Forest Park, Illinois.
Typical home $289,370 (+6.8% in a year), asking rent $1,527 (+4.7%). Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$760 (+100%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $18,496 +7%
- $270,874$289,370 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $49,805 +21%
- $239,565$289,370 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.
- Forest Park$1,519
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 18 years.
Typical home values in Forest Park, IL rose 6.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Forest Park, IL rose 4.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Forest Park runs $762/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $786 in Oct 2023.
That is $2,289 a month against $1,527 rent: a $1,519 mortgage payment, plus $460 property tax and $310 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Forest Park
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$2,289
- Renting$1,527
- Mortgage only$1,519
Property tax · $460/mo 1.91% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Cook County, IL
Insurance & upkeep · $310/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 Forest Park, Cook County, Illinois
Forest Park is a village of 14,339 people in Cook County. Half its households earn more than $77,221 a year and half less, against $83,498 across Cook County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in Cook County was 5.9% in August 2026, and the 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. Forest Park is a village just west of Chicago, with residents who skew somewhat older than the typical American community. Incomes run a little below the county's, and slightly more homes are lived in by their owners than rented, so owners and renters share the streets in fairly even numbers. A majority of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs hovering around freezing, while July brings warm summer days, and the year's rain and melted snow add up to a moderate amount.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in banks, insurance and property. Some of the larger workplaces in the village itself are Chicago NDC, a mail and parcel delivery operation, Ferrara Candy Company Forest Park, which makes jelly candies, and Proviso Twp HSD Schools, the school district. Commutes are of moderate length, and a sizable group of people work from home.
Things to do. Brookfield Zoo is in or beside town, which makes it the easiest outing. A short drive away, downtown Chicago offers the Art Institute of Chicago, a museum, and Millennium Park, a garden. Wrigley Field, one of the best known of the ballparks, is also a short drive away.
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- 7,085households
- 52%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 24%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 33° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 68°. About 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Chicago Midway Airport weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Forest Park
- Chicago NDCMail and parcel delivery1,687
- Ferrara Candy Company Forest ParkJelly candies manufacturing550
- Help At HomeHomemaker's service for elderly or disabled persons, non-medical535
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters466
- Farmington FoodsBacon, slab and sliced, made from purchased carcasses357
- Proviso Twp HSD 209School district326FTE
- Riveredge HospitalPsychiatric hospital274FTE
- Aperion Care - Forest ParkSkilled nursing facilities221
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 12 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,528 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- TornadoesVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively 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 Forest Park’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.
Forest Park home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Forest Park$289,370
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Forest Park listings — 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.
- Forest Park25.93%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Forest Park45
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Forest Park19
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Forest Park address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Forest Park — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.