Dolton, Illinois.
Typical home $156,702 (+4.9% in a year), asking rent $2,327 (-1.0%). Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$447 (+119%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,255 +5%
- $149,446$156,702 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $18,791 +14%
- $137,911$156,702 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.
- Dolton$822
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 27 years.
Typical home values in Dolton, IL rose 4.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Dolton, IL fell 1.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Dolton runs $1,088/mo less than renting one. The gap peaked at $1,310 in Apr 2026.
That is $1,239 a month against $2,327 rent: a $822 mortgage payment, plus $249 property tax and $168 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Dolton
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$1,239
- Renting$2,327
- Mortgage only$822
Property tax · $249/mo 1.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cook County, IL
Insurance & upkeep · $168/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 Dolton, Cook County, Illinois
Dolton is a village of 21,426 people in Cook County. Half its households earn more than $57,887 a year and half less, against $83,498 across Cook County; 22% of its people live below the poverty line. 73% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 27% are rented. Unemployment in Dolton was 11.1% in August 2026, and Cook County had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then transport and warehouses.
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. Dolton is a village in Cook County, on the south side of the Chicago area. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and the typical home value sits well below the typical rent, which is a notable gap. Household incomes run below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than is typical.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by transport, warehouses and utilities, shops and manufacturing. Some of the largest workplaces in Dolton are Countryside Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Menards and Ardagh Glass Packaging Dolton. Unemployment has risen over the past year, and commutes tend to be fairly long.
Things to do. Most outings mean a longer drive into Chicago. The Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum of Natural History are museums among the best known in the city, and Millennium Park is a garden in the heart of downtown. Winters are cold and snowy, with warm summers, so museum visits suit the colder months well.
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- 7,820households
- 23%of adults have a degree
- 22%below the poverty line
- 31 mintypical commute
- 11%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Cook County had 2,594,810 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 64°. About 28 inches of snow and 42 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Park Forest weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Dolton
- Countryside Nursing and Rehabilitation CenterNursing homes185
- Menards"home centers"142
- Ardagh Glass Packaging DoltonGlass packaging containers manufacturing105
- Clean Harbors82
- Holland ManufacturingCrucibles, graphite, magnesite, chrome, silica, or other nonclay materials, manufacturing68
- Clean Harbors Environmental Services Inc 47IL48
- Patco ProductsFillings, cake or pie, manufacturing40
- Parsec - Dolton YardSwitching services, railroad38
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 11 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 797 people in all. 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 wavesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Dolton’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Cook County and the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
Dolton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Dolton$156,702
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Dolton listings, and the typical home goes pending in 41 days — the market is heating up.
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.
- Dolton28.65%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Dolton41
- United States24
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Dolton122
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Dolton28
Zip codes with a Dolton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Dolton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.