Is Naperville as Expensive and Booshy as People Make it out to be?

Is Naperville as Expensive as People Say?

It's no secret Naperville is a great place to live. It's been ranked the number one place to live in the country and always ranks high in schools, parks, and safety. That said Naperville also gets a lot of hate for being booshy, and being expensive. I recently was reading a forum where someone asked if they would like Naperville and several people went on long rants about how the average housing stock is 500K plus and how you should expect to be the bottom man on the totem pole and a second class citizen at those prices.

Is Naperville Really Expensive?

While Naperville is a pricey suburb, all the Western Suburbs are pretty pricey. The north shore suburbs even more so, so why Naperville gets hated on so much for this is beyond me. Sure property taxes are incredibly high in Naperville, but there's lots of great housing which would perfectly fit a 4-5 person family for well under $300,000. More recently, even some houses in White Eagle, the "fancy" neighborhood with the golf course going for under 500k which is unheard of. 

If you're on a tight budget or looking for something more affordable that's totally understandable and there's some great bargains just minutes from Naperville in Bolingbrook and/or Aurora, some of which actually feeds into Naperville schools. That said don't be scared off by people talking about how pricey Naperville is. There's actually a lot of single family home housing stock for well under 300k, and very nice and spacey townhomes for less than that.