Buying a Home in 2026
I honestly love the questions my clients, friends, and family send me. “Okay, no judgment, but are we actually going to be able to afford a house in Naperville?” “Is this property tax bill insane, or am I just being dramatic?” “Can you be honest with me? I’m falling in love with this house, but what the heck would resale look like if we needed to move again in 2 years? Or 5?”
These are my favorite kinds of conversations because they are usually happening before somebody has a polished plan. They’re still trying to make sense of what they want, what they can afford, what they are willing to compromise on, and whether the version of homeownership they are imagining would actually make their life better.
It is completely okay to be slightly panicking about buying a home.
I have watched people spend a gazillon hours comparing a 1960s ranch in Maplebrook to a newer house in Ashbury before they have any actual sense of what their budget even looks like. I say that with no judgment. The details are genuinely different. The home, the location, the taxes, the schools, the resale conversation, the amount of updating you are signing yourself up for, and the life you could have in each place are all different.
Buying a home is rarely just a decision between 3 bedrooms and 4. Instead, we’re talking about usually a pile of quieter questions underneath bed/bath count.
Will we still like our life if this monthly payment is technically possible but stretches us too thin?
Are we looking near Downtown Naperville because we would actually spend time there every week, or because we like “the idea” of being near it?
Do we even understand the practical differences between i.e. District 203 & District 204, or do we need help figuring out what we are truly prioritizing?
Will commuting from the Fifth Avenue station make sense for us? Is Route 59 easier? Does living south of 75th actually fit our routine, or are we just trying to force a version of Naperville that looks good on paper?
Are we saying we want a walkable neighborhood when what we really mean is that we do not want every school drop-off, dinner, grocery run, workout, and social plan to require getting in the car?
This is where a real home search starts for me. Not with a generic checklist. Not with somebody telling you that you need to “act now.” With figuring out what you are actually trying to build.
A Lot of Loud Home-buying Advice Out There
I’m obviously not anti-homebuying content. I post about real estate, talk about it with friends. I’ve just spent enough time in this business to know that there are things people should understand before they start looking or taking any kind of advice seriously.
There’s a big difference between general advice and advice that applies to your life.
“Wait for rates to drop.”
“You need 20% down.”
“Buy now before prices go up again.”
“There’s nothing good on the market.”
“Everything good is gone in 24 hours.”
“Buy the fixer-upper.” …. “Absolutely never buy the fixer-upper.”
Goodness it’s exhausting.
I understand why people feel behind before they have even begun.
Maybe you are early in your career, maybe you have a wedding coming up, or baby number 2 is somewhere in the near future. Maybe you’re trying to decide whether a parent may need to live with you someday. Or you’re financially capable of buying but feel emotionally unready to take on the responsibility. Maybe the opposite is true and you are more than ready to move, but the payment still makes you want to stare at a wall for a few minutes.
All of this belongs in our conversations. So this is also where the broad social-media advice can just feel silly to me, especially when it’s delivered as though every buyer is working with the same needs, timeline, family structure, career path, risk tolerance, commute, and wish list.
My goal at Home with Amanda Lee is never to convince you that you are “ready” just because the market says you should be or it’s an optimal time to buy. My job is to understand what YOU need, what YOU want, what would make YOUR daily life easier, and what would need to be true for buying to feel grounded and manageable for YOU!
A home should add something to your life. It should not make the rest of it feel smaller.
Pre-Approval, Yes, But Make It Useful
Before we get serious about touring homes, I do always recommend talking with a lender and getting pre-approved.
A preapproval involves a good lender reviewing your income, assets, debt, credit, and down-payment options, then helping you understand the type of loan & general purchase range that may make sense for you. I have lenders I trust & am always happy to connect you with someone who will take the time to explain all of the details.
But please note: the lender’s maximum approval amount is not automatically your ideal search budget.
When I begin working with buyers, I care much more about the actual monthly picture. We look beyond the list price and talk through principal & interest, property taxes, homeowners insurance, HOA dues when they apply, mortgage insurance depending on your down payment, utilities, maintenance, and the general cost of owning a home rather than sending rent to a landlord every month.
There are homes that are technically within a buyer’s pre-approved range but would make the rest of their life feel overly constrained. That does not mean the home is impossible. It just means we need to be honest about what the payment leaves room for after closing.
You can totally buy a home without putting 20% down, depending on your finances & loan program. 20% is not some magical threshold that divides serious buyers from everyone else. It can affect mortgage insurance, loan terms, the strength of an offer in some situations, and how much cash you have left after closing. The conversation simply needs more nuance than “you are ready” or “you are not.”
“We Want Naperville” Is a Starting Point
People often come to me and say, “We want Naperville.”
Okay. But where?
Naperville has a lot of different versions of itself.
I grew up in Downtown Naperville, close enough that the Riverwalk, Nichols Library, downtown restaurants, and an ordinary Saturday errand could all become part of the same afternoon (I am forever grateful my parents gave us this version of childhood). This shaped how I think about a town, honestly. I notice whether people use their downtown; whether kids can walk places. I notice whether there are actual reasons to leave the house besides running errands.
Some buyers want that proximity. They want to walk to Downtown Naperville, the Riverwalk, the library, restaurants, coffee shops, parks, and possibly the Fifth Avenue train station.
Some buyers are specifically drawn to East Highlands, older homes near the downtown core, blocks with mature trees and front porches, or areas where access to Highlands Elementary & Naperville Central matters to their family.
Other buyers would rather have more square footage, a bigger yard, newer construction, a 3-car garage, or a pool and clubhouse neighborhood. They may be looking closely at Ashbury, White Eagle, Tall Grass, Stillwater, South Pointe, or another South Naperville subdivision where the home itself and the neighborhood amenities make more sense for how they want to live.
And there are plenty of people who do not care whether they’re 12 minutes from downtown as long as getting to I-88, Route 59, daycare, work, or the grocery store does not become a daily test of patience. Fair.
Neither search is more correct. They are just different.
There are also buyers who are not as attached to a specific Naperville address as they are to a particular school district, commute pattern, price point, or home style. So sometimes the right fit falls within Lisle, Aurora, Warrenville, Bolingbrook, Plainfield, or another nearby community while still aligning with the priorities that originally brought them to Naperville.
That is why I do not reduce a search to one town name, one map circle, or a school-district label on Zillow.
A Naperville address can mean radically different things depending on where the house sits, what the lot feels like, what your commute looks like in real life, how the home lives, what the tax bill is doing, and whether you are buying for your life now or trying to give yourself room for a future version of it.
The same thing happens when we widen the map, too.
Some buyers begin convinced they want Naperville and then realize Glen Ellyn’s in-town feel, older homes, tree canopy, and proximity to the Prairie Path make more sense.
Others find themselves pulled toward Wheaton because of the variety of housing, the downtown, the access to Metra, or the possibility of finding more home for the money in certain pockets.
Downers Grove can be incredibly appealing for buyers who want train access, charming block-by-block differences, and a more layered range of homes.
Elmhurst often comes into the conversation for people who want a faster route toward the city, more activity, and proximity to O’Hare.
Hinsdale speaks to buyers who care deeply about architecture, community, schools, and being close to the city without actually living in it. Clarendon Hills & Western Springs can offer some of that same appeal on a smaller scale.
Then there are buyers whose search stretches farther west toward Geneva, St. Charles, Batavia, Wayne, Elgin, or the surrounding Fox Valley communities because they want more land, a different pace, a historic downtown, or a home that feels less tied to the immediate Chicago commute.
Sometimes we look around and land right back in Naperville because, yes, that is where they genuinely want to be.
The point is not to force the answer. The point is to find it with your eyes open!
A quick school-boundary note: A neighborhood name, listing description, or portal label is never enough to confirm school assignment. I always recommend verifying the exact property address directly with the school district before making a decision around schools.
Looking Past the Listing Photos
Oh boy can a listing have beautiful photography… Showing off a designer kitchen, gorgeous light fixtures, a floor plan that looks excellent, perfect staging, and a backyard photographed at exactly the right hour.
It can still also be overpriced.
Part of my job is helping you separate the feeling of a listing from the actual opportunity in front of you.
I look at what’s sold nearby, what is currently competing for the same buyer, how the house compares in condition, size, layout, whether the location has a real impact on value, how the taxes fit into the bigger picture, and what resale could realistically look like down the road.
Sometimes a house has all the right finishes but is sitting on a road you may not love, has a layout that will make daily life annoying, or is priced as though the seller has not noticed the comparable sales from the last few months.
Other times, one of the most interesting homes on the market is the one that does not photograph particularly well. Maybe the kitchen is dated or the furniture is doing the home absolutely no favors. Maybe somebody used an oddly blue flash in every room. But the lot is excellent. The block is better. The bones are there. The price gives you room to make it your own without immediately feeling underwater.
Those are often the ones worth seeing in person!! Of course, I am not your home inspector, attorney, or lender. I work with people who are excellent at those jobs, and I want you to have the right people around you. My role as your real estate agent is to help you ask better questions, notice the things that matter in resale, think through what is cosmetic versus expensive, understand what could be annoying but manageable, and recognize when something deserves a much bigger pause.
You deserve an agent who will be honest with you.
When you choose meeeee as your real estate agent in Naperville, or anywhere else like Downers Grove, Wheaton, Glen Ellyn, Hinsdale, Geneva, St. Charles, Wayne — basically anywhere else across Chicagoland — you are working directly with me. I do not run buyers through a giant team pipeline where you are handed from person to person once the conversation gets real.
I am the person reviewing the listing, pulling the relevant comps, talking through the strategy, answering your texts, going to the showing, and telling you when I think a house deserves a closer look.
I am also the person who will tell you when I do not think it does.
My Approach Working With Buyers
There is no cookie-cutter version of a home search. There just ain’t.
I ask a lottttttt of questions early on because bedrooms, bathrooms, and a price cap only tell me so much!
I want to understand how you live now and what you are trying to make easier.
Do you work from home and need an office that does not become the dining room whenever someone comes over?
Are you commuting downtown every day, twice a week, or not at all?
Do you want to be the house where everybody gathers for holidays?
Are your parents nearby in Naperville, Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, Downers Grove, Elmhurst, Lombard, Hinsdale, or another suburb?
Is a first-floor bedroom appealing because you like the flexibility, or because you are thinking about parents, kids, long-term accessibility, or a future version of your family?
All of that matters. And of course it’s totally okay if you do not know every answer in the beginning, too.
Sometimes you think you need the giant kitchen until we walk through a few homes and you realize natural light matters more.
Sometimes you think you need to be within walking distance of downtown until you see what a larger yard, quieter street, or better layout could give you elsewhere.
Sometimes the first house you see makes your priorities very clear. Sometimes it takes 12.
The first few showings are not wasted if you do not write an offer. They are information for us! They help us learn what you care about most, what you cannot unsee, what you are willing to compromise on, and what would quietly bother you after the excitement wears off.
A good search, in my opinion, should have room to change shape over time.
Questions Buyers Ask Me All the Time
“How much money do I actually need to buy a home in Naperville or DuPage County?”
The answer is more than just a down payment number haha. We need to understand your down payment, look at estimated closing costs, etc. I never want a buyer to put every available dollar into the house and then feel panicked the first time something breaks.
A lender is who will help us get specific, but I will also help you think through the real-life side of the number. A monthly payment can be approved by a lender and still not feel good to you.
“Should I wait for mortgage rates to drop?”
I do not think anyone should make a major life decision based solely on somebody’s confidence about what rates will do next.
Instead I’m encouraging my clients to talk about your timeline needs, what savings look like or could look like in 6-12 mo, lease thoughts, family plans, local inventory realities, monthly payment comfort, and the kind of home you would realistically buy now versus later. Sometimes waiting does make sense. Sometimes people spend 2 years waiting for the exact market condition that would make them feel perfectly comfortable, while the homes they would have actually loved keep selling around them.
So what I’m trying to say is there is no universal answer unfortunately.
“When should I start looking at homes?”
Earlier than you think! You do not need to be ready to write an offer next weekend to start a conversation with me! That’s probably one of the biggest pieces of advice I can share widely with you. I would much rather help you make a plan 18 months in advance, before you ever plan on wanting to move, than have you call after you’ve found a house online, fallen in love, and suddenly need to understand everything by Monday haha.
Starting early does not mean committing. It gives you context and allows us to make a customized game plan for you!
“How do I really understand the value difference between Naperville, Wheaton, Downers Grove, Glen Ellyn, Elmhurst, Hinsdale, and everywhere else?”
We look at more than a median sale price.
Location value is made up of the town, yes, but also the exact block, school assignment, lot size, architectural style, condition, road exposure, access to the train, walkability, local amenities, buyer demand, and how many comparable homes are actually available in that segment of the market.
Two houses can have the same price, square footage, and bedroom count while being completely different purchases.
“Can you just tell me whether a house is overpriced?”
Lol, yes. This is one of my favorite questions honestly.
I cannot promise what a home will appraise for or predict exactly how many offers will appear. But what I will always do for you is look at the relevant sales, active competition, condition, location, layout, buyer demand, and the things the listing description is strategically skipping over. Then I will always share my expertise & two cents with you (usually in novel-long messages, but ya girl is thorough, what can I say?)
Send Me the Messy Text
You do NOT need to come to me with a beautifully organized plan.
You can say, “We think we want Naperville, maybe Glen Ellyn, but one of us takes the train, we have a dog, we want a yard, and I have zero clue whether our budget is at all realistic.”
You can say, “Amanda, our lease ends next May, and I do not want to spend every night spiraling on Zillow.”
You can say, “We found a house and I need you to tell me whether I am being dramatic.”
That’s enough to begin chatting, qts.
I help buyers throughout Naperville, Glen Ellyn, Wheaton, Downers Grove, Elmhurst, Hinsdale, Clarendon Hills, Lombard, Lisle, Oak Brook, Burr Ridge, La Grange, Western Springs, Lemont, Geneva, St. Charles, Batavia, Wayne, Elgin, the North Shore, Chicago, and overall the broader Chicagoland area.
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