Are You Ready to Buy a House? (What Getting Ready Actually Looks Like When Your Paycheck Isn't the Same Every Month)

Someone I know is thinking about buying. He is moving in with his girlfriend, they want a bigger family, and when I asked him what he actually wants, he did not say a number. He said he wants a house big enough for that family that does not break his bank, and something he can hand down to his kids

The Best Pizza in the Southwest Suburbs (and Why Almost All of It Is Tavern Style)

Ask somebody out here where to get pizza and you will get a fast answer, a specific one, and no hesitation at all. Ask two people and you will get an argument. What you will almost never get is a debate about style, and that surprises people who move here from somewhere else. They arrive expecting C

How to Find Comps for a Property Tax Appeal (and What Actually Counts as Comparable)

A comp is a property enough like yours that a stranger would price the two the same way. For a tax appeal you generally want at least four of them, they come from your county's own property records rather than a real estate website, and pulling them costs nothing but your evening. That last part mat

Moving to Lockport, IL: Should You Buy a Home Here?

Lockport is the only town on my list where you can stand on a street that was laid out around a canal lock from 1848 and be looking at a subdivision that did not exist four years ago. That is not a slogan. It is the actual reason the numbers in this article behave strangely, and it is the reason a t