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How much house can I afford in Illinois? →Illinois Housing Development Authority's flagship first-time (and veteran/targeted-area) homebuyer product: a 30-year fixed-rate first mortgage (FHA, VA, USDA-RD, or conventional) paired with down payment/closing-cost assistance of 6% of the purchase price, up to $15,000, as a 0%-interest second mortgage. Repayment is deferred up to 30 years and due only when the home is sold, refinanced, or no longer owner-occupied.
IHDA down payment/closing-cost assistance alternative to Access Home: a forgivable second mortgage equal to 4% of the purchase price, up to $6,000, with no monthly payment and no repayment owed if the borrower remains in the home through a 10-year forgiveness period. Paired with the same 30-year fixed-rate first mortgage options (FHA/VA/USDA-RD/conventional); open to first-time and repeat buyers statewide.
Fewer listings, fewer buyers, and sellers who have a reason to be on the market in December. Here is what a winter discount is actually worth on a $400,000 house — in monthly payment, in lifetime interest, and in the seller concessions a quiet market makes possible — and the three ways a winter purchase goes wrong.
Illinois's state transfer tax is only 0.1%, but Chicago stacks city and county tax to about 0.9% — nine times as much. What a $315,000 close really costs.
The operational guide to buying property with a partner, friend, sibling, or parent — credit and DTI mechanics, title vesting, a clause-by-clause co-ownership agreement, and how the exit actually works.
A month-by-month plan for the year before you buy: what to do in each phase, what never to touch, how to document every dollar, and how to survive closing day.
Illinois guide
Illinois has one of the friendliest-looking transfer tax rates in the country. The state charges $0.50 per $500 of sale price — 0.1%. On the statewide median sale price of $315,000, that's $315. Not $3,150. Three hundred fifteen dollars.
Then you find out that number is the bottom layer of a stack.
Illinois counties may add their own transfer tax of $0.25 per $500, another 0.05%. Home-rule municipalities can layer a third on top of both. Chicago's is $3.75 per $500 — 0.75%, seven and a half times the state rate by itself. Put all three on a $315,000 Chicago sale and you get roughly 0.9% combined, or $2,835: exactly nine times the state-only figure, decided by which side of a city line the house sits on.
For buyers, the saving grace is that Illinois transfer tax is customarily the seller's cost — though "customarily" is doing real work there, and one Chicago tier is billed to the buyer. Below is where Illinois money actually goes. For how the individual fees work, start with our line-by-line breakdown of closing costs and use this as the Illinois overlay.
A note before you start: this is general education, not financial, legal, or tax advice. Every figure below is a statewide number from CalculatorByState's sourced dataset, and your county, municipality, lender, title company, attorney, and contract will all move the total. Illinois county and municipal transfer taxes are set locally, so the only rate that matters is the one for the address you're buying. Your Loan Estimate and Closing Disclosure are authoritative — use this to sanity-check them, not to replace them.
Illinois buyer closing costs typically run 2% to 5% of the purchase price. Against the $315,000 statewide median, that's roughly $6,300 to $15,750, midpoint near $11,025. On a $350,000 purchase the same range becomes about $7,000 to $17,500. These exclude agent commissions.
Read the full Illinois guide →9 min read · Updated 2026-08-24