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Why people love it

A tight, quiet grid tucked between Midway and the rail yards, with Chrysler Village on the east side still looking like the preplanned wartime village it was built as in 1943. Residents describe it as safe, stable and overlooked, and the neighborhood watch has been running for more than twenty five years.

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What's drawing people

The southern portion of Midway International Airport is inside Clearing's boundaries, and Midway employs over 9,000 people with a $400 million terminal modernization completed in 2023 and a $47 million runway project underway since June 2025. Just south sits Clearing Yard, 786 acres and more than 250 miles of track owned by the Belt Railway of Chicago, one of the largest hump classification yards in the country, moving more than 8,400 rail cars a day.

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The value

$335,000 for the house against $1,700 for a 2 bedroom is one of the better ratios on the Southwest Side, and 22 percent of the housing units here are in buildings of five or more units, which is unusual for a bungalow-belt area. Owner occupancy is 73.3 percent and median household income is $78,437. I would rather own where the jobs are a bike ride away than where the commute is the whole product.

What people say about Clearing

Median house price moved from $171,500 in the 2013 window to $335,000 in the 2025 window, up 95 percent.
A 2 bedroom rents around $1,700, second highest of the group.
Owner occupancy is 73.3 percent, 57.4 percent of units are single family detached, and 22.0 percent sit in buildings of five or more units, the deepest apartment stock of the group.

A tight, quiet grid tucked between Midway and the rail yards, with Chrysler Village on the east side still looking like the preplanned wartime village it was built as in 1943.

Clearing's origins are genuinely murky: an odd subdivision shows up on maps as early as 1870 and got called the Lost Village. It incorporated as a town in 1912 inside Stickney Township and joined Chicago in 1915 once growth outran the services a small town could provide. The name comes from farm goods being cleared through the rail yards and later the airport. The Clearing Industrial District was founded in 1909 and still occupies the eastern edge.

The housing is postwar and prewar brick on a compact grid bounded by Harlem on the west, 59th on the north and 65th on the south. Chrysler Village, built in 1943 for defense plant workers, is sturdy brick single family, duplex and townhouse product laid out as a planned village, and it still reads that way. Single family detached is 57.4 percent of units, with two-flats at 6.7 percent, three and four unit buildings at 5.4 percent and 22.0 percent in larger apartment buildings. Lawler Park opened in 1947 on 6.2 acres and Hale Park has the outdoor pool.

Median house prices went from $171,500 in the 2013 window to $335,000 in the 2025 window, up 95 percent. Median household income is $78,437 and the top industries are education at 11.9 percent, health care at 11.4 percent, retail at 9.7 percent and public administration at 9.0 percent. Airport and rail employment is the floor under this market and it has not moved in eighty years. What has changed is that a house that cost $171,500 twelve years ago now costs almost twice that, and the rent moved with it.

This fits airport and rail workers who want to drive ten minutes to a shift. It fits a buyer who wants a Chrysler Village brick house with real bones and a planned street layout rather than a standard bungalow block. It fits an investor who wants exposure to apartment product on the Southwest Side, since the 22 percent share in five-plus unit buildings is the deepest here. It is not for someone who wants nightlife or a walkable retail corridor, because the commercial life here is modest and local.

Last updated August 2026.