Boothie2013 wrote:
Sailorette,
The agent was Katie Kull (they have a ton of agents though, and I've heard good things about the company in general). She was great. We had to fly in for the weekend and got delayed and even then she had a bunch of appointments lined as soon as we arrived. We could have finished the process in 3 hours pretty easily. Basically we just told her our price range and desired areas a few days in advance and she then drove us around and showed them when we got there. She showed us 3 or 4 parts of downtown seeing as we didn't really know where we wanted to be and gave us some plus and minuses of all. Definatly not pushy, we had 3 top choices at the end. The area's I looked at were:
-Streeterville
-Millenium Park area (Lakeshore East or the New Eastside as some call it, this is right across the river from Gleacher/train to Hyde Park is a few blocks away)
-Near West side (more affordable)
-Printers Row/South Loop (more afordable, bigger places in older buildings/slightly closer to Hyde Park and cheaper parking if you want a car)
If you have a family and don't mind being a bit further from Campus slightly North of downtown is a cool area, but has more expensive parts (GoldCoast, NearNorth (cheaper), Lincoln Park). I would avoid Wrigleyville if your not young and partying and probably not going to class.
I don't think you can go wrong with any area in downtown, but I don't know the Suburbs at all, and on the South side/West side anything more than a few miles from the city can be very hit or miss in terms of quality (crime, etc). That said from my impression most people in the full time live in the Millenium Park area and in the end I would say live close to your friends or across the river in Streeterville.
Thanks for the detailed follow-up. I have a husband, no kids, and my office is on N. Wacker. I'm hoping to end up in Lakeshore East/River North to have a convenient commute to both my office and Gleacher, as well as the access to grocery stores that seems to be missing from West Loop. We're hoping to stay car free, and just use Zipcar/iGo as needed.
Did you see any places that had 1 bed + den? DH is also in grad school, and I'm hoping to get an apt with a good office setup that doesn't cost a fortune.
I'll try contacting Katie first, and hope that she's planning to work over the 4th of July weekend!