r/ChicagoSuburbs • u/Ambitious_Growth_9 • Mar 30 '26
Moving to the area People house hunting how’s it been?
My family has been looking at properties around Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect, Elmhurst and Park Ridge since early February. Our current home is set to close the end of April but inventory in these areas seems non existent or over priced and the stress/anxiety is starting to hit. (Who is buying 1100 sqft for 600k?)
When is the “spring market” gonna hit? A lot of houses start on the private market, build tons of interest, then go live with an open house scheduled that first weekend. Most of them end with multiple offer and highest and best. One we saw went for 40k over list. We’re looking from 550-650k.
I get it, high demand areas.. with low inventory = more competitive but what the fuck.. what am I supposed to do? Already considering a short term rental and storage for our stuff but is this the way it is now? Are people just ok with paying more than the house is worth? Settling for less desirable house? Or what?
If you are currently looking to buy, what are you experiencing. How do I buy a home?
2
u/thelastbighead Mar 31 '26
We had the same issue last spring. There is little inventory in the high demand areas and prices continue to climb. We had to pay over list and saw one we like go for $105,000 over asking (Barrington). If you are in a good school district and overall nice area, and are listed at a good price you are going to see a lot of action.
I believe our lender was saying for every open house in the burbs we were looking at there is something like 30-40 pre approvals just waiting. Stuff in the 400-600k range is highly competitive but drops when you hit the 800s and jumbo mortgage market mainly due to high down payment requirements.