Where to Buy Now
The silver lining behind the residential real-estate collapse is the opportunity for housing bargains. Here are 14 up-and-coming Chicago neighborhoods and suburbs where prices are relatively low and the promise for future growth is strong
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SUBURBS
AURORA
Counties: DuPage, Kane, Will, and Kendall
Population: 170,855
Housing bargains in Aurora are concentrated in the city's northeastern portion, which is situated primarily in DuPage County (in the vicinity of Westfield Shoppingtown at Fox Valley) along the western boundary of the always desirable Naperville.
"Cross Route 59 [from Aurora into Naperville] and you will pay 10 percent more," says Heide Fralic, a Coldwell Banker Primus agent who sells in the area. A prime example is a ten-year-old 11-room 3,053-square-foot custom house with views of a nature preserve. In April, the place sold for $435,000, one of half a dozen roughly comparable homes that sold in the same price range this spring.
Prices have dropped about 7 percent this year, Fralic says, and the number of home sales is down about 29 percent. "But we still have a thriving market here," she says. "There are still transferees and growing families looking for homes, and what they see here is good."
PLUS: An Aurora address may have less cachet, but that doesn't diminish this area's terrific access to stores, expressways, and commuter trains. The new Metea Valley High School, the newest and youngest sibling of the highly regarded Waubonsie Valley and Neuqua Valley high schools, opens in fall 2009.
MINUS: Because Aurora has less industry than Naperville, property taxes are about 10 percent higher west of Route 59.
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Reader Comments:
Hi,
I like the concept of your article, reading with interest what neighborhoods will be up and coming in the near future, hoping that many realtors’ opinions would be shared as well. So, I examined with keen interest what the perspective is on Albany Park. However, this realtor finds your assessment of my neighborhood to be somewhat incomplete. Thank you for a great try, but maybe a little more substance is what is needed? For example, where but in Albany Park can you get a 3-4 bedroom, 2 bath home on an oversized lot for under $500,000? Smaller starter homes with 2 bedrooms, 1 bath are starting around $200,000 which is a resonable price for having your own home in the city. We are also close to some great trendy areas, like Lincoln Square and the Kedzie Brown Line stop, but yet close to the airport via Blue line or freeway and mall shopping in suburbs via the freeway. Thanks again.
Palos Heights is actually in the SouthWEST suburbs, a great area. The people are a lot friendlier than you will find on the north side and the areas and houses are overall not as old. Nearby Palos Park is one of Chicago's wealthiest and unknown suburbs and nearby Orland Park has everything!