DuPage County

DuPage County prices out at a median of $437,880 with median rent of $2,105, producing a gross rent-to-price ratio of 0.0577, or roughly 5.8%. That ratio puts it squarely in appreciation territory: not low enough to be a pure dead-end, but nowhere near the 0.08-plus range where cash flow starts to work without significant leverage optimization. The model cap rate of 3.75% confirms this. At a 6.85% financing rate, the spread between your cap rate and your cost of debt is deeply negative, which is why the estimated monthly cash flow lands at -$928 on a standard 20% down purchase. Cash-on-cash comes out at -11.06%. The appreciation score of 84 out of 100, paired with 4.28% year-over-year price growth, tells you where the market's actual return story lives: in the asset itself, not the income stream. DuPage ranks 426th out of 1,000 counties nationally, sitting at the 46th percentile overall, which is about as middle-of-the-road as a county can score while still carrying a sub-4% cap rate.

This market suits one profile almost exclusively: an appreciation buyer with a long hold horizon and the balance sheet to carry monthly losses. The -$928 estimated monthly shortfall is not a rounding error or a stressed scenario; it is the base case at current prices and rates. A value-add operator would need to move rents materially above the $2,105 median to change that math, and even a 15% rent lift only shaves the deficit to roughly -$600. A cash-flow buyer has no business here at these numbers. The investor this market rewards is someone who underwrites DuPage as a wealth-building, equity-appreciation play, accepts the negative carry as a holding cost, and has adequate liquidity to service that carry through rate cycles or vacancy gaps. The affordability index of 37 out of 100 signals that the tenant pool is under real pressure, which is a demand stabilizer for rentals but also a ceiling on how aggressively rents can move.

The tax and insurance picture is the single most important line on any DuPage underwrite, and the data makes it hard to ignore. The state-average effective property tax rate for Illinois is 2.27%, which the Tax Foundation flags as very high, and that rate generates an estimated $9,940 in annual property taxes on the median-priced asset. Combined with $1,182 in estimated annual insurance, the monthly tax-and-insurance burden alone is $927. To put that in context, that one line item nearly equals the entire estimated monthly mortgage payment of $2,295. Any investor who models Illinois as a generic Midwestern market without stress-testing the property tax will badly understate carry costs. The note embedded in the data is worth taking literally: the 2.27% is a state-average estimate, and county or township rates in DuPage may differ, so verify the actual assessed rate for any specific parcel before you commit. This is not a minor caveat; Illinois has significant variation in effective rates across jurisdictions.

The neighboring county comparison reveals a meaningful structural problem with DuPage as a buy-and-hold market relative to its Illinois peers. Bond County carries an overall score of 67 (versus DuPage's 58) at a median price of $154,738. Greene County scores 65 at $106,001. Calhoun County scores 61 at $184,783. Even Monroe County, which scores one point lower than DuPage at 59, does so at a median of $327,942 with a rent-to-price ratio of 0.047, still compressed but on a much smaller absolute dollar base that reduces the equity at risk. The only neighbor that underperforms DuPage on the overall score is Schuyler County at 49. The pattern is clear: DuPage's appreciation score of 84 is likely doing real work in its overall 58, masking cash-flow and affordability scores that would otherwise rank it lower. An investor should choose DuPage over these neighbors specifically and only when the investment thesis is capital appreciation anchored by a stable, high-income suburban tenant base, and when the alternative in a lower-priced county would produce inferior long-term equity compounding. For anyone whose model requires current income, every neighbor in this dataset with a score above 60 is a better fit at a fraction of the entry price.