Subdiview

Crystal Lake · McHenry County · IL

Homes for sale in Crystal Lake.

Active listings
99
Median list
$420K
Avg time on market
10 days
Sold · last year
683
Browse listingsWhat's my home worth?
Photo: IvoShandor / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Active listings

99 homes on the market

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to
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143 Mccullom Street
Listed by your agentPrice reduced

$499,900

$530K

143 Mccullom Street

Crystal Lake, IL

4 bd · 3.2 ba · 2,976 sqft

321 Elmwood Avenue

$242,000

321 Elmwood Avenue

Crystal Lake, IL

2 bd · 1 ba · 1,000 sqft

619 Dartmoor Drive

$395,000

619 Dartmoor Drive

Crystal Lake, IL

3 bd · 2 ba · 2,042 sqft

6121 Sands Road

$455,000

6121 Sands Road

Crystal Lake, IL

4 bd · 2.1 ba · 2,288 sqft

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About the community

Living in Crystal Lake.

Crystal Lake sits in the southeast corner of McHenry County, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, with a downtown that actually works (the Raue Center, weekly farmers' market, the dining strip on Main, walkable Williams Street), a Metra station that hits Ogilvie in 75 minutes, and a real lake at the heart of it. The home stock spans every era and price tier. 1920s lakefront cottages in The Gates, mid-century split-levels in Coventry and Four Colonies, 1990s-2000s subdivisions on the south and west sides, and newer townhome and infill construction filling in the gaps. The schools (D47 elementary, D155 high school) are the through-line that holds buyer demand steady across all of it.

At a glance

~17,000 households

Roughly 40,000 residents across 18 sq miles. McHenry County's largest city.

UP-NW Metra

Crystal Lake station runs ~75 minutes into Chicago Ogilvie. The downtown station feeds the walkable district.

D47 + D155 schools

Crystal Lake Elementary D47 and Community High School D155. Both districts are why families plant here.

The lake itself

Three Oaks Recreation Area beach, plus private beaches inside The Gates / CCAPOA, plus Vulcan Lakes. Real water access, not pond-frontage marketing.

Routes 14, 31, 176, Randall

Quick drive to Algonquin, Cary, Lake in the Hills, Woodstock, Huntley. I-90 access via Randall Road.

Real downtown

Raue Center for the Arts, weekly farmers' market, Main Street + Williams Street dining strip. People actually walk it.

Northwestern Medicine

Crystal Lake clinic and McHenry hospital, both within ~15 minutes.

Every era of home

1917 lakefront cottages through 2025 new construction. Almost any price tier and any architectural era is represented.

What’s close

Crystal Lake is a real town with a real downtown, not a subdivision-belt that calls itself a town. Every part of daily life is inside the city: groceries, restaurants, the library, the parks, the schools, the train.

Downtown core
Walkable Main + Williams Street strip. Raue Center, farmers' market, dining, breweries.
Three Oaks Recreation Area
Crystal Lake's flagship beach, swim area, walking trails. Free parking with a city sticker.
Crystal Lake Metra
UP-NW line to Chicago Ogilvie. ~75 minutes. The reason the commuter pool exists at all.
Randall Road corridor
Big-box retail, dining, services. ~5 minutes from most Crystal Lake neighborhoods.
Schools
D47 elementary district + D155 high school district. Crystal Lake Central, Crystal Lake South, Prairie Ridge feed from here.
Highway access
Routes 14, 31, 176, plus Randall Road for I-90 access at Algonquin.
Parks
Veterans Acres, Sterne's Woods, Three Oaks. Real parks, not strip-mall greenspace.
McHenry County College
Local 2-year college serves the area, plus distance learning options through the broader Chicago university footprint.

What it’s actually like to live here

Crystal Lake feels like a real town built around a real lake. The 234-acre spring-fed glacial lake sits at the heart of the city with public access through Three Oaks Recreation Area and the Park District beach. The downtown is the through-line. People who live here actually walk to Williams Street on weekends and weeknights for the Raue Center, the farmers market, the breweries, the dining strip. That kind of working downtown is rare in McHenry County and it is the single biggest reason buyers cross-shop Crystal Lake over generic strip-mall suburbs.

The Crystal Lake schools (D47 elementary and D155 high school, with Crystal Lake Central, Crystal Lake South, and Prairie Ridge as the three main high schools serving the city) hold buyer demand together across every price tier. The home stock spans almost every era of American housing: 1920s lakefront cottages, 1950s and 60s ranches and splits walkable to downtown, 1990s and 2000s subdivisions on the south and west sides, and a steady drip of new-construction townhomes and infill product. Whatever you are shopping for, Crystal Lake probably has a version of it.

The city is big enough at about 40,000 residents to hold every kind of neighborhood without any one of them defining the whole place. Buyers looking for lakefront character, downtown walkability, family-subdivision proximity to good schools, or newer construction all end up touring Crystal Lake. The shared anchors (the lake, the downtown, the Metra, D47 and D155) are what hold buyer demand steady across the entire city.

Neighborhoods

Crystal Lake neighborhoods

10 neighborhoods in Crystal Lake, each with its own page covering market stats, schools, and what the buyers there are optimizing for. Featured neighborhoods have hand-curated content; the rest auto- update from MRED listing data.

This representation is based in whole or in part on data supplied by Midwest Real Estate Data, LLC for the period August 8, 2025 through August 8, 2026. Midwest Real Estate Data, LLC does not guarantee nor is it in any way responsible for its accuracy. Data maintained by Midwest Real Estate Data LLC may not reflect all real estate activity in the market.

Schools

Districts serving Crystal Lake.

Boundary lines do shift. Always confirm in writing for a specific address before writing an offer.

  • D47Grades Pre-K – 8

    Crystal Lake Community Consolidated School District 47

    Schools serving the area

    • Canterbury Elementary
    • Coventry Elementary
    • Husmann Elementary
    • Indian Prairie Elementary

    D47 also serves parts of Lakewood, Lake in the Hills, Cary, Woodstock, Huntley, Bull Valley, and McHenry. Always confirm in writing for a specific address.

  • D155Grades 9 – 12

    Community High School District 155

    Schools serving the area

    • Crystal Lake Central High School
    • Crystal Lake South High School
    • Prairie Ridge High School
    • Cary-Grove High School (small portion)

    Boundary lines do shift, especially in neighborhoods like Coventry and Boulder Ridge where school district splits exist. Confirm per address.

Homes by school

Homes for sale by school in Crystal Lake

Around town

What there is to do in Crystal Lake.

A handful of the places people who live here actually use. Not a directory.

Getting around

Commute + transit from Crystal Lake.

MetraUP-NW line
  • Stations: Crystal Lake, Pingree Road
  • Terminal: Chicago Ogilvie (OTC)
  • Distance: 43 miles to downtown Chicago
DriveBy car
  • Routes: U.S. 14 · IL 31 · IL 176 · Randall Road
  • O'Hare Airport: ~45 min

By the numbers

Crystal Lake taxes + market stats.

Property tax rates vary by exact township and assessor district. Confirm per address before pricing a purchase.

Property tax rate

2.84%

effective avg

Sales tax

8.50%

combined

Median sold price

$375,000

MRED · last 12 mo (683 sales)

Median household income

$108,418

ACS

How Crystal Lake got here

A bit of history.

Crystal Lake's first settlers, Beman and Polly Crandall, arrived from New York State in a covered wagon in February 1836 with six of their ten children, building a cabin near today's Virginia and Van Buren streets. The lake itself was named the year before, in 1835, when Ziba Beardsley arrived on its shores and remarked the waters were as clear as crystal. The town was first called Crystal Ville, changed to Crystal Lake before 1840.

The Village of Crystal Lake was incorporated in 1874, the same year as the neighboring Village of Nunda. After multiple attempts at consolidation, Nunda (by then renamed North Crystal Lake) was annexed in 1914 and a single city government was established with a charter adopted September 23, 1914. The first train station, prefabricated and shipped from Chicago on a flatcar in 1856, gave the town its early connection to the rail network; the current Crystal Lake station opened in 1915 and is still owned by the city.

The questions buyers actually ask

Crystal Lake FAQ

The questions I get most from buyers shopping Crystal Lake. If yours isn't here, text 224-385-8779, same-day reply.

How are Crystal Lake schools?
Crystal Lake Elementary School District 47 (Pre-K through 8) and Community High School District 155 (9 through 12) are the two main districts. D155 runs Crystal Lake Central, Crystal Lake South, Prairie Ridge, and Cary-Grove. Both districts are well-rated and stable. Boundary lines do shift occasionally so confirm in writing for the specific address before writing an offer, especially in neighborhoods where school district splits exist. The official attendance lookup is at d155.org.
Is Crystal Lake actually on a lake?
Yes. Crystal Lake the lake is a 234-acre spring-fed glacial lake at the heart of the city. Public access is through Three Oaks Recreation Area and the Park District beach (city sticker required for free parking). Several neighborhoods around the shoreline are lake-frontage with private docks. Private membership access to the south shore is available through CCAPOA at about $390 a year. Vulcan Lakes inside Three Oaks Recreation Area is the city's other major water feature, reclaimed from a former quarry.
What's the commute to Chicago like?
Metra UP-NW from Crystal Lake station runs about 75 minutes to Chicago Ogilvie. The line also has a second Crystal Lake station at Pingree Road on the south side of the city. By car, plan on 60 to 70 minutes off-peak via I-90 (Randall Road on-ramp at Algonquin), 90 minutes or more during morning rush. People who do this five days a week typically take Metra. People who go to the city occasionally drive.
What are property taxes like in Crystal Lake?
Crystal Lake's effective property tax rate runs around 2.84 percent against a McHenry County average of about 2.76 percent. On a $400,000 home that works out to roughly $11,360 a year, though the actual bill varies by exact township and school district boundary. McHenry County tax bills are issued twice a year in June and September. You can pull the official extension from mchenrycountyil.gov before writing an offer. If you are cross-shopping with DuPage County (Wheaton, Naperville), DuPage runs slightly lower at 2.3 to 2.5 percent but home prices there are usually higher.
Crystal Lake or Lakewood, what's the difference?
Lakewood is a small village of about 4,000 residents on Crystal Lake's southwest edge with its own village government. It runs quieter, has no curbs or sidewalks by design, and includes the Turnberry country-club community. Crystal Lake is the larger city of about 40,000 with the downtown, the Metra, and most of the commercial corridor. Some properties on the Lakewood and Crystal Lake municipal line straddle both, which can affect property tax rates and trash service even on the same street. Verify on the specific address.
What kind of homes does Crystal Lake have?
Crystal Lake's housing stock spans almost every era in American suburban housing. 1920s lakefront cottages on the south and east shores. 1950s and 60s ranches, splits, and tri-levels in the core neighborhoods south of Williams Street. 1990s and 2000s family subdivisions on the south and west sides, including Three Oaks-area new construction. A steady drip of newer townhome and infill product downtown. Whatever decade and price tier you are shopping, Crystal Lake probably has a version. Talk to a Subdiview agent about which side of the city fits your criteria best.
Which Crystal Lake high school will my kids go to?
Three D155 high schools sit inside Crystal Lake. Crystal Lake Central (the downtown core and older central neighborhoods), Crystal Lake South (eastern side of the city), and Prairie Ridge (southern and western neighborhoods, opened 1997). A small number of Crystal Lake addresses also feed Cary-Grove High School. Boundary lines do shift, especially for new construction. Confirm in writing for a specific address using the attendance lookup at d155.org before writing an offer.
Who is the real estate agent for Crystal Lake?
Joe Keegan is the local licensed Illinois real estate broker who covers Crystal Lake in Crystal Lake, IL through Subdiview, a neighborhood-first home search for the Chicago suburbs and collar counties. Joe prices and negotiates from the live MRED sold comps for Crystal Lake specifically, not national averages, and can help you buy or sell here. Reach Joe at 224-385-8779 or joe@joekeeganhomes.com.

Nearby

Towns next to Crystal Lake.

If you’re cross-shopping the area, these are the places that border Crystal Lake.

Your local agent

Joe knows Crystal Lake

Most agents will list anything. I focus on the places I actually know, and the things that move value here don't show up in the MLS write-up: which streets and buildings hold demand, what the HOA or assessments really cover, how the comps read once you account for condition and location, and where buyers consistently want to be.

When you're ready to tour or list, you want someone who has read the last 50 closed comps in this specific market, not a national average, and can tell you what they actually mean for your price. That's how I work. Text or call any time, and I'll give you a real take, not a brochure.

  • Licensed Illinois broker
  • Comp-driven pricing
  • Crystal Lake specialist
  • Honest local market take
  • Brokerocity
Call 224-385-8779Text instead

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