Well, the title says it all; I'm moving to Chicago. The mother-in-law, in a random, charitable act, is giving the wife and I $250,000 to buy a house in Chicago. This strange turn of affairs came about with no prior notice or discussion. My wife used to live in Chicago, but we have lived in Bloomington, IN for the last five years. A week ago, seemingly on a whim, my mother-in-law told us that she would buy us a house. The only condition she has attached to the money, and to which my wife too readily agreed, is that it has to be a single-family or multiple-family home and not a condo. I'm opposed to that condition, but I want the money, so I'm going to shut up and concentrate on signing up and studying for the Illinois bar exam in July (I unfortunately haven't practiced law long enough to get admitted via reciprocity).
We've started looking online, using
trulia.com and
zillow.com, which are helpful. We're planning a scouting trip for next weekend. I was hoping for some recommendations for other sources, websites, or anything that would help us find a good house. How did other Chicagoites find their houses? What are good neighborhoods where we could afford a single-family house in our price range? The wife lived in Lakeview and Rogers Park when she lived there; we're priced out of Lakeview and anything affordable in Rogers Park will probably be in the "bad" part of Rogers Park.
Any and all help would be appreciated.
Oh, and go Fire! Even if Dykstra isn't as good as Busch. I'll parrot the commentator on last night's loss to NY: "...Busch would have caught that."
03-28-2010, 10:03 AM
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