Chicago - Aug 2019

Dinner at Pacific Standard Time

Like true house hunting champs, we again proved that we can find a house in one weekend!  Before the weekend, we contacted an agent and let her know what we were looking for and then she lined up a bunch of appointments for us to power through!

We flew into Chicago on Thursday night, arriving late, and stayed at the Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile.  On Friday, we both worked out of the hotel and that evening, we had dinner with Keith's new boss, Luke, and his wife, Chantel, at Pacific Standard Time restaurant where we shared several plates - the food was yummy.

On Saturday, Keith grabbed coffee from the cafe downstairs and then we knocked out an hour workout.  Keith then got breakfast at the cafe and we got ready for our first day of the house search.  We had identified 12 houses in Humboldt Park, Ukranian Village, Wicker Park, and Bucktown.  It was a power tour of each, and we wrapped the day at a Starbucks to eliminate the contenders.  We knocked out all but two and selected 9 for the following day as well as two re-visits from the Saturday.  The agent was surprised at how quickly we made decisions!  After the agent left, we decided to walk back past every house to really get a better idea of streets, neighborhoods, and retail in each area.  That walk took about three hours but was successful - not only did we knock off two houses but we also decided to exclusively focus on Bucktown.  We Ubered back to the hotel to freshen up and then went back to Bucktown for dinner - we selected The Bristol and made an OpenTable reservation while in the car - we were pleased that we could get a reservation at the last minute even though it was packed when we arrived.  Dinner was delicious - we shared the endive salad, watermelon salad, mussels, and the cacio e pepe.  Following dinner, we walked a couple of blocks to 6 Degrees Bar where Keith's brother Graham was at a party - he had driven to Chicago for his friend Patrick's 50th birthday weekend.  It was only 30 minutes with Graham before we went back to the hotel wrecked after a successful day.

Met Graham at 6 Degrees Bar

Sunday morning repeated Saturday except we Ubered to Bucktown to meet the agent.  We were allocated 20 minutes per house today vs the 12 minutes the day before so we really got to know the houses better.  The last two of the day were the re-visits from the day before, then went back to Starbucks for a final review.  Shawna led the process of elimination discussion and we landed on a house - and funny enough it was the first house we saw the first day!  We aligned on price conceptually but the agent needed to go back to the office to do some comp analysis.  We were going to grab dinner but Shawna checked out the club lounge and realized that the soup and other items were enough - so we made that our dinner and stayed in the room the rest of the evening, signing the offer.  A counter arrived overnight, so on Monday we were under contract.

Our Soon to be New Home

Shawna worked from the hotel all day Monday while Keith went to his new office to meet some of the team - with each of us Ubering separately to Midway to catch a 7pm flight back to Phoenix.  A successful weekend!