Wilmette, Illinois.
Typical home $1,007,001 (+13.9% in a year), asking rent $3,794 . Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$3,017 (+133%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $123,108 +14%
- $883,894$1,007,001 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $304,002 +43%
- $703,000$1,007,001 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.
- Wilmette$5,285
- 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 Wilmette, IL rose 13.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Wilmette, Cook County, Illinois
Wilmette is a village of 28,170 people in Cook County. Half its households earn more than $190,662 a year and half less, against $83,498 across Cook County; 3% of its people live below the poverty line. 88% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 12% are rented. Unemployment in Wilmette was 5.1% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Wilmette is a village in Cook County, north of Chicago, and it is a place where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Incomes run far above the county's, very few households live below the poverty line, and almost every adult has a four-year degree. The population skews older than many places, and homes and rents are expensive.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by professional and business services, banks, insurance and property, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment. The largest workplaces in town include the Wilmette and Avoca school districts and Wayfair. A typical commute is a long one, though many people work from home, and unemployment has risen a little over the past year.
Things to do. The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center is in or beside town. Wrigley Field, a stadium, is a short drive away, and the Art Institute of Chicago, a museum, is a longer drive away. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
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- 10,287households
- 84%of adults have a degree
- 3%below the poverty line
- 35 mintypical commute
- 36%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, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Wilmette
- Wilmette SD 39School district566FTE
- Avoca SD 37School district124FTE
- WayfairFurniture stores89
- WilmetteMail and parcel delivery75
- MatherHomes for the aged without nursing care65
- The Fresh MarketSupermarkets and other grocery retailers except convenience retailers65
- TPS Group HoldingsGift novelty and souvenir retail store59
- Jewel Food StoresSupermarkets and other grocery stores53
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 480 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 wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of WilmetteRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingrelatively high in parts of WilmetteRelatively 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 Wilmette’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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.
Wilmette home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Wilmette$1,007,001
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 5 Wilmette listings, and the typical home goes pending in 9 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.
- Wilmette21.00%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Wilmette9
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Wilmette49
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Wilmette24
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Wilmette$1,146,873
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Wilmette106.07%
Zip codes with a Wilmette address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Wilmette — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.