Selling a house in Illinois costs you five things, and only one of them is worth arguing about. The other four add up to a few thousand dollars on a typical sale. Below I list all five, price them against Illinois REALTORS’ July 2026 numbers, then show what the big one really takes.
Selling a house in Illinois: the 5 costs, in order
Here is the whole bill. Nothing else on an Illinois settlement statement comes close to these five.
- Commission. Your listing agent’s fee, plus whatever you agree to pay the agent who brings the buyer. On a $338,000 sale, a 3% listing side by itself is $10,140.
- Transfer stamps. The state charges 50 cents per $500 of the price. Your county can add 25 cents. A home rule city can stack its own tax on top of both.
- The property tax credit. Illinois bills property taxes a year behind. At closing you hand the buyer money for taxes you have not been billed for yet.
- Attorney, title and recording. Nearly every Illinois closing runs through a real estate lawyer. The legal fee, the title work and the recording charges sit here.
- Repairs, credits and prep. Paint, the inspection list, and whatever you give back to keep a shaky buyer at the table.
Costs two through four are real, and they are mostly fixed by somebody other than you. On that $338,000 sale the state and county stamps together come to $507. Cost five is whatever you decide to spend on the house before it goes live. Cost one is the only line where a decision you make this week swings the number by five figures.
So I would not spend an evening shopping attorneys to save $150 and then sign a listing rate I never questioned. That trade loses money every single time. The rest of this guide follows that order, and it spends the most words on the cost that deserves them. Most of what else you will read about selling a house in Illinois is paperwork with a deadline attached. If you want the mechanics of who pays whom first, we covered how realtors get paid separately.
What Illinois homes sold for in July 2026
Statewide figures beat national ones here, and Illinois publishes good ones every month. The July 2026 median sale price across the state was $338,000, up 6.0% from $319,000 a year earlier. Single-family homes ran $347,500. Condos ran $324,995. That report from Illinois REALTORS is current as of August 7, 2026.
Volume barely moved. Illinois closed 13,503 sales in July against 13,390 the July before, a rise of 0.8%. Homes took 24 days to sell, exactly as long as they took a year earlier.
Supply is the number I would actually watch. The state finished July with 22,363 homes for sale, down 4.7% year over year. Fewer homes on the market, steady demand, prices up 6%. Anyone selling a house in Illinois this autumn is doing it in a seller’s market by every ordinary measure.
Chicago is running hotter than the state as a whole. The city’s July median was $425,000, a jump of 13.3% on the year. Inventory inside the city fell 26.3%, down to 3,502 homes. Days on market dropped from 26 to 21. One detail surprises people: Chicago’s condo median of $440,000 sat above its single-family median of $392,000.
My read on a 24-day average is that the market answers you fast, and you never get that first fortnight back. I would price at the last strong comparable sale rather than above it, then let the clock do the work. Sellers who chase a price downward through autumn usually net less than the ones who got week one right.
The commission math on a real Illinois sale
Every conversation about selling a house in Illinois lands here eventually, on the number that decides what you keep. Run the listing side against the $338,000 statewide median and the gap stops being theoretical.
| Listing fee | You pay | At 1% | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3.00% | $10,140 | $3,380 | $6,760 |
| 2.50% | $8,450 | $3,380 | $5,070 |
| 2.00% | $6,760 | $3,380 | $3,380 |
Those three rates are the ones Illinois sellers get quoted most often. They are assumptions, not rules, and each is written into the table so you can see what a row rests on.
Try the same arithmetic at other Illinois prices. At the $347,500 single-family median, a 3% listing side is $10,425 against $3,475 at 1%, so you keep $6,950. Chicago’s $425,000 median gives you $12,750 against $4,250, and you keep $8,500. A $440,000 Chicago condo runs $13,200 against $4,400, so the gap there is $8,800.
No law sets any of it. Listing agreements now have to carry a conspicuous disclosure that compensation “is not set by law and is fully negotiable”. That sentence is sitting in your own paperwork, and almost nobody reads it.
Now the part that argues against us. Across all our markets, Houwzer sellers save roughly $12,000 to $15,000 in fees. Selling a house in Illinois at the state median does not get you there. A two-point gap only reaches $12,000 at around a $600,000 sale price, and half of Illinois sells for less than $338,000. The saving here is real money. It is not life-changing money, and I would rather say so than let a headline average do the talking for me.
The biggest giveaway in selling a house in Illinois is not the listing side at all. It is the buyer-agent number. Since the MLS rules changed in August 2024 you negotiate that separately, yet plenty of sellers still agree to 3% out of pure habit. Treat it as a marketing budget instead. Offer what your property needs to compete on its own block, and not a point more.
Cutting the listing fee is not the same as cutting the service, and that distinction is the whole argument for a 1% listing fee. At 1% you still get a licensed agent, professional photography, MLS syndication and somebody negotiating on your side. What stops is a percentage that grew with the price of the house rather than with the work. You can test your own numbers in our realtor commission calculator.
Transfer stamps, and a tax bill that runs a year late
Illinois taxes the transfer itself at up to three levels. This is the one part of selling a house in Illinois where the rate is genuinely fixed and nobody negotiates anything. State law imposes a tax on the privilege of transferring title “at the rate of 50¢ for each $500 of value”. Counties may add 25 cents per $500. Home rule municipalities may add their own on top, which the Illinois Department of Revenue spells out plainly.
On the $338,000 median that is $338 to the state and $169 to the county. Total, $507. Call it 0.15% of the price.
Chicago is the exception worth knowing about. The city charges $5.25 per $500 and then splits the bill: “In general, The Buyer is responsible for $3.75 and the Seller is responsible for $1.50.” Your seller portion on a $425,000 Chicago sale is $1,275. Add the state and Cook County stamps and you are at $1,912.50, while the buyer covers $3,187.50.
Who hands the money over is a fair question, and in Cook County the Clerk answers it in writing. Its transfer fees page names the seller as the party liable for the state stamp and the county stamp alike, both dating from January 1, 1968. That is one county on the record, not a statewide statute.
What your own village charges
Your village can matter more than the state and county combined, and it is the part of selling a house in Illinois almost nobody checks in time. Illinois REALTORS counted seventy Chicagoland communities with a municipal transfer tax. The Cook County Clerk’s own list gives the rate and the paying party for each. Four of them, on the $338,000 state median:
| Town | Rate | Who pays | On $338,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oak Park | $8.00 per $1,000 | Seller | $2,704 |
| Evanston | $5.00 per $1,000 | Seller | $1,690 |
| Skokie | $3.00 per $1,000 | Seller | $1,014 |
| Wilmette | $3.00 per $1,000 | Buyer | $0 |
Skokie and Wilmette sit next door to each other at the same $3.00 per $1,000. In Skokie the seller buys the stamp. In Wilmette the buyer does. Evanston’s own city page confirms its $5 rate up to $1,500,000 and calls the tax “typically paid by the seller, unless otherwise specified by contract.” This is not a Cook County quirk. Elmhurst, in DuPage County, charges $1.50 per $1,000, or $507 on the state median.
Two caveats. The Clerk’s list was updated in May 2024 and calls itself a courtesy, so confirm the amount with your own village. Rates also move, and Oak Park’s $8 is one of the highest anywhere in the region. So I would look your town up before you set an asking price. The spread between Oak Park and Wilmette on the same sale is $2,704, and it is the easiest cost on this page to miss.
Both sides also sign a transfer declaration, Form PTAX-203, and it goes to the county recorder with the deed. It states the price, the parcel number and the legal description. Your attorney normally fills it in, but the figures on it are yours, so read it before you sign.
The tax bill that arrives a year late
Property taxes are the sneakier line. Illinois bills them for the preceding year and collects them in the year after. So on closing day you owe the buyer a credit for the months you lived in the house and were never billed for. That credit is a contract term rather than a tax, which means the wording is negotiable even though the underlying bill is not. In Cook County the estimated first installment is set by statute at 55% of the prior year’s total bill, with the actual bills due out by June 30.
This autumn that schedule slipped badly. Cook County announced on August 18 that the 1.8 million second installment bills for Tax Year 2025 would mail on September 1, 2026, due October 1, a delay of two months.
The Cook County Treasurer priced this line in August 2026. Its Tax Year 2025 bill analysis puts the median Chicago homeowner bill at $4,597, up 3.2% on the year. North and northwest suburban homeowners sit at $8,007. South and southwest suburbs come in at $6,468.
Work it through on a Chicago sale closing October 1, 2026. You owned the house for 273 days of that year, and not one of those days has been billed yet. At $4,597 a year, that is $3,438 you hand the buyer at the closing table. On top of it sits the Tax Year 2025 second installment, due that same October 1, if you have not already paid it.
Set that beside the stamps. A Chicago seller pays $1,912.50 in state, county and city stamps on a $425,000 sale. The credit on a median bill is the bigger number, and almost nobody plans for it.
Two limits, and both matter. The median is not your bill, so pull your own and build the credit from that. The proration is a contract term rather than a tax, and the Illinois State Bar Association lists “tax prorations” among the things your contract should spell out. Some contracts prorate above 100% of the last known bill. No sourced figure for the usual multiplier turned up, so I am not inventing one.
So I would settle the proration wording before you accept an offer, not in the week of closing. A late bill turns a routine credit into a negotiation you are having under a clock.
The paperwork Illinois puts on you before you sign
Illinois is stricter than most states about timing, and the deadline lands earlier than sellers expect. The Residential Real Property Disclosure Act says the seller “shall deliver to the prospective buyer the written disclosure report required by this Act before the signing of a contract”. Before signing. Not before closing.
The report is 24 numbered statements about the property, running from basement leaks to boundary disputes. The Act defines “aware” narrowly, as “actual notice or actual knowledge without any specific investigation or inquiry.” You are not obliged to go hunting for problems you do not know about. You disclose what you actually know.
That cuts in your favor more than most sellers realize. Under section 25 you are not liable for an error you had no knowledge of, or for one that came from a licensed engineer, surveyor or contractor working inside their own trade. The catch sits in section 30. If you learn about a problem after handing the report over but before closing, you have to supplement it in writing.
Miss the delivery deadline and the buyer gets a door. If a disclosed material defect reaches them after everyone has signed, they may cancel within five business days and take back every dollar of earnest money. Hand over no report at all before the property is conveyed and they can terminate outright. Knowingly answer something false and you are liable for actual damages and court costs, with the court free to award the winning side’s legal fees.
Radon rides along with the disclosure. Under the Radon Awareness Act you give the buyer the state pamphlet and a radon disclosure before they are obligated under any contract. The same section adds that nothing in it implies “an obligation on the seller to conduct any radon testing or mitigation activities.” You disclose. You do not have to test.
So I would complete the disclosure report in the week you list, not the week an offer arrives. Answering honestly and early costs you nothing at all. Answering late hands a wobbly buyer a clean, free exit deep into a deal you thought was done.
The last quirk of selling a house in Illinois is the lawyer. No statute requires an attorney at closing. Practice settled that way after the Illinois Supreme Court held in Chicago Bar Association v. Quinlan & Tyson in 1966 that a broker may fill in an earnest money contract, while drawing a deed “requires the peculiar skill of a lawyer and constitutes the practice of law.”
The Illinois State Bar Association’s seller guide is the best free page on this subject and I will happily send you to it. It was also prepared in 2017, and it carries no prices, no market figures and no fee math, which is the gap this article is trying to fill. Your attorney prepares the deed, prorates the taxes and works alongside the title company. We explained what a title company does from the seller’s chair.
One line on that closing sheet I can price to the dollar. The Cook County Clerk charges $107 to record a deed, and publishes the split: $55 to the county, $23 for mapping, $10 for document storage, $18 for the state rental housing support fee and $1 for a non-government filer. It is the smallest real number in selling a house in Illinois. Other counties set their own.
What I cannot price is the lawyer. I found no current Illinois bar survey of residential closing fees, and every figure in circulation traces back to a firm advertising its own rate or to a rival’s blog. So I am not quoting a range I cannot stand behind. Ask about the fee arrangement on the first call, then get the number in writing before you engage anyone.
Where a 1% listing fee is the wrong answer
One thing to say plainly, because it is already on our own Illinois page. Houwzer agents do not cover Illinois. The state is served by Trelora, our sister brokerage inside Newfound Group, on the same 1% listing model.
A 1% fee is also genuinely wrong for some sellers. If your house needs a repositioning campaign over several months, an agent working for $3,380 has less runway than one working for $10,140. That is arithmetic, not modesty, so ask about it out loud at the listing appointment.
Below roughly $250,000 the gap shrinks to a couple of thousand dollars. At that price the agent matters far more than the fee does, and I would take the person over the number. Selling elsewhere in the state? Start with low commission realtors in Illinois and compare us against whoever else is pitching you. We ran the same exercise for selling a house in Virginia if you want the contrast.
Frequently Asked Questions
What taxes do you pay when selling a house in Illinois?
Selling a house in Illinois means a state transfer tax of 50 cents per $500 of the sale price, and counties may add 25 cents per $500. On a $338,000 sale that is $507 combined. Home rule cities can charge more. Chicago’s seller portion is $1.50 per $500, or $1,275 on a $425,000 sale.
What paperwork do I need for selling a house in Illinois?
The Residential Real Property Disclosure Report with its 24 statements, the state radon pamphlet and radon disclosure, and a lead paint disclosure on older homes. You also sign Form PTAX-203, the transfer declaration filed with the deed. Your attorney prepares the deed itself.
How long are you liable after selling a house in Illinois?
One year under the disclosure Act. Section 60 says no action for violating it may start later than a year from the earliest of the date of possession, the date of occupancy, or the date the conveyance is recorded. Other claims arising from selling a house in Illinois run on their own clocks, so ask your attorney.
Do I need an attorney when selling a house in Illinois?
Not by law, though nearly every Illinois closing uses one. A broker may fill in the earnest money contract, but preparing your deed counts as the practice of law. The Illinois State Bar Association recommends consulting an attorney before you sign anything at all.
What is the median home price in Illinois right now?
Illinois REALTORS put the July 2026 statewide median at $338,000, up 6.0% from $319,000 a year earlier. Single-family homes came in at $347,500 and condos at $324,995. That $338,000 is the number to plan around when selling a house in Illinois, though the City of Chicago median ran higher at $425,000.
