Gardner, Illinois.
Typical home $204,433 (-3.1% in a year). Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$570 (+113%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $6,436 -3%
- $210,869$204,433 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $49,693 +32%
- $154,740$204,433 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.
- Gardner$1,073
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Gardner, IL fell 3.1% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Gardner, Grundy County, Illinois
Gardner is a village of 1,366 people in Grundy County. Half its households earn more than $88,092 a year and half less, against $92,235 across Grundy County; 16% of its people live below the poverty line. 75% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 25% are rented. Unemployment in Grundy County was 4.9% in August 2026, and the county had 2.7% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Gardner is a small village in Grundy County, home to a small number of people. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values are modest. Household incomes run somewhat below the county's, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than you might expect for a place this size. Winters are cold, with a fair amount of snow, and summers turn warm.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, transport and warehousing, and the building trades. Within Gardner itself, the larger workplaces include Midwest Industrial Sales, a maker of construction machinery, and the Gardner S Wilmington Twp HSD 73 Schools district. Few adults hold a four-year degree, nearly all residents travel to a job rather than working from home, and the typical commute is a long one. Unemployment across Grundy County is a little higher than it was a year ago, though the county has added jobs over the past year.
Things to do. The Mazonia/Braidwood State Fish and Wildlife Area lies in or beside town, a protected area for time outdoors close to home. Mazon Creek, also a protected area, is a short drive away. For a longer outing, Kankakee River State Park and Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie are both protected areas a longer drive away.
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- 513households
- 17%of adults have a degree
- 16%below the poverty line
- 30 mintypical commute
- 2%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Grundy County had 22,954 jobs in 2025, 2.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 23 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Dwight weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Gardner
- Midwest Industrial SalesConstruction machinery manufacturing48
- Gardner S Wilmington Twp HSD 73School district36FTE
- Superior Environmental Solutions ChicagoRemediation services, environmental31
- Gardner Fire Protection DistrictAmbulance and fire service combined21
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 100 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 wavesVery high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively 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 Gardner’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 Grundy County and the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
Gardner home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gardner$204,433
- 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.
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Gardner8
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Gardner4
Zip codes with a Gardner address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gardner — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.