Evanston, Illinois.
Typical home $491,476 (+8.6% in a year), asking rent $2,438 (+3.2%). Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,250 (+94%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $39,034 +9%
- $452,442$491,476 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $97,628 +25%
- $393,847$491,476 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.
- Evanston$2,580
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Evanston, IL rose 8.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Evanston, IL rose 3.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Evanston runs $1,449/mo more than renting one — the widest that gap has been in this data.
That is $3,887 a month against $2,438 rent: a $2,580 mortgage payment, plus $781 property tax and $526 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Evanston
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$3,887
- Renting$2,438
- Mortgage only$2,580
Property tax · $781/mo 1.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cook County, IL
Insurance & upkeep · $526/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 Evanston, Cook County, Illinois
Evanston is a city of 78,110 people in Cook County. Half its households earn more than $96,434 a year and half less, against $83,498 across Cook County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 56% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 44% are rented. Unemployment in Evanston was 5.4% 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 professional services.
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. Evanston is a city on the shore of Lake Michigan, just north of Chicago, with a population that is a little younger than the typical American town. Incomes run higher than across Cook County, and an unusually large share of adults hold a four-year degree. Homes are a bit more often lived in by their owners than rented, though renters are a large part of the community too, and winters are cold and snowy while summers turn warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in shops, or in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Among the largest workplaces in Evanston are Northwestern University, Northshore University Healthsystem and Evanston CCSD 65 Schools. A good number of people work from home, and those who commute to jobs elsewhere face a trip of moderate length.
Things to do. Wrigley Field, a well-known ballpark, is a short drive away, as is Lincoln Park, a large city park. For a longer outing, the Art Institute of Chicago is a major art museum, and Millennium Park is a downtown garden with public spaces. Both are a longer drive away.
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- 31,705households
- 70%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 28%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 32° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 34 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Chicago Botanic Garden weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Evanston
- Northwestern UniversityUniversity or college11,742
- Northshore University HealthsystemGeneral hospital6,542FTE
- Evanston CCSD 65School district1,326FTE
- City of EvanstonCity and town managers' offices901
- Presence Saint Francis HospitalGeneral hospital605FTE
- Westminster PlaceRetirement communities, continuing care417
- Evanston Twp HSD 202School district367FTE
- Jewel Food StoresSupermarkets and other grocery stores244
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 44 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 29,342 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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 wavesVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Evanston’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. 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.
Evanston home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Evanston$491,476
- 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 5 Evanston listings, and the typical home goes pending in 11 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Evanston21.95%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Evanston11
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Evanston169
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Evanston77
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Evanston$482,606
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Evanston103.89%
Zip codes with a Evanston address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Evanston — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Evanston
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60201 | Evanston | 43,744 | $2,762 | $579,006 |
| 60202 | Evanston | 32,341 | $1,966 | $405,366 |
| 60203 | Evanston | 4,680 | — | $602,053 |