A few days ago, a Twitter conversation reminded me what a great town for housing Flossmoor is, despite the least promising origins possible: the land was bought by the Illinois Central Railroad because they wanted to sell the dirt as fill for the Columbian Exposition.
Flossmoor owes its character to what happened when that didn’t work: It was marketed as a golfing-oriented commuter suburb, turning it into the upper-middle-class (and now diverse) bedroom town that it remains today. And it’s still a good commute: The town’s size means you can’t live more than two miles from the Metra stop.
Meanwhile, Flossmoor’s housing is extremely affordable. Some of the more architecturally unique homes remain within an upper-middle-class budget, and you can buy in with perfectly nice stuff below that.
The rub: A lot of what’s currently on the market is contingent, as homes in Flossmoor often get snapped up after weeks on the market. The suburb may be a bargain, but it’s no well-kept secret. There’s cool stuff to be had, but you need to move quickly.
Here’s a look at what’s out there.
3630 Elm Court, Flossmoor, $225,000

This perfect little midcentury modern box, contingent after 40 days on the market, comes in at just under 2,000 square feet with three beds and 2.5 baths, lined up along an interior gold brick corridor. Like so many MCM buildings, it tucks away its relationship to nature in the back: There’s a courtyard and a substantial swathe of grass visible through floor-to-ceiling windows in the living area. It’s a reasonable size, reasonable price, and hasn’t been completely transformed by its updates. In short, it’s the kind of modestly distinctive house that distinguishes Flossmoor.
7 Thornwood Drive, Flossmoor, $309,900

By contrast, this bigger, nicer, and more traditionally midcentury house — 2,635 square feet with three beds and two baths — isn’t even $100,000 more expensive, which gives you a sense of the market. (It’s also contingent after 18 days, which, ditto.) What do you get for the extra money besides another 700 square feet? A gorgeous home office with a floating built-in desk, a wooden porch in the forest, and lots of interior oak.
1300 Brassie Avenue, Flossmoor, $325,000

A Tudory-MCM ranch admittedly isn’t quite as cool, but there’s a savings here: five beds, three baths, and 3,893 square feet for only $325,000 — and it’s still on the market. It’s got nice features inside, like a huge open-plan living room with a gabled roof. The main room looks out onto a sunroom/home office and a split-level den with a parquet floor, floating fireplace, and exposed beams. Some odd but defensible choices have been made, like investing in a dual commercial oven in an inconsistently redecorated kitchen, but there’s a lot to work with.
1139 Douglas Avenue, Flossmoor, $249,000

Again, it’s hard to find a non-contingent home in Flossmoor, but here’s one: This handsome MCM architectural mutt, built in 1942, has been on the market for just two days. For its price — and with three beds and three baths, more than 2,100 square feet, and a huge patio in back — it probably won’t last long. It’s been renovated inside in a contemporary style with contemporary materials, so it doesn’t have the interior patina that its facade suggests, but it gives you a clean, open slate.
2410 Hawthorne Lane, Flossmoor, $349,000

One more contingent house — sorry — after just six days on the market, but I can’t not. It’s a 1926 pseudo-English manse, updated with the finest pseudo-English decor of the 1970s and immaculately maintained ever since. It’s distinctive and detail oriented, and someone must have been into it, because it might soon be theirs for $349,000. That’s a lot for this particular niche, but the home does include four beds and five bathrooms (including this one — party time) at 3,420 square feet. It probably doesn’t come with the Jag pictured out front, but you should get one to match; this house demands going all in.
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What about the breeze block?
For starter homes they’re too far out of reach for most, but gosh they’re fun to look at.
I’ve always loved Flossmoor and fortunate enough to traverse through it frequently.
It to me has been Oak Park South with its unique homes and the tiny downtown area with the brewery restaurant integrated into the Metra station, post office and library all within 200 yards of one another is just a wonderful little thing to have. Back in college I desperately wanted to live in one of the apartments over the downtown shops and have a stones throw to catch the train to school every day.
It’s simply beautiful at night in winter.
But if you’re looking for shi-shi boutiques and north side snooty fusion cafes, they don’t last long here in their shops—the turnaround is shockingly quick. Burgers, gyros and pizza still have a stranglehold on getting the town and the surrounding community to buy into it.
One thing that always stands out about Flossmoor, even more than many other suburbs, are the relatively high property taxes. Sure, you might get a nice house for $349k asking, but the property taxes are close to $20k/year (really).
These prices are a fraction of what these homes were worth in the 90’s.
The previous post is false or antiquated. While the property taxes are abysmal the housing market has been steadily increasing. There are few homes in foreclosure. There was an exodus in early 2000’s mostly caused by white flight and the housing market crash but any data would show a trend upwards in step with comparable suburbs
I am not a real estate professional nor is it my intent to bash the area- I have many fond childhood memories there. That said, if you go to Zillow Homewood you will see approx 60 agent listings and 40 listings that are preforeclosed or foreclosed. Flossmoor has approx 40 agent listings and 20 listed as preforecloure. As a casual observer this would not seem a healthy mix.
You don’t cite ‘any data’ -clearly in almost every market currently there is reduced supply and some demand with record low mortgage rates. My overall point is simply that the abysmal taxes you concede are a huge reason for the home ‘value’ cited and should have been raised in the article.
Some beautiful houses and ‘value’ prices for sure. But the article doesn’t go into
the primary reason for this…. property taxes. The taxes on the 350k home over 16k,
the 250k home over 9k. Look at the declining home values in Flossmoor over time and this is a huge factor. The general area (Homewood-Flossmoor) is also filled with foreclosures. I was raised in Homewood and love this community and the charm of what it once was (also appreciate the mid century architecture here). But until property taxes can be controlled real estate will remain stagnant at best.