My practice area focuses on real estate tax sales and tax deeds in Cook County (Chicago and surrounding suburbs) Illinois.

Property taxes are crazy in "Crook County" sorry I meant to say "Cook County" Illinois. 

I lucked out that the community found my cooking irresistible.

Wasn't Terry the short order cook at Merlot's in Bontemps?

@David Cook Our market currently is like buying an 60% Oil / 40% inverse S&P 500 index ETF we tend to track relative to those factors (at least that’s the commonly held perception).

Here in Illinois, Cook County (which includes chicago) is an absolute nightmare for landlord laws.But if you go outside of the county to the "collar counties", they're much more reasonable.

But be very cautious in your screening because Cook county has one of the worst set of landlord laws I know.Evictions can take up to 5 or 6 months depending on the time of the year (its closer to 6 during the winter months - apparently the govt is ok letting people steal from other people during the holidays).I haven't had any yet but have had to get awfully creative (i.e. cash for keys and forgiving the back rent) to avoid a couple already.

I checked on Cook County tax portal, neither belongs to the city.

Bring your lunch to work, cook dinners rather than eating out, skipping buying coffee at the local coffee shop?

Despite what some people here have said, I think you're on the right track and I think it would be a mistake to rush into a bad deal because you're impatient.Have you heard of the Cook County Land Bank's Homebuyer Direct Program?