come during February when we get what Minnesota sends us.

You did NOT say where your husband is working. If you are working close by, McHenry Co. is a good place to live. If you are working in Chicago or Schaumburg or Naperville, I would STRONGLY recommend working elsewhere as the traffic in and around Chicago is awful. A 50 mile commute can take three hours when the white stuff arrives.

[nanannie]

Woodstock has a charming downtown village,and the area "Bull Valley" has acerage, horse farms and lovely n'hoods, nothing special about the rest. The schools are not as good as CL or Cary. I would recommend those two towns over Huntley by far, but thats a personal opinion. You really have to visit to find "home".
CL and Cary have established "Villages", great schools, metra train to the city and CL has every store imaginable on Rt 14. CL has a very active lake/beach atmosphere in summer. The area of Cary knowns as Trout Valley is close to town and is heavily wooded,hilly and the Fox River runs thru it. Nice community. I agree Keep your commute in mind, but you wont find it any more unpleasant if you come from NY. Good luck with your search.

[chet everett]

Respectfully 99.9999% of people that LIVE in any area in America THINK the schools that they use are fine, even "great", yet if that were true then the results of OBJECTIVE measures would reinforce these opinions. Sadly a very different situation exists. The results of such measures show that shockingly few high schools do a good job of preparing more than a fraction students for success in college or even for vocational training.

The research reported in the US New shows that NONE of the high schools that serve the towns you are considering merit even an "honorable mention". If you are SERIOUS about schools being important to you this would be an obvious place to start... Best High Schools Search - US News and World Report

The fact is that those areas have experienced rapid transformation from formally rural areas, while they DO have a number of larger less expensive homes (many of which are filled with over extended home owners that may be underwater...) but they also have under tremendous pressure due to increased needs for schools and other infrastructure that are driving taxes.
It may be very imprudent to focus on these thinking that they are affordable and deliver superior service, history shows a very different profile. Now if you were NOT relocating for a job that may not be particularly close to those fringe suburbs, or if you were specifically looking for the kind of edge-of-farmland development the negatives might be worth the uncertainty of school quality.

While the commute from some points along the NW Tollway MAY be acceptable to some of the employment centers in the northwest suburbs, there are numerous trade-offs that one ought to be aware of. The capacity of both the tollway and the surrounding arterial streets is insufficient to carry even sub-peak traffic, at rush hour even good weather delays are common. In poor weather the backs are unbearable and there are few alternative routes.


Depending on what your real priorities are what your long term budget includes I would recommend that you seriously consider towns that are much closer to employment centers as well as those that have high schools that are already performing well. While it is true that your children are not yet of HS age the performance of the feeder schools can be determined from using the HS performance to narrow your choices. While it is true that some surburbs closer in your house buying dollar will not go quite as far as farther out the overall pluses should be considered as well as the fact that there are quite a few bargins to be had from distressed sellers in most areas.

btw the number of suburban areas ANYWHERE in the Chicago region that would be considered less than safe could be counted on one hand...

Good Luck!

[chitown85]

Huntley, Crystal Lake, and Cary are all up and coming suburbs of Chicagoland in McHenry County. Providing you don't want to go in the city every weekend, it's a good place to live. The only real challenge out there is traffic, especially if you are working in the NW burbs of Lake County because there are so real highways you can take.

[nanannie]

Up and coming ? I think that they are there already.CL and Cary are long established communities.
I dont know why one couldnt go into the city every week end.
If you dont want to drive (less then an hour) there is a metra train.

[chitown85]

It's up and coming compared to the Cook County dwellers. It's still much more rural than the closer burbs. Give it ten more years. The train is a good option, but it's not always convenient if you have a good errand to do.

[Georgia]

Lived in Crystal Lake and loved it, less the commute to Schaumburg of course. Keep in mind that Randall was a two lane road and no I PASS on 90 during 2000.
While there Crystal Lake did offer the lowest property taxation, if you can call Illinois low, ugh!
But in comparison to Cary and Huntley they were.
If I could come back to Crystal Lake????? In a heartbeat!

[Georgia]

Originally Posted by chitown85

Huntley, Crystal Lake, and Cary are all up and coming suburbs of Chicagoland in McHenry County. Providing you don't want to go in the city every weekend, it's a good place to live. The only real challenge out there is traffic, especially if you are working in the NW burbs of Lake County because there are so real highways you can take.

My wife and I spent many a weekend downtown. Just drove a couple miles to downtown Crystal Lake, paid a couple dollars for the parking lot, and hopped on the train. Nice express ride and walking Michigan Ave in less than an hour.
The train was comfortable, clean, and very well patroled.
Wish we had the same in Atlanta!