Lanark, Illinois.
Typical home $330,664 (+8.9% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$1,027 (+145%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $27,040 +9%
- $303,623$330,664 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $95,440 +41%
- $235,223$330,664 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.
- Lanark$1,736
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Lanark, IL rose 8.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lanark, Carroll County, Illinois
Lanark is a city of 1,504 people in Carroll County. 79% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 21% are rented. Unemployment in Carroll County was 3.4% in August 2026, and the county had 3.2% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lanark is a small city in Carroll County, in the northwest corner of Illinois. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and the population is of a middle age, neither especially young nor old. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while summers turn warm, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops and other services. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and very few work from home, so most people travel to a job. Across Carroll County, some of the largest workplaces are Elkay Plumbing Products - Lanark, Metform LLC / Machined Components 1 and the Eastland school district.
Things to do. Lake Carroll is a short drive away and is the closest spot for time by the water. A longer drive brings you to White Pines Forest State Park and Mississippi Palisades State Park, both protected areas set aside for walking and time outdoors. The Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, also a longer drive away, is a protected historic site.
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- 702households
- 14%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Carroll County had 4,081 jobs in 2025, 3.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 31° and lows near 11°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 60°. About 33 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mount Carroll weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Carroll County
- Bureau of Prisons/federal Prison SystemFederal government · Department of Justice184
- Elkay Plumbing Products - LanarkDrinking fountains, refrigerated, manufacturing161
- Metform LLC / Machined Components 1Transmissions and parts, automotive, truck, and bus, manufacturing144
- Metform LLC HotformAssembly line rebuilding of automotive, truck, and bus transmissions118
- Eastland CUSD 308School district108FTE
- Elkay Plumbing Products - SavannaDrinking fountains, refrigerated, manufacturing92
- County of CarrollGeneral services departments, government88
- West Carroll CUSD 314School district86FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,012 people in all across the county; Lanark has one of its own. Federal offices come from OPM's federal workforce data (2026) 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
- Strong windVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lanark’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 Carroll County.
Lanark home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lanark$330,664
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Lanark 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.
- Lanark27.09%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Lanark30
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Lanark8
Zip codes with a Lanark address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lanark — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.