Homes Sell in 33 Days in One Chicagoland Suburb and 105 in Another. Here's the Whole List.

Same metro. Same month. Same mortgage rates. A 72-day spread.

If you live in Chicagoland, you already have a gut feeling about how fast homes sell around you. Your neighbor's place went in a weekend. Or the split-level on the corner has had a sign in the yard since the Sox were mathematically alive.

I pulled the actual numbers for every Cook and DuPage County town with at least 50 recent sales — 72 towns in all — and sorted them by median days on market. The spread is bigger than I expected.

Wilmette: 33 days. Calumet City: 105 days. Two towns, one metro area, seventy-two days apart.

Here's the full picture, and then the part that matters more than the ranking itself.

The Fast End: Every Town at 40 Days or Under

Town	Median Days	Median Sale Price
Wilmette	33	$1,298,850
La Grange	36	$749,625
Western Springs	36	$977,510
Winnetka	36	$2,003,746
Morton Grove	38	$484,757
Westmont	38	$418,790
Darien	39	$474,762
Glenview	39	$844,577
River Forest	39	$654,172
Westchester	39	$390,804
Downers Grove	40	$539,730
Park Ridge	40	$679,660
Winfield	40	$479,760

Just outside the cut, all tied at 41 days: Arlington Heights, Forest Park, Northbrook, Oak Park, Palatine, Warrenville, Wheaton and Wheeling. If your town is in that group, you're in the fast lane too.

The Slow End: Every Town at 55 Days or Over

Town	Median Days	Median Sale Price
Calumet City	105	$149,425
Hazel Crest	94	$182,409
South Holland	90	$224,887
Dolton	89	$169,915
Matteson	76	$259,870
Chicago Heights	74	$199,900
Park Forest	73	$164,917
Lansing	65	$214,892
Cicero	62	$312,294
Country Club Hills	62	$243,878
Homewood	61	$249,875
Burbank	56	$342,329
Berwyn	55	$369,815

Where the City Itself Lands

Chicago proper came in at 48 days, with a median sale price of $429,785 — up 8.8% year over year — and 51% of homes selling above list. That's a big number for a city of 77 neighborhoods, and it hides enormous internal variation. A Portage Park bungalow and a Loop studio are not the same market wearing the same jersey.

For context: Cook County overall sits at 49 days, DuPage at 45, and the national median is also 49. So most of Chicagoland is at or ahead of the country. The interesting story isn't the average. It's the spread.

What's Actually Driving the Gap

Look at the two lists again and the pattern jumps out: the fast towns skew expensive, the slow towns skew affordable. That's not a coincidence, and it's not a judgment about any community. It's arithmetic about how deals get financed and closed.

Redfin's own price-tier breakdown for Cook County makes it plain:

• Luxury (top 5%): 41 days, and 7 days faster than last year

• High tier: 42 days

• Mid tier: 46 days

• Starter tier: 54 days

• Bottom tier: 69 days — and 12 days slower than a year ago

The competitive heat this year has concentrated in the upper half of the market. Down at entry-level prices, deals take longer for practical reasons: more buyers are using FHA or VA financing with stricter property-condition requirements, appraisals on older housing stock get complicated, insurance and inspection issues surface more often, and there are simply more homes competing per buyer. Months of supply tells that story cleanly — Dolton is sitting at 8.1 months and Calumet City at 6.4, while Western Springs is at 1.3 and Wilmette at 1.4.

Long market time is a pricing-and-financing condition, not a verdict on a town.

Four Towns That Break the Pattern

This is the part I'd actually screenshot.

Hinsdale. Median sale price $1,549,224 — the priciest town in DuPage — and yet homes take 45 days and only 35.7% sell above list. Expensive does not automatically mean fast.

Barrington. A $684,657 median, 49 days, and just 33.4% above list, the lowest share in Cook County. Its median price also slipped 2.2% year over year while most of the region climbed.

Hanover Park. A $329,835 median with 65.4% of homes selling above list — the highest share on the entire board, beating every North Shore town. Affordable absolutely does not mean slow.

Streamwood. 46 days, 63.3% above asking, only 1.7 months of supply — genuinely competitive — and yet the median price was essentially flat, down 0.1%. Bidding wars and price growth are not the same thing.

Now, the Honest Caveats

I'd rather you use this list correctly than just enjoy it, so here's where it's soft:

Days on market can be gamed. The clock generally runs from list date to contract. A home that's listed, withdrawn, and relisted can start over at zero. A number that looks like 12 days may be the third go-round.

These are medians over a rolling three-month window (May through July 2026). One unusual quarter moves a smaller town noticeably.

Towns with under 50 sales aren't shown at all. That leaves out a lot of smaller Chicagoland communities, and it means your village may be missing through no fault of its own.

This is Cook and DuPage only. Lake, Will, Kane and McHenry have their own rankings and their own dynamics — I can pull those next if there's interest.

Property type is blended. Condos, townhomes and single-family homes are mixed together, so a town with a lot of condo inventory reads differently than one that's all single-family.

And the big one: the town median tells you almost nothing about your house. A well-priced, well-prepared home in a 90-day town routinely goes in three weeks. An overpriced one in a 35-day town will sit there politely gathering dust while its neighbors close.

If You're Selling

• Watch months of supply, not the DOM headline. Under 3 months means demand is absorbing inventory. Over 5 means you're competing, and your list price has to reflect that on day one.

• The first two weeks decide most of it. In DuPage, roughly 46% of homes went under contract within 14 days. That window is when your buyer pool is largest and most motivated. You don't get it back.

• Know your tier, not just your town. If your home sits in the starter tier of a fast suburb, plan around the starter-tier timeline.

• In slower markets, condition is leverage. Where FHA and VA buyers make up more of the pool, pre-handling roof, mechanical and safety items keeps deals from unraveling after inspection.

If You're Buying

• Longer market time is negotiating room. In a 70- to 100-day town, a home that's been listed 60 days is a real conversation. In a 36-day town, it may just mean something's wrong with it.

• Check the listing history before you fall in love. Relists and price cuts tell you more about seller motivation than the current DOM number does.

• Pull the actual tax bill before you write. Two towns 10 minutes apart can have very different rates, and the monthly payment gap is often larger than the price gap.

Want to Know What Your House Would Actually Do?

Not what your town's median did. What your address would do, at your price point, in this market, this fall.

I'll run it for free — real comps, realistic timeline, honest pricing, no pressure and no obligation. And when you're ready to sell, my listing commission is 1.25%, with a Zero Commission Clause if you find your own buyer, and you can cancel anytime.

Jason Rosenberg | The Rosenberg Group at Infiniti Properties312.882.9797https://www.jasonrosenbergrealestate.com/Serving Chicago and the entire Chicagoland area.

Sources

• Redfin Economics Team, "Cook County, IL Housing Market Update: July 2026," August 4, 2026 — city-level table, rolling three-month period May–July 2026, cities with 50+ sales. redfin.com/blog/cook-county-il-housing-market-july-2026/

• Redfin Economics Team, "DuPage County, IL Housing Market Update: July 2026," August 4, 2026 — city-level table, same methodology. redfin.com/blog/dupage-county-il-housing-market-july-2026/

• Price-tier days-on-market figures: Redfin analysis of MLS data, rolling three-month period April–June 2026, published in the Cook County update above.

• Redfin Data Center, redfin.com/news/data-center/

• Note on sourcing: Redfin discloses that these county market updates are produced with generative AI assistance under the direction of its head of economics research. The underlying figures are Redfin's calculations from MLS and public-record data. Independently verify before relying on any single number.