Pines, Indiana.
Typical home $190,382 (+0.4% in a year). Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$559 (+127%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $793 +0%
- $189,589$190,382 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $38,953 +26%
- $151,429$190,382 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.
- Pines$999
- Indiana$1,350
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Pines, IN rose 0.4% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Pines, Porter County, Indiana
The Census does not count Pines on its own, so the figures here are Porter County's. Half the county's households earn more than $87,972 a year and half less; 10% of the county's people live below the poverty line. 78% of the county's homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Porter County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Porter County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Haiku 5.5 wrote this on 22 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Pines is a small town in Porter County, in northwest Indiana. Most homes here are lived in by their owners, which is more than the county's typical share of owner-occupied homes. Winters are cold and snowy, and summers are warm, with a good deal of rain falling across the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, or in manufacturing, shops and professional services. Unemployment in the county is a little lower than it was a year ago, while job numbers have grown only slightly. Relatively few people work from home, so most people travel to their jobs each day.
Things to do. Indiana Dunes National Park is one of the best known natural areas in the region and is a short drive away. The Brauer Museum of Art, also a short drive, is a museum with a steady local following. Indiana Dunes State Park, a protected area a longer drive away, is another good choice for a day outdoors.
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- 68,639households
- 40.8median age
- 31%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 10%work from home
What people in Porter County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Porter County had 63,898 jobs in 2025, 0.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 40 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Valparaiso Wtr Wks weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Porter County
- Cleveland-Cliffs Burns HarborSteel manufacturing4,003
- Porter Regional HospitalGeneral hospital1,162FTE
- United States SteelSteel mills906
- Portage Township SchoolsSchool district856FTE
- Solid PlatformsScaffold erecting and dismantling811
- Valparaiso Community SchoolsSchool district771FTE
- Valparaiso UniversityUniversity or college754
- Duneland School CorporationSchool district638FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 155 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 23,440 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
- LightningRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Porter County, 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 Porter County and the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
Pines home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Pines$190,382
- Indiana$257,165
- United States$366,157
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.
Zip codes with a Pines address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Pines — 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.