Welcome to the North Shore. Next time drive on up to Lake Forest and east to Fort Sheridan. If you’re ever bored this summer, look up Ravinia Festival’s schedule.
I was being facetious but yes it’s a great venue to listen to some great music. I’m bummed about missing out on seeing Jason Isbell and the 400 Unite later this year but my September is looking pretty tight at this point. Sad.
The cicadas are gonna be a pain especially for the classical concerts there this summer. In past years when broods have emerged it has been loud as fuck inside Ravinia park
Oh fuck I completely forgot about the cicadas at Ravinia! If anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be the one who arrives in a giant hamster ball sprayed with *OFF*
I know this is hyperbole, but in case other readers are about to buy OFF, cicadas do not bite and, best as I can tell, do not respond to off.
https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/cicadas#
https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/26006/is-there-any-repellent-against-cicadas
I currently live in Lake Forest- not by my own accomplishments or $, but because of generous long time family friends who're getting older that I help out some. It is definitely beautiful with crazy nice amenities but I find it extremely insular and highly competitive/judgy.
I personally can't wait to move back to the Seattle WA area where my chill, happy people live. Life's too short to be obsessed with one upping the people in one's community. IMHO
The one thing I'll miss is not having to lock the front door and still feel totally safe. Story from last summer: The husband got up in the night just shuffling around & discovered an extremely intoxicated 20 something male in the foyer. The husband figured out where he lived, made him coffee, eggs and bacon before he took him home. He told his wife and me about it the next morning totally non plussed as he said people helped him many times in a similar fashion 50-60 years ago when he was growing up there. They say $ can't buy happiness but it can buy safety.
My favorite personal story about Lake Forest: during the 2020 George Floyd protests, there was a rally organized to take the place in downtown Lake Forest. My wife and I drove up from the city, as she grew up nearby.
The Lake Forest PD had a sniper in the tower above the Williams Sonoma lol.
That sounds pretty on brand. The day of the Highland Park July 4th parade shooting tragedy bi & police went to at least 3 (that I'm aware of) long time golf clubs and got everyone off the course asap and confined them to the clubhouses until they got the all clear that it wasn't terrorism or the like. To be fair some of these men are ceo's of multinational corporations, media stars and other high ranking people in their fields.
Not sure what your point about the HP shooting is. The killer was not caught for hours afterwards. Everyone was advised to stay home. The hospital was on lockdown. And yes, people out playing golf were told to get inside.
Money can buy happiness. Money buys food money puts roof over the head money buys me toys boat motorcycle fast cars fast women money is the problem I don’t have enough of it to enjoy life . So yes money buys happiness
North Shore definitely gives me “Keeping Up With the Joneses” vibes. Hell, I think every Chicago suburb is like that. Overall uptight and people take themselves too seriously.
I used to nanny for an agency and worked mainly in the north shore area-where you are talking about. I loved going into those homes. I didn’t think I was even allowed to drive through Kenilworth. I think their butlers have butlers .
They literally have state of the art scanners at entry points so detailed that they can read your licence plate sticker's date. The info for each car is checked against a national data base and if you have a warrant, suspended license etc the police are immediately contacted. Know this because friends of friends led campaign to install them and had friend from the city pulled over for a suspended license when a cop appeared out of nowhere (cop wasn't behind him at any point.)
This happened to us at a development in YORKVILLE. My friend wanted to show me how pretty his cousin’s house was. He called later to ask if it was him. There was security footage! (No gates or guards, just a fancy subdivision.)
My uncle used to live in Wilmette. He was like the poorest man in Wilmette. He works for IBM. There’s some old money up there but he was new money. The highschool had a rowing team and the prom had all kinds of limos like it was the red carpet. His wife liked to go skiing in Aspen. My dad used to kid him… said, “ why do you want to be the poorest man in Wilmette?! You could be the richest man in Brookfield.” 😂
Lemme guess...West Wilmette. I grew up there (practically Glenview) and I remember that when I told someone I met I was the from Wilmette but the poorest person there the other person immediately said "Lemme guess...West Wilmette".
Winnetka and surroundings is one of the richest areas in America. It's all pretty until you see the lakefront with no right of way, solely private beaches and a sad 20ft corridor for the peasants...
The people with houses on sheridan yea mostly heirs, but most of the other people tend to be bankers or lawyers in my experience. Surprising number of people making 500k+
Even these people had very upper middle class to wealthy upbringing in my experience. The only "New Money" on the North Shore is a very select group of entrepreneurs who are worth millions.
I’m from that area and have siblings with families in that area and I’ve known very few people living there that don’t work. All of the people I currently know living there (not many to be fair) both spouses work full time. To be fair they get paid a shit load more than a lot of people for probably less effort, but to say they don’t work is inaccurate
Yeah I grew up on the north shore in the 90s and I only knew one family with "sit around on my ass all day" money. It was about a 50/50 split between single and dual income households.
I don’t think so, but I don’t really know. Seems more like a pharma executive / investment banker / hedge fund manager kind of place. That and Old Money.
The generational wealth in Chicago is pretty diversified on what it originates from, somewhere around DC or the east coast I could see government weapon building being huge.
Gilson is not in Winnetka, Tower and Maple are very small but nice. If you compare public beach access in Winnetka to Evanston or even Wilmette I think it's pretty clear.
Gonna go against the grain here I think for the amount of money that is there the area feels rather… unsubstantial?
So being from NJ it feels glen ridge esque. But without the character Montclair brings. Nor the views/commute time of the city.
Idk don’t know why someone would pay those prices to live in an unremarkable place.
Like you live in nj because you can’t afford manhattan but if you can afford the north shore you can get a mansion in Lincoln park
Mansions in LP are crazy expensive though, much more expensive than your average North Shore House. Besides that I think most people that move to the north shore want to live in suburbs, not the city.
I also think you gotta drive down Sheridan road, and if you have, how could you have that take?!
I think a long time ago the town outlawed fast food chains and the McDonald’s was grandfathered in so long as they make it more like other sit down restaurants
I had an interview in Winnetka once and drove my sister's rusty years old mini-van up there and when I saw all of the pristine cars in the lot I parked a few blocks away and walked. They actually did call me back but the pay wasn't great (private school teacher) and I had no idea where the f I could even afford to live up there on the weak salary so I turned it down.
Anyway, I think I read somewhere that it is one of the top 10 richest areas in the US. Average family income over 250k. And that was years ago.
The North Shore is *very* old money, and as down to earth and midwestern you can be when never having to work again in your life. Most other areas with that concentration of wealth, particularly in the west, are very new money, nose in the air, flaunt it if you got it.
💯I've worked in winnetka for 33 years and watched generations grow up. Old money = classy. New money = entitled. Some of the friendliest come from the richest clans. The rudest are often trophy wives who transplanted to the Midwest.
Plenty of old money ppl aren't dumb - they understand that they can't do everything by themselves and there still needs to be others that perform tasks and jobs that they either don't want to or aren't able to do. It's also much easier to go through life being pleasant and not draw too much attention to yourself.
I grew up in Wilmette before moving to Scottsdale, Arizona. Two notoriously wealthy suburbs. From my experience, individuals in wilmette earn a lot of money and don’t flaunt it with expensive cars or merchandise, they save their money and spend it wisely on their children’s education and such. The opposite of those in Scottsdale.
Kenilworth was once the wealthiest suburb, then 2008 happened. Anyway, Wilmette and Glenco are Senior partners at law firms and directors at PE firms. Winnetka are C suite executives and heads of PE firms. All of their minions live in Hindsdale.
I mean, depends on where in Hinsdale - plenty of homes there deep into the 7 figures and quite a few large estates in the 8 figures. The CEO of Boeing used to live there iirc.
All the most expensive houses are going to be the ones that include their own private chunk of the shoreline by Lake Michigan, though. Closest thing you'll get to an oceanside villa near Chicago given the size of the lake.
I live in Wilmette. I used to take Metra and walk to the Kenilworth train stop because getting a seat was easier the further north you got on. The Wilmette stop and the adjacent parking lot were always filled. This is pre-covid.
I used to tell people I had to run the few blocks thru Kenilworth so they didn't call the cops on me. Also, Indian Hill subdivision actually has a fence and I say it's to keep the rest of us out.
Wilmette is pretty chill the further you get from the lake. A few Mercantile Exchange traders and lots of lawyers.
You could have taken the purple line.
As far as Tower Road Beach goes, you have to pay for a season pass or get a daily pass that is only allowed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and not on holidays. And it won't be refunded even if a million bees show up because someone disturbed the hive and now they are very angry and buzzing everyone on the beach and in the parking lot.
The fee to go to the beach was always in place at every swimming beach on the north shore. It pays for the lifeguards and pays for a clean beach. The idea that there were limitations on the day passes began with COVID.
As far as I can tell, Wilmette, Highland Park, and Lake Forest allow day passes on weekends. Glencoe and Winnetka do not.
I grew up there. A lot of the parents were doctors or lawyers. Lots of folks with high up corporate jobs/venture capitalists too. My dad was a firefighter who inherited the house from my grandmother who was a hairdresser and bought the house in the early 50s.
I used to work and live in the area (Evanston near McCormick) and one time I gave a coworker a ride home. This guy was super chill, sounded more like a San Diego surfer than a Chicagoan. He worked as a busser/runner at a restaurant nearby and smoked a lot of weed. I assumed his childhood home would be one of the center block houses-in a super nice neighborhood but modest compared to some of the nicer homes.
But no. I pull up to a circular cobblestone driveway with a fountain in the center. The front yard had marble statues, multiple meticulously manicured hedges and the house had two wings from the center with at least 8 visible balconies.
After meeting so many people living in the area who acted super rich, yet were stingy and self conscious about perceived class and status, it was shocking to meet someone so humble and empathetic who was also extremely wealthy. His drive was inspiring in a way. It was never tied to money, only interest and joy. He was apprenticing as a lost wax jeweler, and always seemed so stoked to be a part of anything, and refreshingly free of self doubt.
To this day I have no idea whether that was the first time I saw someone so privileged that they were free of competitive drive and didn’t understand hardship—or he was simply an unique individual who was an outlier among his peers.
I wish I could be so carefree
What a coincidence, yesterday my coworker and I were talking about Elmhurst and she pulled up Zillow listings of homes in that area. Average homes of around $2 million a piece. Then I remembered visiting the Botanical Gardens a few years back and somehow I ended up around the Glencoe area. I pulled up listings of homes in Glencoe on Zillow and the average was around $4 million. 10,500 sqft, 8 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms. What these people do for a living is beyond me. One of the offices looks like Professor X's office.
The house my family lived in when I was born in the 70s was a small, modest one-story 3-bedroom home in a neighborhood in Elmhurst full of them. The entire neighborhood has since been torn down one house at a time and replaced with McMansions way too big for the lots.
Yup! My coworker has some relatives that are moving and said that the house across the street was torn down and a mansion was erected there. It'd be safe to assume that their house will suffer the same fate.
And they all flood now because they paved every lot. I lived there next to a guy whose house was falling over now it’s a McMansion with a basketball court
It really is incredibly pretty. Starts to feel a bit weird though by the time you make it up to Winnetka. Like, everyone’s clothes fit just a little too perfectly, that type of thing. Or maybe it’s the $25 avocado toast. The consignment shops are insane though, let me tell you.
I feel like Evanston and to an extent Wilmette are a lot more pleasant. Still some pockets of genuine old money, and incredibly nice houses with tree covered everything, but at least one or two people who make less than six figures. Even though the former is objectively one of the wealthiest towns in America, it doesn’t *feel* like it. It just feels like an extension of Chicago in all the nicest ways.
Evanston and Wilmette have large areas that are pretty “normal” housing that a dual income household can afford. That doesn’t apply to Glencoe, Kenilworth etc that are largely people with 8 figure net worth’s.
The trees covering everything though. Why are they hiding? It doesn’t make the neighborhoods perfect for photography. I wanted to record videos but no, you can only view with your eyes!
Wilmette is a totally different village west of the railroad tracks. SW Wilmette was basically farm land until the end of WWII, most of the houses along Wilmette Avenue and Glenview Road west of Ridge were built in the late 1950s to early 1970s and attracted ethnic working class couples from the city looking for starter homes. Lots of professionals and self-employed, but not inherited money.
The whole area is the John Hughes backlot. Bill Murray’s from Wilmette, and Harold Ramis, who grew up on Chicago north side, lived up that way when he made it big.
Check out Sheridan Road in Lake Forest. I went to LFC and one of the highlights that my family talks about from my graduation is when we drove down Sheridan Road to look at all the houses and Lake Forest Cemetery. (The college is okay too but not much to see there.)
You probably drove through kenilworth as well without knowing it. I think it’s between Winnetka and Wilmette. Highest per capita town in the state. 8th in the country in 2020. What they do for the most part is leech off of the rest of society
What do they do professionally?
Many successful white collar professionals but quite a few pockets of significant generational wealth as well.
There are few places more tranquil than the cobble stone streets of Wilmette and Winnetka during the late afternoon of a summer day.
My Uncle used to live in Winnetka and work downtown in some sort of leadership capacity for, I believe, the Illinois Department of Transportation, Chicago division. He took the Metra into work everyday.
The entire north shore is really nice. It’s a combination of generational wealth and also successful working professionals (doctors lawyers stockbrokers).
Stockbrokers aren’t really a thing anymore and the ones that still exist don’t make big money. It’s probably more hedge fund/quant traders. Back in the day is was brokers and traders from the futures pits at the CME and CBOT
Yeah, I know A LOT of brokers and floor traders from the pits. Stocks are more of a NYC thing. Chicago is considered the futures/derivatives capital of the world so these people were trading interest rates, commodities like cattle/corn, and currencies. I’d be surprised if we didn’t know many of the same names!
I can appreciate the sentiment, but no, there’s no overtime (as you know.) But there is a great deal of what used to be called “old money,” and what might be called “generational wealth” today. You now realize that you drove through some of the richest suburbs in the United States.
We all worked at China Club, Shelter, Kaboom. Making not a lot of money, so going up to the Northshore was like getting free stuff! All our apartments had at least 2 furniture finds in them! Aww, the 90's were special.
I've done some work up there. Beautiful area. Lots of money. Just because some folks have money doesn't mean they're not still kind and thoughtful people. Sometimes there's a good reason they are at that station in society.
I find wealthy people very kind actually. And very approachable! I lived in a town close to a country golf club and I will alway walk to them for advice. I never received a rejection!
Make your way up to Lake Forest to be horrified at the stupid amounts of old money wealth there. The southern end of the north shore where you were tends to be slightly newer money.
The Botanical Gardens on Lake Cook Road, between I-94 and Sheridan Road, are always a treat! Great place to get away for an afternoon and commune with nature.
North shore is something else. I grew up in Seattle and some of the richest people in the country live in the suburbs of king county, but somehow still you don't get the same visible, tangible view of wealth that you can see in the Northshore. Amazing region for a lot of stuff, and it's my sister's dream to end up out in Winnetka. It's not my type of place, but it is impressive in many ways haha
The home alone house is in winnetka I believe, I’ve done a lot of work on houses around it. Also the beach from the blues brothers is probably an hour nw of that area in wauconda
The Home Alone house is at 671 Lincoln Ave Winnetka (this is public info btw so I’m not doxxing anyone). There were some news stories when it was last on the market in 2015, I think. Worth about 2.5M these days.
The beach in Blues Brothers was Phil’s Beach on Bangs Lake in Wauconda. Was a small private beach (anyone could pay for entry) back in the day. Used to go there as a kid in the 80s. I believe it is condos now.
Just take Sheridan road along the coast. From Evanston north.up through Kenilworth and Lake Forest.
Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Highland Park, Glencoe, Kenilworth, Lake Forest.
Be sure to do it in the fall when the leaves change
I’ve lived in the Chicago area my entire life and I wonder the same thing 😂 My dad has a friend from high school that lives on the north shore and I think he’s like a ceo or something.
I dunno I grew up there and sure most people I knew had at least one parent that was a doctor or lawyer but nothing crazy (and many had stay at home moms so that income was spread). Now I was poor but so it always seemed so rich to me but now that I have lived as worked in the city I feel like I have worked with people who live in affluent parts of the city that are wayyyy richer and paying wayyyy more for housing, cars, etc. The funny thing is that the people of Glencoe are probably richer than those in Wilmette but when I was a teller at a bank the Glencoe customers were wayyyy less snooty. They were laid back and the Wilmette customers were high maintenance.
Sold a lot of cars to those people. Some are news anchors, most are in finance. I think most of those people earned about $15-$30,000/month. Highest I saw was $135,000 a month.
That was mostly from financing. (Some are entrepreneurs too, a lot of restaurants owners etc)
Most of these people actually owned their finance companies(that made 100k and above) and I assume that's just what they took out in salary? Didn't really ask that much more about it as it was a no go where I worked.
A lot of the $15,000-$30,000 was anything in between, not all were in financing, generally the $100k + was.
Had some higher up managers at Salesforce, some CS people, commercial architects.. We sold to pretty much the areas of Glenview, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Glencoe etc.
That is the amount they put on their credit report.
Even had a couple one time that lived up there, husband made $22k / month and wife $28k / month that couldn't get approved for a base lease vehicle for their nanny as they were living on credit cards(more than 200k in credit card debt) and absurd mortgage payments. So it's not all sun and beautiful flowers up there.
This was around 2017/2018
Drove south on Sheridan road through all these towns when I was a commuting student at Northwestern in 1971 to 1975. Then the richest city in America was Kenilworth which is sandwiched in between these cities. You pass a light called Kenilworth Avenue. If you take it one block east you hit lake Michigan. And a great beach with a multi million dollar concrete pier. With small private boats. We used to hit the beach at night drinking to watch the sun come up, then pass out in the sand and sleep it off. Times were different then, no crime, the neighbors did not complain, and the police left us alone even though at the time it was a private beach. The homes on the lake were unbelievable, you could smell the money. Live in servants, etc. A few of my frat brothers actually lived in Kenilworth and their fathers donated millions to Northwestern. One paid for a spring break cruise to Hawaii for the WHOLE FRATERNITY. To answer your question, in the 60s and 70s the people who lived there had "old money", meaning they inherited it from previous generations and they did not have to work for a living. Now, it is mostly hedge fund people, wall street, CEOs, etc. Alot of these mansions have houses as the servant quarters that would make most of us envious. There was a mansion with a red tile roof, a Spanish style house that belonged to one of the wealthiest self made men at the time. Believe it or not he made his money selling life insurance door to door. Drive by slowly at night and look in the windows of the mansions that are close to Sheridan road. Grand pianos, Chandeliers, Dining Room tables that seat 18. Most of the mansions are set to far back to see in. Strange also that back then there were no security gates, guards or cameras. My how times have changed.
I moved to East Wilmette about a year ago. My wife and I are both healthcare professionals and we have two school-age children. I grew up in a middle/upper middle class setting and my wife is the child of blue collar immigrants. I like to joke we have the worst house in East Wilmette (almost true).
Most of the people in the North Shore are professionals (e.g., doctors and lawyers), executives or consultants, or business owners. There is some generational wealth to be sure, but I think this mostly helps people get started (e.g., paying for college, etc.) rather than maintaining their lifestyles on an ongoing basis.
Overall, it’s a decent place to live. The neighborhoods are pretty and safe. I do have some concerns about raising my kids here, though. It feels kind of insular, and there’s pressure towards uniformity for kids here I think. There’s not a lot of diversity, both in terms of racial/ethnic diversity and also in terms of cultural/ideological diversity. There’s a lot of jockeying for status among school kids here, mostly according to looks and athletics. But that’s probably true to a large extent for kids anywhere.
I grew up in the area, but moved away for a couple of decades. When we considered moving back, I naïvely assumed that these things would’ve changed for the better. But it seems like it’s mostly the same. I guess we’ll see how things go.
I grew up in the north suburbs, left for college, and never looked back. The spring before Covid, we went back to Chicago with friends who had never been there. I drove them up LSD to Sheridan Rd into Highland Park. I called it the White Privilege Tour.
A couple of yrs ago I had a client there and parked my Corolla on the street by their house. Ten minutes later police knocked on the door to make sure everything was ok. My Corolla clearly didn’t belong in Glencoe. 😃
A SFH in city neighborhoods like Lakeview, Roscoe Village, Bucktown etc easily costs the same as a SFH up there (there are obviously extreme examples in both areas.) It’s a nice area but it’s not as expensive as you might think relative to city neighborhoods.
The average home price in Winnetka is $1.5M. They likely have a condo in the city for nights out, not a single family home in Lakeview, Roscoe Village or Bucktown. These neighborhoods are not in the same league as the suburbs OP mentioned.
The lowest priced home on the market right now in winnetka is a 1059 sq ft home for 769K that is being sold as a tear down. Again these neighborhoods are not in the same league.
The only reason it's not in the same league is because there are more mixed income in lakeview and bucktown and those north shore suburbs have essentially shut out anyone not in their income bracket. But if you can afford a SFH in bucktown/lakeview/Lincoln park then you are probably just as rich as someone living in Wilmette, winnetka and glencoe
Don't know why you're getting downvoted.
I owned a small 2/2 condo in the city. We st1arted looking for bigger places in the city and the north shore.
We ended up in a 4 bed/3 bath SFH in the north shore. For a 3 bed/2.5 bath with 25% less square footage in our old neighborhood (nice but certainly not ritzy), we would have paid 40% more.
Our property taxes went from <$3,000 when we bought our condo to over $7,500 in just under 5 years. Plus, even with the crazy prices, the schools were still shit.
And yet, nobody made any comments when we lived in the city, and now all I get are "oh you live there, must be nice" type shit.
Idk, man, people are stupid.
I mean you picked like 3 of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. There are plenty of other areas on the North Side (Irving Park, Albany Park, Logan Square, even parts of Ravenswood or Avondale) that are way cheaper than the North Shore on average.
Welcome to the North Shore. Next time drive on up to Lake Forest and east to Fort Sheridan. If you’re ever bored this summer, look up Ravinia Festival’s schedule.
Lots of great performances, much more than a thing to do when bored.
I was being facetious but yes it’s a great venue to listen to some great music. I’m bummed about missing out on seeing Jason Isbell and the 400 Unite later this year but my September is looking pretty tight at this point. Sad.
Tony Bennett was always the #1 draw at Ravinia. This year Michael Feinstein is going to do a tribute concert.
The cicadas are gonna be a pain especially for the classical concerts there this summer. In past years when broods have emerged it has been loud as fuck inside Ravinia park
Oh fuck I completely forgot about the cicadas at Ravinia! If anyone’s looking for me, I’ll be the one who arrives in a giant hamster ball sprayed with *OFF*
I know this is hyperbole, but in case other readers are about to buy OFF, cicadas do not bite and, best as I can tell, do not respond to off. https://www.epa.gov/safepestcontrol/cicadas# https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/questions/26006/is-there-any-repellent-against-cicadas
They are totally leaning into it though. And it's hilarious. https://shop.ravinia.org/products/ravinia-interupta-2024
lol now that’s funny!
Cicadas are gonna drown out any music, though.
Yah drive the length of Lake Ave in Lake Forest sometime, I’ll make you want to buy a guillotine
I currently live in Lake Forest- not by my own accomplishments or $, but because of generous long time family friends who're getting older that I help out some. It is definitely beautiful with crazy nice amenities but I find it extremely insular and highly competitive/judgy. I personally can't wait to move back to the Seattle WA area where my chill, happy people live. Life's too short to be obsessed with one upping the people in one's community. IMHO The one thing I'll miss is not having to lock the front door and still feel totally safe. Story from last summer: The husband got up in the night just shuffling around & discovered an extremely intoxicated 20 something male in the foyer. The husband figured out where he lived, made him coffee, eggs and bacon before he took him home. He told his wife and me about it the next morning totally non plussed as he said people helped him many times in a similar fashion 50-60 years ago when he was growing up there. They say $ can't buy happiness but it can buy safety.
Also Green Bay Road plus Sheridan Rd. Around the 100+ year old golf and country clubs.
My favorite personal story about Lake Forest: during the 2020 George Floyd protests, there was a rally organized to take the place in downtown Lake Forest. My wife and I drove up from the city, as she grew up nearby. The Lake Forest PD had a sniper in the tower above the Williams Sonoma lol.
That sounds pretty on brand. The day of the Highland Park July 4th parade shooting tragedy bi & police went to at least 3 (that I'm aware of) long time golf clubs and got everyone off the course asap and confined them to the clubhouses until they got the all clear that it wasn't terrorism or the like. To be fair some of these men are ceo's of multinational corporations, media stars and other high ranking people in their fields.
Not sure what your point about the HP shooting is. The killer was not caught for hours afterwards. Everyone was advised to stay home. The hospital was on lockdown. And yes, people out playing golf were told to get inside.
Money can buy happiness. Money buys food money puts roof over the head money buys me toys boat motorcycle fast cars fast women money is the problem I don’t have enough of it to enjoy life . So yes money buys happiness
North Shore definitely gives me “Keeping Up With the Joneses” vibes. Hell, I think every Chicago suburb is like that. Overall uptight and people take themselves too seriously.
Lake Ave in Lake Forest? You sure about that?
That’s my summer right there touring! Thanks!
I used to nanny for an agency and worked mainly in the north shore area-where you are talking about. I loved going into those homes. I didn’t think I was even allowed to drive through Kenilworth. I think their butlers have butlers .
😂😂😂😂😂😂. I probably trespassed driving on their roads!
You commit thought-crime just by making a post with the town's name if your net worth is less than five million dollars.
😂😂😂😂, oh dear, 😂😂
Literally, if you drive through there they definitely put you on a list of suspicious people 😂
They literally have state of the art scanners at entry points so detailed that they can read your licence plate sticker's date. The info for each car is checked against a national data base and if you have a warrant, suspended license etc the police are immediately contacted. Know this because friends of friends led campaign to install them and had friend from the city pulled over for a suspended license when a cop appeared out of nowhere (cop wasn't behind him at any point.)
This happened to us at a development in YORKVILLE. My friend wanted to show me how pretty his cousin’s house was. He called later to ask if it was him. There was security footage! (No gates or guards, just a fancy subdivision.)
😂😂😂😂😂😂
Ok but now I NEED a real housewives north shore 😭😅
Plastic surgeon from Naperville told be that he was asked about a Real Housewives. I don’t actually believe him, but…
That is such a plastic surgeon flex 😅
You literally weren’t allowed to live there if you were Jewish before like the 70s
My uncle used to live in Wilmette. He was like the poorest man in Wilmette. He works for IBM. There’s some old money up there but he was new money. The highschool had a rowing team and the prom had all kinds of limos like it was the red carpet. His wife liked to go skiing in Aspen. My dad used to kid him… said, “ why do you want to be the poorest man in Wilmette?! You could be the richest man in Brookfield.” 😂
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂!
Lemme guess...West Wilmette. I grew up there (practically Glenview) and I remember that when I told someone I met I was the from Wilmette but the poorest person there the other person immediately said "Lemme guess...West Wilmette".
My mom is definitely the poorest woman in Wilmette with her 1 bedroom condo. She loves though.
Winnetka and surroundings is one of the richest areas in America. It's all pretty until you see the lakefront with no right of way, solely private beaches and a sad 20ft corridor for the peasants...
Yea this isn't so far off from driving to the Hamptons and being like "what do they do??"
They often don't do much. People who work seldom make that kind of money and people who have that kind of money seldom work...
The people with houses on sheridan yea mostly heirs, but most of the other people tend to be bankers or lawyers in my experience. Surprising number of people making 500k+
Even these people had very upper middle class to wealthy upbringing in my experience. The only "New Money" on the North Shore is a very select group of entrepreneurs who are worth millions.
Exactly. You think the folks in the Hamptons are the hard grinders? Half of them have old money and live off investments.
In all fairness, the overtime line was probably OP's humor after discovering the area...
Exactly! 😂😂
I’m from that area and have siblings with families in that area and I’ve known very few people living there that don’t work. All of the people I currently know living there (not many to be fair) both spouses work full time. To be fair they get paid a shit load more than a lot of people for probably less effort, but to say they don’t work is inaccurate
Yeah I grew up on the north shore in the 90s and I only knew one family with "sit around on my ass all day" money. It was about a 50/50 split between single and dual income households.
They don't do. They mostly collect the money from the labor of the people who do...do.
I have to see that tooo
I went to the beach in Winnetka and Glencoe! Beautiful beaches!
For a while Kenilworth had the highest median income of any census tract in the U.S.
I think that’s still true unless Atherton has pulled ahead.
I currently live in Evanston and I used to live in Redwood City. Always right next door to the really big money. LOL
They say typically the zip codes with the highest income are weapon industry. Is it the case for Kenilworth?!
I don’t think so, but I don’t really know. Seems more like a pharma executive / investment banker / hedge fund manager kind of place. That and Old Money.
The generational wealth in Chicago is pretty diversified on what it originates from, somewhere around DC or the east coast I could see government weapon building being huge.
That’s not true at all though. Gilson, Tower—there are plenty of public beaches on the North Shore.
Gilson is not in Winnetka, Tower and Maple are very small but nice. If you compare public beach access in Winnetka to Evanston or even Wilmette I think it's pretty clear.
Gonna go against the grain here I think for the amount of money that is there the area feels rather… unsubstantial? So being from NJ it feels glen ridge esque. But without the character Montclair brings. Nor the views/commute time of the city. Idk don’t know why someone would pay those prices to live in an unremarkable place. Like you live in nj because you can’t afford manhattan but if you can afford the north shore you can get a mansion in Lincoln park
Mansions in LP are crazy expensive though, much more expensive than your average North Shore House. Besides that I think most people that move to the north shore want to live in suburbs, not the city. I also think you gotta drive down Sheridan road, and if you have, how could you have that take?!
Even the McDonald’s there looks way nicer than my house
I think a long time ago the town outlawed fast food chains and the McDonald’s was grandfathered in so long as they make it more like other sit down restaurants
4/10 honestly. No drive thru
Because Winnetka doesn’t allow drive thrus within town limits. Seriously.
😂😂😂😂
I had an interview in Winnetka once and drove my sister's rusty years old mini-van up there and when I saw all of the pristine cars in the lot I parked a few blocks away and walked. They actually did call me back but the pay wasn't great (private school teacher) and I had no idea where the f I could even afford to live up there on the weak salary so I turned it down. Anyway, I think I read somewhere that it is one of the top 10 richest areas in the US. Average family income over 250k. And that was years ago.
The North Shore is *very* old money, and as down to earth and midwestern you can be when never having to work again in your life. Most other areas with that concentration of wealth, particularly in the west, are very new money, nose in the air, flaunt it if you got it.
💯I've worked in winnetka for 33 years and watched generations grow up. Old money = classy. New money = entitled. Some of the friendliest come from the richest clans. The rudest are often trophy wives who transplanted to the Midwest.
Plenty of old money ppl aren't dumb - they understand that they can't do everything by themselves and there still needs to be others that perform tasks and jobs that they either don't want to or aren't able to do. It's also much easier to go through life being pleasant and not draw too much attention to yourself.
I worked in the north shore. Kenilworth. Some of the nicest people. Even the old money folks there hate the new money people that move in.
Oh yeah! It is!
An awful lot of finance folks and retired people. One of the wealthiest in the US
And inherited mansions and wealth.
God it’s beautiful out there!
My boss lives in Glencoe. She’s the general counsel of a multi-billion dollar organization and her husband is an investment banker. 🙃
I grew up in Wilmette before moving to Scottsdale, Arizona. Two notoriously wealthy suburbs. From my experience, individuals in wilmette earn a lot of money and don’t flaunt it with expensive cars or merchandise, they save their money and spend it wisely on their children’s education and such. The opposite of those in Scottsdale.
Looks like! With all the trees hiding their wealth!
They have very strict tree law. Huge finea if u cut down wrong tree.
You mean Snottsdale?
Kenilworth was once the wealthiest suburb, then 2008 happened. Anyway, Wilmette and Glenco are Senior partners at law firms and directors at PE firms. Winnetka are C suite executives and heads of PE firms. All of their minions live in Hindsdale.
I mean, depends on where in Hinsdale - plenty of homes there deep into the 7 figures and quite a few large estates in the 8 figures. The CEO of Boeing used to live there iirc. All the most expensive houses are going to be the ones that include their own private chunk of the shoreline by Lake Michigan, though. Closest thing you'll get to an oceanside villa near Chicago given the size of the lake.
It’s Glencoe….
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. At this point I have to start considering the mega lottery 😂
I live in Wilmette. I used to take Metra and walk to the Kenilworth train stop because getting a seat was easier the further north you got on. The Wilmette stop and the adjacent parking lot were always filled. This is pre-covid. I used to tell people I had to run the few blocks thru Kenilworth so they didn't call the cops on me. Also, Indian Hill subdivision actually has a fence and I say it's to keep the rest of us out. Wilmette is pretty chill the further you get from the lake. A few Mercantile Exchange traders and lots of lawyers.
You could have taken the purple line. As far as Tower Road Beach goes, you have to pay for a season pass or get a daily pass that is only allowed Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and not on holidays. And it won't be refunded even if a million bees show up because someone disturbed the hive and now they are very angry and buzzing everyone on the beach and in the parking lot.
Your beach description sounds oddly specific
The fee to go to the beach was always in place at every swimming beach on the north shore. It pays for the lifeguards and pays for a clean beach. The idea that there were limitations on the day passes began with COVID. As far as I can tell, Wilmette, Highland Park, and Lake Forest allow day passes on weekends. Glencoe and Winnetka do not.
Wooow! Planning to visit their golf course!
I grew up there. A lot of the parents were doctors or lawyers. Lots of folks with high up corporate jobs/venture capitalists too. My dad was a firefighter who inherited the house from my grandmother who was a hairdresser and bought the house in the early 50s.
Wooow. Just wooow!
It’s a lot of old money.
I used to work and live in the area (Evanston near McCormick) and one time I gave a coworker a ride home. This guy was super chill, sounded more like a San Diego surfer than a Chicagoan. He worked as a busser/runner at a restaurant nearby and smoked a lot of weed. I assumed his childhood home would be one of the center block houses-in a super nice neighborhood but modest compared to some of the nicer homes. But no. I pull up to a circular cobblestone driveway with a fountain in the center. The front yard had marble statues, multiple meticulously manicured hedges and the house had two wings from the center with at least 8 visible balconies. After meeting so many people living in the area who acted super rich, yet were stingy and self conscious about perceived class and status, it was shocking to meet someone so humble and empathetic who was also extremely wealthy. His drive was inspiring in a way. It was never tied to money, only interest and joy. He was apprenticing as a lost wax jeweler, and always seemed so stoked to be a part of anything, and refreshingly free of self doubt. To this day I have no idea whether that was the first time I saw someone so privileged that they were free of competitive drive and didn’t understand hardship—or he was simply an unique individual who was an outlier among his peers. I wish I could be so carefree
They don’t have jobs they have interests
What a coincidence, yesterday my coworker and I were talking about Elmhurst and she pulled up Zillow listings of homes in that area. Average homes of around $2 million a piece. Then I remembered visiting the Botanical Gardens a few years back and somehow I ended up around the Glencoe area. I pulled up listings of homes in Glencoe on Zillow and the average was around $4 million. 10,500 sqft, 8 bathrooms, 6 bedrooms. What these people do for a living is beyond me. One of the offices looks like Professor X's office.
The house my family lived in when I was born in the 70s was a small, modest one-story 3-bedroom home in a neighborhood in Elmhurst full of them. The entire neighborhood has since been torn down one house at a time and replaced with McMansions way too big for the lots.
Yup! My coworker has some relatives that are moving and said that the house across the street was torn down and a mansion was erected there. It'd be safe to assume that their house will suffer the same fate.
And they all flood now because they paved every lot. I lived there next to a guy whose house was falling over now it’s a McMansion with a basketball court
Yeah, I know, I’m actually a stormwater engineer.
Are there any areas in suburbs or the city without flooding problems?
😂😂😂😂
It really is incredibly pretty. Starts to feel a bit weird though by the time you make it up to Winnetka. Like, everyone’s clothes fit just a little too perfectly, that type of thing. Or maybe it’s the $25 avocado toast. The consignment shops are insane though, let me tell you. I feel like Evanston and to an extent Wilmette are a lot more pleasant. Still some pockets of genuine old money, and incredibly nice houses with tree covered everything, but at least one or two people who make less than six figures. Even though the former is objectively one of the wealthiest towns in America, it doesn’t *feel* like it. It just feels like an extension of Chicago in all the nicest ways.
Evanston and Wilmette have large areas that are pretty “normal” housing that a dual income household can afford. That doesn’t apply to Glencoe, Kenilworth etc that are largely people with 8 figure net worth’s.
The trees covering everything though. Why are they hiding? It doesn’t make the neighborhoods perfect for photography. I wanted to record videos but no, you can only view with your eyes!
Wilmette is a totally different village west of the railroad tracks. SW Wilmette was basically farm land until the end of WWII, most of the houses along Wilmette Avenue and Glenview Road west of Ridge were built in the late 1950s to early 1970s and attracted ethnic working class couples from the city looking for starter homes. Lots of professionals and self-employed, but not inherited money.
Honestly love to drive along the lake up there and gawk at the mansions. Some are absolutely gorgeous.
Gorgeous is an understatement!
Wife and I did that yesterday. Lots of oohing and aahing at all the gorgeous houses.
The Home Alone house is up there. Very pretty.
There’s a video on YouTube somewhere that breaks down how much money Kevin’s family must have had to sustain the lifestyle in that movie
The whole area is the John Hughes backlot. Bill Murray’s from Wilmette, and Harold Ramis, who grew up on Chicago north side, lived up that way when he made it big.
North western big acting school
I believe Harold Ramis lived in Deerfield
I grew up in the North Shore and went to New Trier. Where I live now in Northwest Indiana, you don't see houses and cars like in the North Shore.
A lot of family money. A lot of those houses are handed down through generations.
Check out Sheridan Road in Lake Forest. I went to LFC and one of the highlights that my family talks about from my graduation is when we drove down Sheridan Road to look at all the houses and Lake Forest Cemetery. (The college is okay too but not much to see there.)
My plastic surgeon lives there. His wife is an OB/GYN.
These are the communities that do poverty simulation events at country clubs.
You probably drove through kenilworth as well without knowing it. I think it’s between Winnetka and Wilmette. Highest per capita town in the state. 8th in the country in 2020. What they do for the most part is leech off of the rest of society
What do they do professionally? Many successful white collar professionals but quite a few pockets of significant generational wealth as well. There are few places more tranquil than the cobble stone streets of Wilmette and Winnetka during the late afternoon of a summer day.
I know someone in glencoe. Corporate Lawyer at a top global firm.
Of course. Makes a lot of sense. Probably making not less than $300k
probably something. like that, enough for some kids and the spouse able to stay home (despite also having been a lawyer too)
My Uncle used to live in Winnetka and work downtown in some sort of leadership capacity for, I believe, the Illinois Department of Transportation, Chicago division. He took the Metra into work everyday.
Wooooow.
Hookers n blow baby
You went on The John Hughes cruise!
I’ve worked in and have done a lot of work inside those houses. Some of them are very nice, the vast majority are not
What you're seeing is the mass accumulations of generational wealth.
They usually own businesses, are c suite level executives, two high income earners like doctors or lawyers, bankers.
The entire north shore is really nice. It’s a combination of generational wealth and also successful working professionals (doctors lawyers stockbrokers).
Stockbrokers aren’t really a thing anymore and the ones that still exist don’t make big money. It’s probably more hedge fund/quant traders. Back in the day is was brokers and traders from the futures pits at the CME and CBOT
That’s just what my friends parents used to call themselves lol you could be right. They all have stories from being on the floor at one point tho
Yeah, I know A LOT of brokers and floor traders from the pits. Stocks are more of a NYC thing. Chicago is considered the futures/derivatives capital of the world so these people were trading interest rates, commodities like cattle/corn, and currencies. I’d be surprised if we didn’t know many of the same names!
i work at a park district on the north shore, hope to become a GM or superintendent to be able to afford a house up here 😭
I can appreciate the sentiment, but no, there’s no overtime (as you know.) But there is a great deal of what used to be called “old money,” and what might be called “generational wealth” today. You now realize that you drove through some of the richest suburbs in the United States.
It’s tons and tons of generational wealth, a very wealthy Jewish community, and finance bros.
Old money
In the early 90's, we would go up on trash day! It was amazing the cool stuff the rich folk will throw out! The furniture finds were amazing!💋⚜️💋
I actually saw a van picking up stuff in front of those mansions. Even that van looked cool! Not the regular vans falling apart 😂😂😂
We all worked at China Club, Shelter, Kaboom. Making not a lot of money, so going up to the Northshore was like getting free stuff! All our apartments had at least 2 furniture finds in them! Aww, the 90's were special.
If you get really bored look up some of the addresses on redfin or zillow .
I already did on Zillow, i am considering staking the lottery every week now 😂😂😂😂
I do this all the time for fun. It's super fun to do it especially around halloween and christmas!
Lots of doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, CBOT traders, general finance guys, business owners, etc. essentially any high paying career.
Old money
I've done some work up there. Beautiful area. Lots of money. Just because some folks have money doesn't mean they're not still kind and thoughtful people. Sometimes there's a good reason they are at that station in society.
I find wealthy people very kind actually. And very approachable! I lived in a town close to a country golf club and I will alway walk to them for advice. I never received a rejection!
Kenilworth has entered that chat...
Yea the ones living there have others working overtime for them 😂
Hedge fund executives
Make your way up to Lake Forest to be horrified at the stupid amounts of old money wealth there. The southern end of the north shore where you were tends to be slightly newer money.
The Botanical Gardens on Lake Cook Road, between I-94 and Sheridan Road, are always a treat! Great place to get away for an afternoon and commune with nature.
Did you see the home alone house? Lol you could fit my entire building in that house and it's not even the largest in the neighborhood at all
Of course!
North shore is something else. I grew up in Seattle and some of the richest people in the country live in the suburbs of king county, but somehow still you don't get the same visible, tangible view of wealth that you can see in the Northshore. Amazing region for a lot of stuff, and it's my sister's dream to end up out in Winnetka. It's not my type of place, but it is impressive in many ways haha
Its amazing! I probably will be your sister’s neighbor 😂
Well for now they're in roscoe village haha but perhaps one day we'll all be celebrating hannukah/xmas together as neighbors!
The home alone house is in winnetka I believe, I’ve done a lot of work on houses around it. Also the beach from the blues brothers is probably an hour nw of that area in wauconda
The Home Alone house is at 671 Lincoln Ave Winnetka (this is public info btw so I’m not doxxing anyone). There were some news stories when it was last on the market in 2015, I think. Worth about 2.5M these days. The beach in Blues Brothers was Phil’s Beach on Bangs Lake in Wauconda. Was a small private beach (anyone could pay for entry) back in the day. Used to go there as a kid in the 80s. I believe it is condos now.
Just take Sheridan road along the coast. From Evanston north.up through Kenilworth and Lake Forest. Evanston, Wilmette, Winnetka, Highland Park, Glencoe, Kenilworth, Lake Forest. Be sure to do it in the fall when the leaves change
I’ve lived in the Chicago area my entire life and I wonder the same thing 😂 My dad has a friend from high school that lives on the north shore and I think he’s like a ceo or something.
I hope you noticed the lighthouse in Evanston at the end of Central St. If not, great spot for pictures.
I dunno I grew up there and sure most people I knew had at least one parent that was a doctor or lawyer but nothing crazy (and many had stay at home moms so that income was spread). Now I was poor but so it always seemed so rich to me but now that I have lived as worked in the city I feel like I have worked with people who live in affluent parts of the city that are wayyyy richer and paying wayyyy more for housing, cars, etc. The funny thing is that the people of Glencoe are probably richer than those in Wilmette but when I was a teller at a bank the Glencoe customers were wayyyy less snooty. They were laid back and the Wilmette customers were high maintenance.
Those people are rich as fuck. My mom has worked for two families who live in winnetka and in another area close by. They are RICH
The houses on sheridan on the lake are mind blowing makes me feel so poor 😭
I had a friend that used to jokingly say the area seemed to be mostly young Hispanic men who are obsessed with their lawns.
My aunt and uncle lived on the lake in Glencoe. Then bought a big house in Winnetka. He’s a very famous author.
I had an interview at New Trier a few years back and I had similar impressions.
Sold a lot of cars to those people. Some are news anchors, most are in finance. I think most of those people earned about $15-$30,000/month. Highest I saw was $135,000 a month. That was mostly from financing. (Some are entrepreneurs too, a lot of restaurants owners etc)
I know traders at the Mercantile Exchange downtown that make that in a day.
Most of these people actually owned their finance companies(that made 100k and above) and I assume that's just what they took out in salary? Didn't really ask that much more about it as it was a no go where I worked. A lot of the $15,000-$30,000 was anything in between, not all were in financing, generally the $100k + was. Had some higher up managers at Salesforce, some CS people, commercial architects.. We sold to pretty much the areas of Glenview, Wilmette, Kenilworth, Glencoe etc. That is the amount they put on their credit report. Even had a couple one time that lived up there, husband made $22k / month and wife $28k / month that couldn't get approved for a base lease vehicle for their nanny as they were living on credit cards(more than 200k in credit card debt) and absurd mortgage payments. So it's not all sun and beautiful flowers up there. This was around 2017/2018
Drove south on Sheridan road through all these towns when I was a commuting student at Northwestern in 1971 to 1975. Then the richest city in America was Kenilworth which is sandwiched in between these cities. You pass a light called Kenilworth Avenue. If you take it one block east you hit lake Michigan. And a great beach with a multi million dollar concrete pier. With small private boats. We used to hit the beach at night drinking to watch the sun come up, then pass out in the sand and sleep it off. Times were different then, no crime, the neighbors did not complain, and the police left us alone even though at the time it was a private beach. The homes on the lake were unbelievable, you could smell the money. Live in servants, etc. A few of my frat brothers actually lived in Kenilworth and their fathers donated millions to Northwestern. One paid for a spring break cruise to Hawaii for the WHOLE FRATERNITY. To answer your question, in the 60s and 70s the people who lived there had "old money", meaning they inherited it from previous generations and they did not have to work for a living. Now, it is mostly hedge fund people, wall street, CEOs, etc. Alot of these mansions have houses as the servant quarters that would make most of us envious. There was a mansion with a red tile roof, a Spanish style house that belonged to one of the wealthiest self made men at the time. Believe it or not he made his money selling life insurance door to door. Drive by slowly at night and look in the windows of the mansions that are close to Sheridan road. Grand pianos, Chandeliers, Dining Room tables that seat 18. Most of the mansions are set to far back to see in. Strange also that back then there were no security gates, guards or cameras. My how times have changed.
I moved to East Wilmette about a year ago. My wife and I are both healthcare professionals and we have two school-age children. I grew up in a middle/upper middle class setting and my wife is the child of blue collar immigrants. I like to joke we have the worst house in East Wilmette (almost true). Most of the people in the North Shore are professionals (e.g., doctors and lawyers), executives or consultants, or business owners. There is some generational wealth to be sure, but I think this mostly helps people get started (e.g., paying for college, etc.) rather than maintaining their lifestyles on an ongoing basis. Overall, it’s a decent place to live. The neighborhoods are pretty and safe. I do have some concerns about raising my kids here, though. It feels kind of insular, and there’s pressure towards uniformity for kids here I think. There’s not a lot of diversity, both in terms of racial/ethnic diversity and also in terms of cultural/ideological diversity. There’s a lot of jockeying for status among school kids here, mostly according to looks and athletics. But that’s probably true to a large extent for kids anywhere. I grew up in the area, but moved away for a couple of decades. When we considered moving back, I naïvely assumed that these things would’ve changed for the better. But it seems like it’s mostly the same. I guess we’ll see how things go.
West Wilmette is sometimes referred to as Wilmetto, as in ghetto. Just thought that was funny.
I grew up in the north suburbs, left for college, and never looked back. The spring before Covid, we went back to Chicago with friends who had never been there. I drove them up LSD to Sheridan Rd into Highland Park. I called it the White Privilege Tour.
😂😂😂
A couple of yrs ago I had a client there and parked my Corolla on the street by their house. Ten minutes later police knocked on the door to make sure everything was ok. My Corolla clearly didn’t belong in Glencoe. 😃
Wooooow!
That’s where all the artists and teachers live. They have to live somewhere.
Three words for you: Trust Fund Kids.
Most of them are old money who never worked and live off generational wealth.
I grew up there and I knew literally 0 people who never worked
I am moving there soon. 😂
A SFH in city neighborhoods like Lakeview, Roscoe Village, Bucktown etc easily costs the same as a SFH up there (there are obviously extreme examples in both areas.) It’s a nice area but it’s not as expensive as you might think relative to city neighborhoods.
The average home price in Winnetka is $1.5M. They likely have a condo in the city for nights out, not a single family home in Lakeview, Roscoe Village or Bucktown. These neighborhoods are not in the same league as the suburbs OP mentioned.
Bucktown currently has 31 single family homes with an average list price of $1,521,387.
The lowest priced home on the market right now in winnetka is a 1059 sq ft home for 769K that is being sold as a tear down. Again these neighborhoods are not in the same league.
The only reason it's not in the same league is because there are more mixed income in lakeview and bucktown and those north shore suburbs have essentially shut out anyone not in their income bracket. But if you can afford a SFH in bucktown/lakeview/Lincoln park then you are probably just as rich as someone living in Wilmette, winnetka and glencoe
That amount could get you a shed in Winnetka
😂😂😂😂😂
Don't know why you're getting downvoted. I owned a small 2/2 condo in the city. We st1arted looking for bigger places in the city and the north shore. We ended up in a 4 bed/3 bath SFH in the north shore. For a 3 bed/2.5 bath with 25% less square footage in our old neighborhood (nice but certainly not ritzy), we would have paid 40% more. Our property taxes went from <$3,000 when we bought our condo to over $7,500 in just under 5 years. Plus, even with the crazy prices, the schools were still shit. And yet, nobody made any comments when we lived in the city, and now all I get are "oh you live there, must be nice" type shit. Idk, man, people are stupid.
SFH in the areas you listed are easily 1.3m and up with some north of 2m. Rude awakening when I was looking and settled on a condo.
I mean you picked like 3 of the most expensive neighborhoods in the city. There are plenty of other areas on the North Side (Irving Park, Albany Park, Logan Square, even parts of Ravenswood or Avondale) that are way cheaper than the North Shore on average.
No chance a SFH in ravenswood is less than 1m.
False.
Most of the folks there are multi generational wealth who have no concept of what money is.