Buying Your First House in Chicago

About four years ago I got a wild-hair up my rear end about getting my first house. You see, I have this very unhealthy competitive thing with a friend of mine who lives in St. Louis. He had just bought this great townhome in suburban St. Louis. It was a gorgeous place and he was trying hard to push me into moving back to St. Louis. Considering how St. Louis is roughly six hundred and forty thousand degrees every summer I was not too keen on this. So, I decided that if he could afford to do it, I was determined to prove I could do it as well and do it while still living in Chicago.

This is not the best reason or best way to get into property ownership and I definitely did not think it through. My entire experience with trying to own property, live in a home and then sell my house has been a nightmare and pretty much turned me off of owning property for the foreseeable future.

I went with a real estate agent that several people where I worked recommended. I would recommend that you also choose a real estate agent based on recommendations from friends. You can spend years online trying to find an agent and still find yourself looking at websites fourteen years later.

I went with a guy who was nice enough. I soon found out that the real estate boom was booming loudly every place within the city that I really wanted to live. Houses were two and three hundred thousand dollars in place that had barely been one hundred thousand dollars a few years back. I found myself looking at places that could only just barely be considered within the Chicago area and only then if you were drunk and squinting at a map.

I found a townhome in Hanover Park. Actually it was something called a Quad House. This is a little unit with four houses inside. I got one of the ones on the side with an upstairs, kitchen, middle area and then a basement. I had all kinds of plans of finishing the basement and remodeling the kitchen. That lasted about a month before I found out that this was all going to be too expensive and too much work. I hate work. I hate workers. I hate contractors. I hate the mess and I hate workers in my house. These do not add up to easy home projects.

So, if you are looking for a home in Chicago, be prepared to pay. Keep your credit spotless. I had bad credit and no money. I ended up in one of the most godforsaken suburbs in this area. I ended up desperate to get out and I ended up with a house on the market for nearly a year before I sold it.

Personally, I think you should just rent. It’s great. You can call the landlord whenever something breaks and he or she fixes it.