Thinking about moving to Downers Grove, IL? In this video, we will talk about real estate in Downers Grove, take a tour of the downtown and neighborhood, and highlight some of the great things Downers Grove has to offer.
Homes for Sale in Downers Grove:
https://www.ericandersenhomes.com/locations/homes-for-sale-in-downers-grove-il/
If you’d like to know about some off-market homes for sale in Downers Grove, send me an email and I’ll get those right over to you! eric@eandersenhomes.com.
Things to do in Downers Grove:
https://www.discoverdupage.com/communities/downers-grove/
https://www.dgparks.org/
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Tourism-g35904-Downers_Grove_DuPage_County_Illinois-Vacations.html
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My name is Eric and I’m a REALTOR® in Chicago, Illinois. I specialize in helping out of state newcomers find the perfect home here in Chicago. When I’m not selling homes, I love spending time with my wife and 6 children, serving my congregations (I’m an ordained Lutheran pastor and serve Zion, Summit & Immanuel, Hodgkins), exercising, and making Neapolitan pizza from scratch and baking it in my Ooni wood-fired oven. Despite being a Chicago native, I’m a St. Louis Blues fan (I blame it on my time at the St. Louis Seminary). Recently, we’ve been watching “Titans” on HBO, which is an interesting take on the characters. I’ve almost finished reading “Friday Night Lights. I just have the afterword left, which is interesting—the author returns to Odessa to interview 6 of the players he featured 25 years later.
If you want have questions about moving to Chicago or would like to discuss the real estate market, feel free to reach out! I’d love to hear from you. Email me anytime at eric@eandersenhomes.com.
Eric Andersen, B.A., M.Div.
Owner/Designated Managing Broker, Eric Andersen Homes
📲 Text/Call: 708.674.6725
📩 Email: eric@eandersenhomes.com
Transcript:
Welcome to Downers Grove! In this video, we’re going to talk Downers Grove real estate, tour the area and downtown, and consider some of the great things that Downers Grove has to offer. I’d love to hear from you, so if there’s anything in Downers Grove that I don’t cover in this video that you’d like to know more about, or if you have any requests for me to tour other neighborhoods or questions about real estate, please comment below. Also be sure to subscribe to my channel and turn on notifications so that if I do go through the trouble of making a whole video for you, you won’t miss it. I’m Eric, owner and designated managing broker at Eric Andersen Homes, and Downers Grove is an area where you can get a lot of home and value for your money compared to the surrounding areas. Have a look at the median sale prices in Downers Grove and nearby Hinsdale, Oak Brook, and Naperville. Hinsdale’s median sale price is close to $900,000, Oak Brook is second most expensive at $655,000, and Naperville is third at $430,000. Downers Grove offers the most value of the four, with a median sale price of just about $375,000. Now, all four of these neighborhoods are known for their strong schools and great area amenities. Naperville and Hinsdale have great downtowns, and Oak Brook has all kinds of shopping, dining, and entertainment. It’s not often that you find such great area amenities at a median price point below $400,000, but that’s one of the things that makes Downers Grove such a unique place. Downers has a great downtown, numerous exceptional parks, strong schools, and three Metra commuter train stops in town, with stations on Fairview Avenue, Main Street, and Belmont. You could easily spend double or more for a home in such a nice area, so Downers definitely offers a lot of value for the money. It’s also worth noting that over the past 12 months, 38 homes in Downers Grove have sold for $1,000,000 or more. So there’s definitely a luxury market here, too, and were those homes in Hinsdale, they would cost a lot more money. So regardless of your price point, Downers Grove offers a lot of bang for your buck compared to the surrounding communities. For commuters, Downers Grove is about 25 miles from downtown Chicago, and getting to the city isn’t difficult on account of the train and highways. A few other things to know about the area: Downers Grove is headquarters to Advocate Aurora Health and home to regional satellite offices for Microsoft, MetLife, and State Farm. Downers Grove is the 5th largest area in DuPage County at just over 14.4 square miles, behind only Bartlett, Aurora, Naperville, and Bolingbrook. There are nearly 30 parks and forest preserves in Downers Grove, including Lyman Woods and Maple Grove Forest Preserve, and the National Arbor Day Foundation has recognized Downers Grove as a Tree City USA twenty-eight times. Some notable people from Downers Grove include the late pro wrestler the “Macho Man” Randy Savage, Bob Bryar, former drummer for My Chemical Romance, and the late Bill Novey, former head of special effects at Walt Disney Imagineering. If you’re in Downers Grove, you might want to drive by the home at 4437 Seeley, which has been designated as a Historic Landmark. The home was built in 1862 and was the residence of Pierce Downer, the village’s founder and first settler, for whom the village was named. The area offers a number of events, sites, and things to do. See below for links to Discover DuPage, DG Parks, and Trip Advisor websites, where you can find current information on community events and more. Speaking of links, I also maintain a current list of homes for sale in Downers Grove on my website, which you can also find in the links below. I can also send you some off-market home options for sale in Downers Grove, so if you’d like those, get me your email address and I can send those directly to you. Next, I’d like to highlight a few popular restaurants, and then we’ll take a quick tour of downtown before wrapping up. Pierce Tavern has to be one of my favorite restaurants in all of the western suburbs. My family and I have been there several times, and we’ve yet to have anything that wasn’t awesome. It’s a great place for a date, and all 6 of my kids love it there, too. In fact, they usually twist our arms into taking them to My Special Toy Store across the street from Pierce’s whenever we’re in the area, and they are a great local, independent toy shop. But back to Pierce’s: they have great burgers, their sweet potato fries are amazing, and their pizza is surprisingly good for a place that doesn’t specialize in pizza. Truth be told, they have better pizza than many places that only make pizza. Pierce’s has a wood-fired oven, and their Neapolitan-style Margherita pizza is outstanding. I’d also recommend their wood-fired pretzels. Gotta love those wood-fired ovens. If you’re a pizza aficionado like me and want a more expansive pizza menu or would just like some variety, also be sure to check out Gia Mia, just down the road from Pierce’s in Downtown Downers Grove. Now, I normally like to highlight local, independent places in these videos, and Gia Mia has locations in Geneva, St. Charles, and Wheaton. But their pizza is good enough to warrant me breaking my usual rule, and it’s not like a Starbucks where you find one on every corner—no disrespect to ubiquitous chain. My wife and I love the Starbucks Roastery on the Magnificent Mile, but that place deserves its own video. Angelo’s Pizza in Downers Grove is your more traditional family pizzeria. They also make a decent pizza, though it’s definitely not the gourmet quality of a Pierce’s or a Gia Mia. They serve your standard Chicago thin crust pizza, and they also have pan pizza and a gluten-free crust. Unlike Dan’s Pizza, whose double-decker is one of my suburban favorites, Angelo’s has a fairly expansive menu, including a number of pasta, salad, and sandwich options. Dan’s has gone so far as to cut even the appetizers, though I’m not sure if that’s just due to labor shortages or a more permanent thing. Either way, they have great pizza, and if that’s all they want to offer, I can respect the purity of that. One place that I haven’t been to in Downers but I’ve been meaning to get there is The Baked Apple Breakfast Co., which is a local favorite. Reading the reviews, the Cousin Vinny omelet received a number of favorable mentions. Here’s what a few others had to say about their experience at The Baked Apple: “If I could give them a 10/10 I would!!! This place is amazing, food is delicious, customer service is top-notch, and they truly care about their customers. All the staff is so sweet and made us feel right at home. Would recommend anything on the menu – everything is great!” One other reviewer pointed out that The Baked Apple made Yelp’s Top 100 Places for Brunch in 2019, and he went on to say, “Proud of these local owners who are hard-working and produces honest food that’s lit!” OK, I think that’s just about enough of me talking for now, so let’s have a drive around the area and have a look.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this video. If you’re thinking of buying or selling a home in Downers Grove or looking to relocate to the area, I would love to help. You can find my contact info below, so please reach out anytime. I’m Eric with Eric Andersen Homes here to remove the headache from real estate and provide expert guidance for your next purchase or sale.