The hunt

The hunt to find our first home took us on quite a journey throughout the city.  I work on the south side and as I’ve stated before we knew that we wanted to focus our house hunt primarily on that area.  But it’s a big area and there were many neighborhoods that we had never been to before.  Sure, I’d heard of Pullman but I’d never been down there.   East Side?  Where was that?  Isn’t Lake Michigan the east side of Chicago?  As it turns out, yes, some parts of the east side are the lake but there is also this neighborhood on the southeast side of the city called East Side.  It’s been known to be called the Alphabet neighborhood because all of its streets are letters of the alphabet.  It runs along the lake and bumps up against the Indiana border. 

After many Trulia searches, we came up with 15 properties in several different south side neighborhoods and set out on a Saturday to explore the neighborhoods.  Our tour took us to Fuller Park near U.S. Cellular Field, Bronzeville, Woodlawn, South Shore, South Chicago, East Side and Pullman.  One observation we made was how much the homes on the south side in many ways mirror the homes on the north side of the city. We found many two and three flat apartment buildings, bungalows and two story homes with porches.  This city is a big one and even though we may be divided into north side and south side, it’s amazing how similar the city is laid out with all the tree lined neighborhoods set out on the grid.  We were really impressed with historic Pullman and imagined living in one of the cute rowhouses.  We made a stop at Calumet Fisheries on 95^th Street and had the most amazing fried seafood.  We drove through Calumet Park along the lake and sat at the beach with our seafood.  It was a gorgeous day and being so close to the lake was such a treat.  One of my absolute favorite things about living in Chicago is Lake Michigan.  I drive along Lake Shore Drive every day and am constantly amazed at the beauty of the lake. 

We came home that day and were pretty sure that we wanted to focus our hunt on Bronzeville.  We had been looking there for a period of time and the search that day had solidified that that was where we wanted to be.  It seems to be an up and coming neighborhood and is very close to downtown which was appealing to us.  It was a little further from the lake than we were hoping but still not too far away.  However, there was one other area that had stood out to us that day and had peaked our curiosity.  The South Chicago neighborhood bumps up against a huge area that is awaiting big things to happen to it.  Along the lake, what used to be known as the U.S. Steel site has been cleared and a major development has been proposed to be built on the area known as Chicago Lakeside Development.  It will be a combination of retail spaces, high-rise condominiums, park space and more.  Also, Lake Shore Drive has been extended all the way down towards 93^rd Street.  It is an area that feels to be bursting with future potential.  We were intrigued by this neighborhood that is so close to the lake and has so many empty homes available to buy.  In comparison to some of the other neighborhoods we had visited that day, it seemed that the people of South Chicago who did live there had pride in living there. Lawns were moved. Flowers were planted. People cared. I really fell in love with the canopy of trees that seemed to cover the streets.  So we saved South Chicago to do further research on.  Will this development happen? Wouldn't it be exciting to be so close to it? 

After a few false starts on properties in Bronzeville, we started seriously looking at listings in South Chicago.  We found one that we decided to check out.  It was close to the development site that we had seen that Saturday we traveled around the neighborhoods.  The price was appealing and it wasn’t a foreclosure or a short sale.  Not that we weren’t opposed at looking at them.  We had been looking at a lot of them.  But they seem to come with so many obstacles and unless you had the amount to buy the property outright in cash, we knew that trying to find a bank to finance a foreclosure or short sale was going to be challenging – more on that to come!  We went and looked at the house in South Chicago and were just stunned.  We had found our home.