Crystal Lake, Illinois.
Typical home $381,790 (+4.4% in a year), asking rent $1,969 (+5.9%). Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,138 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $16,069 +4%
- $365,721$381,790 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $101,710 +36%
- $280,081$381,790 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Crystal Lake$2,004
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Crystal Lake, IL rose 4.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Crystal Lake, IL rose 5.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Crystal Lake runs $1,195/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,211 in Jan 2025.
That is $3,164 a month against $1,969 rent: a $2,004 mortgage payment, plus $751 property tax and $409 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Crystal Lake
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$3,164
- Renting$1,969
- Mortgage only$2,004
Property tax · $751/mo 2.36% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for McHenry County, IL
Insurance & upkeep · $409/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Crystal Lake, McHenry County, Illinois
Crystal Lake is a city of 40,269 people in McHenry County. Half its households earn more than $108,418 a year and half less, against $104,802 across McHenry County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Crystal Lake was 4.8% in August 2026, and McHenry County had 1.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Crystal Lake is a city where most homes are lived in by their owners, and household incomes run a little above the county's. Residents are of middle age on the whole, and a four-year degree is common among adults. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm summer days and the year has a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, professional and business services, and shops also employing a good number. Among the largest workplaces in Crystal Lake are Crystal Lake CCSD 47 Schools, General Kinematics, which makes sieves and screening equipment, and Target. Commutes are fairly long, and some residents work from home.
Things to do. Moraine Hills State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away, as is the Woodstock Opera House, a theatre. The Illinois Railway Museum is also a short drive away. For a longer outing, Geneva Lake is a longer drive away and offers time by the water.
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- 14,806households
- 42%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. McHenry County had 98,058 jobs in 2025, 1.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 35 inches of snow and 39 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Crystal Lake 4NW weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Crystal Lake
- Crystal Lake CCSD 47School district1,068FTE
- Chsd 155School district683FTE
- General KinematicsSieves and screening equipment, general purpose-type, manufacturing316
- Curran Contracting CompanyGrading, highway, road, street and airport runway265
- TargetDiscount department stores236
- Jewel Food StoresSupermarkets and other grocery stores205
- City of Crystal LakeCriminal investigation offices, government192
- TechnipaqBags made by laminating or coating combinations of purchased plastics, foil and paper175
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 36 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,574 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of Crystal LakeRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Crystal Lake’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on McHenry County and the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
Crystal Lake home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Crystal Lake$381,790
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Crystal Lake listings, and the typical home goes pending in 14 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Crystal Lake32.36%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Crystal Lake14
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Crystal Lake155
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Crystal Lake66
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Crystal Lake$353,826
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Crystal Lake100.80%
Zip codes with a Crystal Lake address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Crystal Lake — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Crystal Lake
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60014 | Crystal Lake | 48,590 | $1,963 | $368,086 |
| 60012 | Crystal Lake | 12,368 | — | $486,409 |