Quote:
Originally Posted by Investing In Chicago
However, what I'm saying is the reality in Chicago, upper middle class families typically do not want neighbors above or below them - and more often than not will not consider condos.
|
three things:
1. i think you and i have different ideas of what what constitutes "upper middle class" in chicago. you're talking about 7 figure houses, and that's straight-up upper class in chicago IMO. UMC would be more like $400,000 - $700,000 houses, based on the general rule of thumb that home price should ideally be ~2.5x household AGI.
2. we know many upper middle class people raising their families in mulit-family (including ourselves). the most common version is those who have bought a 2-flat and duplex-downed the 1st floor/basement into their "forever home" and then have an upstairs tenant to pay the property taxes for them.
3. what upper middle class people do or do not not do isn't ultimately that much of a concern to me. i was simply pushing back against your assertion that chicago is too expensive for upper middle class people to raise families in. i would argue the exact opposite. compared against the other 1st tier urban cities in america, chicago has an unbelievable amount of family-sized housing at utterly bargain-basement prices compared to NYC, SF, boston, LA, etc. and as LDVW pointed-out, chicago is also blessed with the "go one more neighborhood over" thing where, if houses are too expensive in "A", go a mile west to "B" and they're 20% less expensive, and if that still doesn't work, go another mile west over to "C" and prices drop even more. this is a big giant wide-open city, not some cute little constricted island or peninsula where everything larger than a one-bedroom is $750,000+.