Is Joliet, IL a Good Place to Live? Moving to Joliet: Taxes, Schools and Commute
Joliet gives you something no single suburb around it can: five different home markets inside one city line. You can buy a 1920s two-story near downtown, a 1960s ranch on the west side, or a brand-new house on the Kendall County edge, and you're still writing your check to the same city. The Metra l
Buying a House With a Well and Septic in Illinois (and Does a Home Inspection Include the Septic?)
Plenty of people live happily on a well and septic, and you can buy one with your eyes open. By the end of this, you'll know what to test, who to call in your county, and what the inspection you're paying for actually covers. Now, here's the catch worth knowing up front. When you buy on village wate
How to Appeal Your Property Taxes in Kendall County, IL (and When Is the Appeal Deadline?)
Getting your assessment right is one of the few tax fights you can win on your own. The form is free. The office is in Yorkville. You don't need a lawyer, and you don't need an appraisal. Here's what you may not realize. Kendall County doesn't give each township its own window. It sets one date for
Kendall County, IL Property Tax Exemptions (and How to Apply for a Homestead Exemption)
An exemption is the easiest money on your tax bill. Nobody argues with you about it. You qualify, you file, and a fixed amount comes off the value your bill is figured on, every year you keep qualifying. Here's what you may not realize. The amount depends on the county, and the county line doesn't c
Do You Need a Village Vehicle Sticker? (and How It's Different From Your License Plate Sticker)
You can find out in about ten seconds whether your town wants money from you every summer, and if it does, you can be done with it for the year before the late fee ever enters the picture. Here's what catches people. Most towns out here killed their sticker program and never told anybody. Orland Par
How Much Are Seller Closing Costs in Illinois? (and What Percentage of the Sale Price Closing Costs Run)
You can know your net before you ever sign a listing agreement. Not a guess, not a percentage somebody threw at you in a kitchen, the actual number, built line by line from things you can look up today. Here's what you may not realize. Selling doesn't work like buying. A buyer writes a check and fee
Moving to Monee, IL: Should You Buy a Home Here?
Monee has eight property tax codes. Eight, in a village of 5,100 people that covers four and a half square miles. Here's what that costs you. Two houses. Same village, same school district, same garbage day. They can still sit about $1,315 a year apart on the tax bill, decided by two invisible lines
Moving to Beecher, IL: Should You Buy a Home Here?
You can buy a house in Beecher and know exactly what your tax rate will be. Not roughly. Exactly. The whole village pays one rate, and that's rare enough out here that it's worth saying out loud. Here's the part that catches people anyway. One parcel in this village owed 92 cents in property tax for
How to Check Internet Availability at an Address (and How to Check Cell Signal Before You Buy)
You can know exactly what internet you'll be able to get at a house before you write the offer, and it takes about twenty minutes at your kitchen table. Here's the part that trips people up. Every map you can check is a claim, not a fact, and the two big ones are wrong in opposite directions. Broadb