I'll be lookin to move to one soon. Don't know much about them, but can't yet afford the rich northern ones. Here's the criteria:
1. awesome school district
2. access to train to commute
3. reasonably priced housing (for a Chi suburb)

So far Naperville seems pretty cool, friend of mine mentioned St. Charles last night. Gogo.

Naperville is a nice town (reasonable priced housing is ???? there)

If you can afford Naperville.... you can also afford Libertyville on the north, or even a step down from that ...Gurnee.

Palatine is an option, possibly Schaumburg.

Northbrook is good. The Metra runs right through the middle of the damn place. Great schools and alot of good people. Some are those rich snobby [censored] that yell at me and my buddies for playing football in the street. But I would live there in a heartbeat.

i grew up in elmhurst. train runs right through it, and 290 (the eisenhower) runs through it as well, which will take you downtown.

schools? well i'm not a complete moran.

i read something, a year ago, about the avg home prices being $750,000 but this seems ******edly high to me.

course it's been 15 years since i've lived there.

Yes, Naperville is a very nice town with a great school district. In fact, IIRC, it was recently rated as the second best city to raise a family in the US. But, due to it's reputation, it is quite expensive.

Some more detail would help. What is your price range for the home? How many children do you have - will you be looking for a big 4-bedroom house or maybe a 2-bedroom condo would do? And you will be commuting downtown, I assume? Any other preferences? (e.g. you prefer the western suburbs over the northern ones)

-bigbootch

Awesome. I'm really just lookin for a nice place to raise a family. Lisle (Naperville's neighbor) was ranked like 20th in the last "best places to live" article. Of course it's only like 22K people though.

I wouldn't suggest Naperville, anyone from there automatically gains the attitude they are better than anyone from the surrounding cities, very snobby. Lisle would be a good choice, Four Lakes would be a nice choice for low cost. Lots of stuff to do in the neighborhood (snowboarding, tennis, volleyball, etc and a sweet lodge) and everyone seems really friendly. Also Batavia/Geneva are pretty nice areas. Chicago suburbs really are just a great place to live.

Don't really have a definite one, but 250-300Kish I guess

Wont have children for another ~3 years, so 1-2 bedroom starting out would be fine, but would like to move into 4 bedroom in ~3 years (by then my price range will have risen of course)

Yea, I'll most likely be trainin it. As far as preference, all I know is that north is pricy and south is shootings, so somewhere in the middle???

just move to the city... there are condos going up everywhere you look.

You're going to have trouble finding a 2-bedroom home in Northbrook in that price range. Northbrook is generally considered to be a "nice" (read: rich) town, like Wilmette, Winnetka, Northfield, etc.

You may or may not be able to find a home in that price range in Glenview (the same metra line that runs through Northbrook runs through Glenview). If you are able to find one, then I would recommend it - the two high schools for Glenview (Glenbrook North and Glenbrook South) are both great.

Naperville / Lisle / Libertyville / Mundelein, those areas are cheaper and you should not have too much trouble finding something in your price range. However, they are terribly "out of the way," which you may or may not mind. If all you're going to be doing is taking the train to work and back, and otherwise staying within a 10-mile radius of your home for grocery shopping / eating out / whatever, then these places would be fine. But going anywhere else (like driving downtown for a nice meal) is going to be a pain.

A tier below Glenview, I would look into Morton Grove or Skokie. These have good location (more central), should fit in your budget nicely, and have good school districts (not quite as strong as the Glenbrooks, but still good).

Let me know if you have any more questions.

-bigbootch

I don't think 250-300k will buy you much of a SFH in Chicago in the 'nicer' suburbs.

My guess is that most 3bed+ home in naperville/schaumburg/similar are closer to the 500-600k mark.

Your best bet is probably to look far west or north if you want to stick w/ the SFH route.

FWIW, I'm also looking to possibly move back to Chicago within 6mos to 2 years, and would like to hear suggestions for good places for singles to live (I'm 27).

Prefer good 'bang for the buck', and train access is pretty important.

That's half true. The northern suburbs by the water are very expensive ($10 million estates in Winnetka along Sheridan drive), but if you go even more north (e.g. Libertyville, almost at the Wisconsin border), then it's not expensive. Also, northwest suburbs (far away from the water) are newer towns, and are cheaper. Lots of young families, etc.

The south side (like where U of C is, where the US cellular field is, etc.) is dangerous, yes. But the southwest suburbs (Oak Park, Naperville) are very nice.

Take a look at this map:
http://www.wildonions.org/Neighborhoods-Suburbs.htm

You can see the relative location of the various towns I mentioned. I forgot to mention Niles, I would lump that together with Morton Grove and Skokie.

-bigbootch

Not sure exactly how your priorities stack up, but what about Evanston (assuming you want to rent and not buy)? You could also try for a place in the city, maybe the West Loop for lower prices...

-bigbootch

Aurora, as long as you are within the Oswego School District, is a good option. You should be able to find a home under $300k that will work for you. It's about 15 minutes to the train station, another 1 hour downtown. It's only a marginally longer commute than from Naperville.

The closer you go to the city, it will become difficult to find a home that fits your budget that isn't a complete dump. Renting for a few years would not be a bad option.

Based on your revised info... I would check out this town. No Metra station, but depending on what side of town you live on, its only about 6-8 miles to get to the Libertyville, Waukegan, or Prairie Crossing stations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurnee,_Illinois

I would put both Gurnee and Aurora in the same "very out of the way, but perfectly fine if you plan on staying close to home" category as Naperville, Libertyville, etc. As I said, this may or may not be an issue for you personally.

Basically, for the same $300k, you're going to get a much better (bigger, nicer) home in Gurnee than you are going to get in Skokie. Some people prefer this, and don't mind being a 75-minute drive away from downtown. Others prefer the smaller home in Skokie, b/c they would rather have a 25-minute drive downtown.

The one thing I would say though is that the school districts in Gurnee or Aurora is not going to be competitive with GBN/GBS or Niles West / Niles North. I don't know any stats offhand but I'm like 99% sure that they lag significantly behind on any numerical metric you look at (avg SAT score, # of AP classes offered, % of class going on to 4 -year colleges, etc.) I might be wrong - if so, I would love to be corrected.

-bigbootch

For those suggesting Gurnee and Oswego, I hardly consider these suburbs of Chicago because they are so far from the city.

How about Bolingbrook or Plainfield? Those are far, but much closer than Gurnee/Oswego.

I live in Elmwood Park right now, but that wouldn't really fit your no. 1 criterion, so I won't even get into how much I love it.

Brookfield. One of the top high schools in the state (RBHS), close to the city, four Metra stops within just a couple miles of each other, more affordable than Riverside with similar amenities but less superiority complex (I'd claim they're pretentious in Riverside, but they really do have the better community, it's just you pay the price for it). I'd want to raise a family here. There's also the Brookfield Zoo. And besides meeting your criteria, it's just the kind of place that feels like home. Hope you find a good spot! Good luck,

fifield

OK, I just looked this up, and it's much closer than I had thought - average ACT scores:

Oswego HS (20.1)
Niles North (21.9)
Niles West (21.7)
Glenbrook South (23.9)

And, just for comparison, New Trier (the high school for Wilmette / Winnetka / Kenilworth / other rich northshore suburbs):

New Trier (26.8)


-bigbootch

Gurnee is 35 - 40 miles north of Chicago. It borders Libertyville, so if Libertyville is a suburb, I consider Gurnee one too. Hell, a half dozen Chicago Bears live in Gurnee.

Not to be a nit, but I can think of 10 high school off the top of my head that I would bet are "better" than RBHS by some standard numeric metric. "Would" bet, because I can't think of a convenient way of verifying this.

What about:

1. New Trier
2. GBS
3. GBN
4. IMSA
5. Stevenson
6. Naperville North
7. U of C lab school
8. Hinsdale Central
9. Lake Forest high school

OK, so that's 9

-bigbootch

I'm going to toss in a recommendation for Grayslake - it is located between Libertyville and Gurnee which have both been mentioned. It is cheaper than Libertyville and not quite as large as Gurnee so you don't have to deal with the bustle that can come with Great America, Gurnee Mills, etc.

There are 2 centrally located metra stations in Grayslake (1 on the Milwaukee District North line and 1 on the Antioch line), and a third Metra station at Prairie Crossing which is within 5 minutes of Grayslake. The commute on the Metra to downtown will take ~55 minutes on an express train and about 65 minutes on a normal train.

Don't have any kids so I can't comment much on the school district, but I haven't heard anything negative about it - I do know that a brand new second high school was built in Grayslake 2 years ago.

Like most of the northern suburbs there are a lot of bike paths, lakes, parks, and more or less any outdoor recreational activity you'd be looking for. Not a particularly large restaurant or shopping selection in Grayslake, but it is located within 10 minutes of Gurnee and Libertyville, and 20 minutes of the Vernon Hills/Buffallo Grove area so you have Gurnee Mills Mall and Hawthorne Mall as large shopping centers and pretty much any restaraunt you'd want within 20 minutes.

Being a little further out there housing is pretty cheap. Off the top of my head, for ~250k - 300k , you would definitely be able to get a 2 story single-family home built within the last 10 years, with a large yard, in a nice family-oriented neighborhood. Probably the type of homes that would be pushing 400K - 500K if you decided to live in one of the more well-known suburbs like Naperville or Arlington Heights for reference.

Grayslake is OK... but property taxes are way out of whack there. Traffic also sucks on 120 there because it is only one lane each way.

Got a friend who lives there in a 4 BDrm house... pays over 10k for Property taxes.