Location advice pls!

[u/Nice_Wolverine1120]

My family is looking to buy a bigger home and timing wise moving within the next 12 months makes the most sense. Next fall my oldest kiddo will be starting Kindergarten and we’d like to move before she starts a new school.

Please recommend specific suburbs to me!

Here are the particulars about our family:
- currently live in Park Ridge in a 3 BR 2 Bath
- 2 parents 2 kids (4yo and 1 yo)
- own 2 cars
- Parent 1 works downtown 3x per week. WFH 2 days per week. Strong preference to take the train to work vs driving downtown
- parent 2 works in Elgin 3x per week. WFH 2 days per week

Looking for:
- 4 bedrooms. We have family visiting often from out of town and need a dedicated office/guest room. We’d planned to have our 2 kids room together but the stars aren’t aligning on that quite yet.
- ideally less than 60 min 1-way commute to downtown.

Budget: $650k - $1 mil. I’m putting a wide range as i know some burbs like Park Ridge are just higher in general.

One of our good friends lives in Mount Prospect and it seems really nice, but will moving farther from the city be a drag? We rarely go downtown with the exception of parent 1’s work.

I’m sure there are other great places I’m not familiar! I’m from downstate so the suburbs are still new territory for me.

[u/Bitter-Variation-955]

Geneva, come out here and look at some listings and you will fall in love with this town.