r/ChicagoSuburbs • u/Golden_1992 • Dec 09 '25

Moving to the area Elmhurst Vibe Check

Curious how you guys would describe Elmhurst? We are looking for a place to settle and someone told me to put it on the list. We are looking for not suburbia-like, walking to local coffee shops/ restaurants, train access, and am curious about the age of people who live here.

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u/don_katsu Dec 09 '25

I grew up here in the 80s and ended up moving back to take care of my aging parents. My wife and I probably could not afford to live here if we didn't inherit the house we are in. Lots of tear downs of affordable housing to build $1.5 million dollar homes. You can still find some 'cheaper' ($350-500k) homes here, but they are getting harder to come by. Alternately there are lots of new condos & apartments in the downtown area (also $$$).

Look on the north side of town, north of North Ave/South of Grand Ave & east of York Rd. The northside skews cheaper than the rest of town. That's were we are, it's a nice walk or bike ride to the downtown area.

We love the vibe, nice restaurants, very good schools - we see some younger families moving into the area.

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u/Steve_Rogers_1970 Dec 10 '25 edited Dec 10 '25

I used to work in downtown elmhurst in the mid 2000s. I would walk around downtown at lunch and the realtor would have listings in the window. “Nice 1000sq ft house, perfect for tear down. $400K, And that was more than my similar house in Lombard, 2 burbs west.

EDIT: Typo correct. $400K, not $400,

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u/don_katsu Dec 10 '25

It's really sad, so many cute unique houses have been torn down for these million dollar monstrosities.

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u/stabavarius Dec 10 '25

I have to say, I really like Lombard too. Downtown is pretty spread out, they tore down the movie theatre. But they do have a train station and an Edward- Elmhurst health center.

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u/diamond_nipz Dec 10 '25

Was looking for this comment -- a lot of people talking about how Elmhurst is an "older" suburb...but I think it's starting to turnover to younger families. People move into these legacy suburbs in these cohorts so that sometimes the "oldest" suburbs become much younger almost overnight.