We buy houses in Oak Park, including the century-old ones.

Century-old houses, and what the inspection finds

Much of Oak Park was built between the 1890s and the 1920s: frame Victorians, Prairie-influenced foursquares, brick bungalows, and two-flats and courtyard buildings on the east and south sides. It is some of the best housing stock in the region and some of the most expensive to keep current.

The inspection report is where Oak Park deals come apart. Knob and tube behind plaster that nobody wants to open, galvanized supply lines, a service that never got upsized, asbestos on old ductwork, a slate or tile roof with a five-figure repair rather than a four-figure one, and a foundation that has moved the way hundred-year-old foundations do. Retail buyers fall in love with the woodwork and fall back out of love in week three, which is why these listings often go under contract twice before they close.

None of that stops us. We are buying the house in the condition it is in and pricing the work into the number up front, rather than agreeing on a price and then renegotiating after an inspection we should have anticipated.

Historic districts and the review that comes with them

Oak Park has two large historic districts, the Frank Lloyd Wright-Prairie School of Architecture district and the Ridgeland-Oak Park district, along with individually designated landmarks. If your property sits in one of them, exterior work generally goes through the Village's historic preservation review and its architectural review guidelines before it can be done.

For a seller that matters in one specific way: it lengthens every timeline on a project house and narrows the pool of buyers willing to take it on. A rehabber who can do what they like elsewhere has to do something more careful here. We factor that into the number rather than discovering it afterwards, and historic status is not a reason we walk away from a house.

Two-flats, condos and landlords who are done

Oak Park has far more small multifamily and condominium stock than people assume. Both come with their own friction. A two-flat with tenants is not something most retail buyers will touch, and a condo sale can stall on an association with a special assessment, a thin reserve, or a delinquency rate that makes the building unwarrantable for a conventional lender.

We buy occupied, month to month or on a lease, and we take the lease as it stands. You do not serve notice, you do not run an eviction, and you do not deliver the property vacant. Oak Park's rental registration and inspection obligations become ours after closing. More on tenant occupied property

The local mechanics

Cook County bills property taxes a year in arrears and reassesses on a three year cycle by township, so the bill on the table is not the bill the next owner will get, and the proration at closing is easy to read wrong. Oak Park's own municipal transfer tax is one of the higher ones in the region and on a normal sale it falls on the seller, which is a real line item in any comparison against a listing. Work out the stamps on your price

On anything we buy, we cover the seller's side of the stamps and the title company's fees, and we confirm the Village's transfer stamp and final water reading requirements for your address before we commit to a closing date rather than after.

Our honest read on Oak Park

Oak Park is the town where the honest answer is most often list it, and we will give you that answer with the comps attached. Where a cash sale earns its keep here is condition, estates, occupied buildings, and any sale that needs to stay off the MLS.

See exactly how the process works