Jenksismyhero

Where did everyone find their realtor? Or their mortgage broker (if you used one)?

Here's another question for people who have recently gone from renting to buying - how much more does it REALLY cost to own? My original intention in all of this is to take advantage of the free $8,000 check from the government. I want to basically be able to take what we pay now in rent ($1650 for rent/parking, which only includes water), plus maybe a couple hundred more a month. So i'm thinking 2k tops per month on everything associated with living expenses. So that has to include the mortgage, insurance, taxes, maintenance, and then any increase in costs for gas/electricity/water/garbage collection/whatever. It's incredibly difficult to budget out expenses when you just dunno how much all that extra stuff costs. How much extra is it to heat an 1800 square foot house versus a 1100-1200 square foot apartment? Or how much more electricity would we use? Or how often do things REALLY break and require you to fix it? Sigh. This process is much more difficult than I expected.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Jan 11, 2010 -> 03:16 PM) Where is it located? Being from DG, there are spots that are good, and spots to avoid. I will tell you that most of the schools are very good and the property values have been very steady. http://www.redfin.com/IL/Downers-Grove/663...6/home/18012532 Hopefully that link will work. It's down the street from a few homes going for 750k, 850k, etc.

Anyone live in Downers Grove right now? That seems to be the most acceptable area based on our initial search in the west. Lots and lots of decent sized homes in the 250-350k range, lots of green, surrounded by homes that are 3-4 times as expensive, and at least with a couple of these houses, pretty "reasonable" taxes.

QUOTE (whitesoxfan99 @ Jan 9, 2010 -> 09:21 PM) Great comeback again today. This team has the talent to be very good they just don't play hard enough and with enough intensity until they get down. I'm still hoping that at some point the upper classmen develop a killer instinct and get after from the opening tip. Not holding my breath though. Illinois had no business winning that game. Athleticism won out. Still not enough effort, and Mike Davis is a complete F'n waste. So tired of the 5+ lazy turnovers a game. Weber needs to scrap the half court offense and let them run. That's the only way this team will be a contender. I am impressed with what Crean has done with a JV roster. They'll be tough if he can get some big time recruits in.

pssh, only applies to suckers that pay taxes.

lol, this is the difficulty (and benefit) of having so many houses available. There's like 30 different suburbs that I've been told are nice and great for what we want. But what makes suburb X better than suburb Y? Someone with time should create a website devoted to this.

QUOTE (Controlled Chaos @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 11:14 AM) Well IMO, if you're looking for a fast commute, nice neighborhoods and good schools I would say Downers Grove/Darien/Lisle for your price range. You might be hard pressed to find something in Downers at 300, but you could probably get something in Darien. The BNSF metra is the best line for going downtown. Also, having various expressways in the area I355, I88 & I55 is nice. At 300 or less you're going to get an older house. It will probably need a lot of updating/fixing, but if it has some good bones and is in a good neighborhood with good schools, thats what matters. P.S. I don't live in any of these cities, but did move last summer and did a lot of research. I used to live in a townhouse in Lisle. I want to put some sweat equity into whatever we get and hopefully make some good money by the time we move out of it, so that's not a huge deal. So long as it doesn't become a project after project after project. And serious ones at that.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 10:30 AM) My wife and I are in a very similar position - we put our condo up for sale recently, and are looking to move to the suburbs. I will PM you more specifics, but, here is what I looked at: --Metra schedules, as SSI said - we set a boundary of 1 hour train ride (average). Anything outside that circle, forget it. --Further narrowed to suburbs that actually have, or are very near, Metra stations. The housing market is so weak, we have our choice of homes, including many in WALKING distance to a Metra stop. That is huge, as it means we don't have to buy a second car, which is a big cost. --Then there were schools - narrowed to suburbs with the better school districts. You can research this online. We have a daughter and will probably have another kid, so, this was important for us (also tends to help home values) --Further narrowed it down based on my wife having to drive to work in Northbrook, so that eliminated the south, southwest and most west suburbs. --Eliminated suburbs where the home values were so much higher than our range that we knew they weren't realistic (North Shore). That established our list, which I will PM you, of suburbs to look at. We sent that list, with our other requirements (number of bedrooms and bathrooms, garage, basement, price range, etc.), to our realtor, and she set us up on a website that sends us listings that fit our criteria automatically. We just go on the site once a week, and rate the homes (interested, maybe, not), and keep a running list of the ones we like. How'd you get in touch with your realtor? And how do they work generally? Do most of them have specific zones, or can I literally tell them "anywhere within an hour train ride without getting shot or mugged" or something and they could have homes in every direction?

QUOTE (Athomeboy_2000 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 09:49 AM) I grew up in Schaumburg and while I wouldn't call it a "close knit neighborhood", the peopl are pretty friendly. House prices are in the general area of what you are looking for. My parents sold their 3 bedroom house for $350,000 about 3 years ago, before the market tanked. So, I;d imagine you could get a nice sized house with some land for around $300,000. Roselle is also a good option. FWIW, this is what you get for 300k in Schaumburg. Ugh. All that room. I grew up "in the boonies" (according to people that live here) with 4 acres of forest around me. I know I can't get that without moving way out, but man I can't wait to have a yard and space like that. Another question to add is what do people think about their commutes on the Metra? Currently we're spoiled. We car pool down Lake Shore. On the worst days it may take 40 minutes to an hour (less than 5 times a year). The majority of the time it takes about 20-25 minutes for me and another 10-15 for her, so pretty ideal. But i'm not looking for ward to shelling out 120 bucks per month per person, plus whatever they charge to park at the station.

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 07:15 AM) +1 I never ever thought Leno was funny...Conan is too out there for the geezers. I think both are awful. Leno is too old and Conan is too energetic. I don't care to watch a spastic, ADD suffering, 45 year old prance around the set like he's 12. I'd rather watch the Daily Show or Colbert Report than any of the late night shows.

It's really too bad that these two companies couldn't merge and combine their respective expertise into a new machine. Microsoft has the better software (better multiplayer interface, party system and nerd (achievement) point system), but PS3 has the better hardware and multimedia options.

So, hopefully the board is diverse enough for this topic. The scenario: My fiancé and I are young (27), professionals, about to be married. She works just west of the Loop, I'm in the Loop. We're looking to move out of the city (currently living in Wrigleyville) and purchase a home within the next 3-4 months to take advantage of the 8k federal tax credit. We're looking for a single family house (no townhouse/condo thank you) under 300k that's big enough for the two of us with some extra room. Green is a must (lawn/trees/shrubs/whatever, we're tired of looking at cement and brick). Would like to be as close to a Metra line as possible, or if not, an interstate without a crazy commute (45 minutes max). Basically looking to find something for the next 5-7 years that we can build up and make our own while we start a family, and then maybe (unless we find our dream home) sell it and move once the kid(s) would start school. We both grew up in central Illinois so we have zero knowledge of the suburbs, including which ones are good, bad, expensive, cheap, safe, not safe, up and coming, on the way down, etc etc. I think ideally we'd like to find a neighborhood with people like us (25-35 year olds that just started, or are about to start, families). I think we'd also like a mix between having a close knit neighborhood, without living on top of other people (i.e., more than 5 feet between each neighboring house). Any suggestions? Any advice on where to go to research this further? Is there some sort of suburban magazine/website for this? Has anyone recently made a similar move? Thanks!

QUOTE (IlliniKrush @ Jan 8, 2010 -> 01:06 AM) He would have played if he could, end of story. He wanted to win a national championship and the only way to do so was if he was playing. The injury might not be structurally serious, but it was enough to knock him out of the game. What the hell would throwing a ball would have done besides satisfy you? That was a terrible, brutal, dumb call. 4th and 23 on your own 20 does not make for a good fake punt call that early in the game. Just stupid. This isn't a video game. "Most important game" makes it even more ridiculous. It wasn't open, a guy got over there right away, AND picked it. If anything, Texas baited them into it. You don't think they know the chance of a fake when not initially covering him right on the line? The announcers said the coaches kept him out for his future, meaning he could have played if this was his sophmore year, but since he's got the draft in 3 months, they didn't feel like chancing it. And I think McCoy has got to be one of the more overrated QB's we've seen in the last decade or so. Yeah, throw the stats around like he's something great, but in nearly every big game I've seen him play in (usually only national matchups), he sucks.

I'm for any kind of privitization that would kick out unnecessary spending. Case in point: the worthless idiots from the department of transportation that stand at the corner of every intersection of the city. I enjoy the ones who stand at the corner of a four lane, one way road and tell me to go in the direction everyone else is traveling in (thanks!). Or when I'm in a turn lane, they help me by waiving their hand in the direction I'm turning (thanks again!). Or especially the ones that don't do anything but just stand on a corner (a real life saver!) Maybe a private company would, I dunno, rely on those big ass street lights we have at every intersection.

My god Iowa is bad.

On a related note, I had the pleasure of waiting through a 15 minute line this morning at the Daley Center. Normally it takes me about 5 seconds to get to the elevators (attorneys and court personnel can be added to the security list with an ID to skip through it) . But this morning they decided to up the security and have everyone go through the metal detectors. If anyone has ever been to the Daley Center at 9:30am, you know it's an absolute madhouse with hundreds of people trying to get upstairs for various court calls. So anyway I'm in this indiscernible line that snakes throughout the first floor of the building, when I decide to see how good this "security" really is, because they're literally pushing people through the detectors so as not to have complete chaos (imagine a hundred lawyers complaining about being late for their court calls). So anyways, I'm watching the two "guards" that are supposed to be checking the monitors, and sure enough, neither of them are paying a bit of attention to the screens, but instead they're talking to coworkers about how crazy it is. So, by my estimation, a solid 15-20 people went through without being checked. And that's only the 3-4 minutes where I was close enough to see what they were doing. Yep. Real safe. And a great waste of time for everyone.

QUOTE (Kalapse @ Jan 5, 2010 -> 03:44 PM) Personally, I wouldn't give up my PS3 for anything simply because of its ability as a media server and hub. I can either stream video and music from my PC to my PS3 or -- and more importantly -- quickly transfer a few seasons of several TV shows and a bunch of movies to an external hard drive then plug that into to the PS3 (any properly formatted external hard drive will do, Sony doesn't care) and instantly be watching media off the 1 TB hard drive or swap out the internal hard drive of the PS3 itself upgrading my memory to 500 gigs of space (without voiding the warranty) and transfer media to PS3's hard drive and watch my TV shows from there. It's just an incredibly powerful and versatile media server. Not to mention the whole outstanding exclusive baseball game thing which is a pretty big deal for me personally. That is huge. There's no competition for The Show these days.

QUOTE (Steve9347 @ Jan 5, 2010 -> 11:10 AM) Not really /argument though. I've been playing MW2 with friends on PS3, and the experience is easily as enjoyable as the one on the 360 I played at a buddy's house. It's the same. That's my point.

So I got the flu this weekend and spent a solid 7 hours yesterday rewatching Season 5. I'll admit I am now more excited about the upcoming season. They still have a TON of explainin' to do.

I own both and I think the arguments on both sides are ridiculous. They're different machines for different purposes. The ps3 is the solo gamer/entertainment unit, whereas the 360 is the multiplayer/co-op online unit. If there's something I'm dying to play for the graphics/sounds/presentation, I get it for the ps3. If it's something I'll play with friends a lot, i get it for 360. /argument

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Jan 4, 2010 -> 09:26 AM) USC forfeited a bunch of wins and some tourney money after investigating the OJ Mayo recruiting. So, is USC officially the most corrupt program in the country? Clearly the football team does nothing but cheat (yet doesn't get punished for it...still waiting on that Reggie Bush report), and now the basketball program. And is this really a surprise? A failed college/NBA coach lands the top recruit for a one and done year, and he did it on the up and up?

QUOTE (hitlesswonder @ Dec 31, 2009 -> 11:22 AM) I'm no Illinois fanboy, but I think that the criticism of Davis and McCamey may have gone from justified to excessive at this point. They obviously don't play mistake free ball and both have defensive issues but they had good games last night: McCamey had 8 assists to 2 turnovers and while he only had 9 points it was clear that that his job was to feed the ball inside not shoot. I thought he did a good job handling the ball and pushing the tempo. And Davis...the guy has 20pts on 9-14 with 17 boards. It's true that both could/should have played better defense, but I think it's funny to see people (not just here) rip Davis and say things like if he had any intensity and desire he would easily have had 25 boards instead that 17. And at the same time I see posts about how great Bill Cole is. It's odd. It's all about playing to your potential. McCamey can be an NBA guard if he looks to score and plays some defense. Davis has literally cost this team games for lack of effort (Utah and Georgia). The play near the end of regulation when he just watched a guy 6 inches smaller and with less talent get two points to tie the game. He just stood there and watched. Bill Cole is a glue guy off the bench who is never going to be a focal point. Anything he gives the team is an added bonus. And yeah, I think Ryan was the NU guy I was thinking about. Coble is obviously the big loss.

It was no worse than anything with Rose and Bernard, Ms. Cleo, the other tail survivors, or any other number of worthless characters the show introduced for no important reason. Their failure there was that they didn't set that up in the beginning and it was just odd that they suddenly thrusted background folk to speaking folk. And really, I thought they way that the killed them off was pretty clever (even if it didn't really fit in the show).

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Dec 31, 2009 -> 10:07 AM) Wait just a second...how many lives do you think would be lost per year if we reduced healthcare spending to zero? I can see arguing that we spend too much on health care, I've done that myself (see other thread) but you seem to be arguing that the full couple trillion we spend every year on health care is useless. If we're devaluing the human life and putting a cost on it, then yes, I think if you'd cut the trillions spent on healthcare you'd only lose a small percentage of the population, which would decrease over time. The old and poor would slowly die, and you'd be left with people that already pay for their own healthcare. I have no idea what number to put on it, but if you take away those people that are dying anyway, I dunno, 50k? 100k? a year. It's not like every old and poor person would instantly die simply because the gov't stopped paying. Some would die more quickly, but others might find a way to pay for it. My bigger point was that if you start putting costs on protecting human lives then at some point nearly everything the gov't spends money on is a waste. Has there been waste on security and anti-terrorism? Sure. But what's really the cost? Savings another 3k lives? What if 9/11 had destroyed our economy? Is the billions/trillions really a waste then?