A Lake County, IL Real Estate Agent Who Knows Every Town

Lake County is not one market. Tax rates run from 1.87% in Lake Forest to 2.95% on the Lake side of Buffalo Grove. Some towns have two Metra stations on two lines; five of the fourteen I work most have none at all. School district lines cut through villages, and in Vernon Hills a single address can feed one of four different high schools.

Those are the variables that decide what a house is worth and whether it suits you. An agent who quotes a county-wide median without asking which street you are looking at is guessing.

For buyers, the work happens before the tour: narrowing by district, tax code and commute so we are only looking at houses that fit. For sellers, it is pricing from real comps and a clear read of days on market, not a number designed to win the listing. For renters, it is a market most listing sites cover badly.

I am also an active investor, which means I underwrite a property the way a buyer holding it for ten years would.

The first conversation is about constraints rather than houses: the commute you will actually do, the total monthly number including the tax bill rather than just the mortgage, and what you need the property to do for you over the next five to ten years.

From there we narrow to two or three towns and I tell you what each one asks you to give up, because every one of them asks for something. Then we look at houses.

On an offer, you get the comparable set I priced from, a realistic read on what the seller is likely to do, and a cash-to-close figure that includes the closing costs and any municipal transfer tax, which in Lake Forest falls on the buyer and catches people out.

Through attorney review and inspection I stay in the detail, because that is where deals are lost and where credits are won.

That the house is priced above what the comparables support, and what that means for your appraisal.

That the tax bill you are budgeting from reflects the seller's exemptions and not the ones you will have.

That the commute looks fine on a map and is different at 7:15 on a Tuesday.

I would rather talk you out of the wrong house than sell you one. It costs me a transaction and it is the only way this works over a career.

Lake Forest, Lake Bluff, Libertyville, Vernon Hills, Gurnee, Mundelein, Grayslake, Highland Park, Lincolnshire, Lake Zurich, Hawthorn Woods, Deerfield, Buffalo Grove and Long Grove are the towns I know street by street. The town guides on this site cover more than 180 Illinois communities across Lake, Cook, DuPage, Kane, McHenry and Will counties.