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Why people love it

The bungalow belt's far edge, where the city meets Harwood Heights, Norridge, and Elmwood Park. Solid brick on quiet streets, Wilbur Wright College in the middle of it, and prices that still start with a three.

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What's drawing people

Dunning's house median has nearly doubled since the window ending 2013, from $200,000 to $380,000, and it has not posted a single down window in that stretch.

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The value

This is the cheapest way to buy the Far Northwest Side lifestyle. Same brick, same block feel as Norwood Park one neighborhood over, at roughly $45,000 less on the median.

What people say about Dunning

Median single family sale was $380,000 in the 2023 to 2025 window, up 90 percent from $200,000 in 2011 to 2013 (Cook County Assessor warranty deed sales).
179 house sales in the current window, down from a peak of 284 in 2019 to 2021. Supply is tightening here like everywhere northwest.
Average two bedroom rent is about $1,710 a month (Zumper, August 2026).

The bungalow belt's far edge, where the city meets Harwood Heights, Norridge, and Elmwood Park.

Dunning covers almost four square miles of the Northwest Side in five distinct pockets, Belmont Heights and Schorsch Village and Irving Woods among them, pressed right against the suburbs. Its name comes from a railroad depot serving the county institutions that once stood here, a history the neighborhood now marks with the Read Dunning Memorial Park, dedicated in 2002. Wilbur Wright College, built in 1934, and Chicago-Read remain the institutional anchors.

The housing is bungalow-belt Chicago at its most consistent: brick singles, raised ranches, and postwar Georgians, block after block. The Assessor's ledger backs the eye test, with 291 house sales in the last three years against just 18 small apartment buildings, plus a quieter condo market of 128 sales clustered in Belmont Heights. When people here sell, it is usually after decades.

The market has been a straight staircase. The rolling three-year median moved from $200,000 to $380,000 across twelve windows without one decline, through two rate cycles and a pandemic. Counts peaked at 284 sales per window in 2021 and have thinned to 179, so like the rest of the Far Northwest ledgers, the pressure under prices is scarce listings, not froth.

Dunning fits first-time house buyers who got priced out of Portage Park, city workers who want suburban quiet with a Chicago address, and anyone who looked at Norwood Park comps and winced. The community is genuinely mixed, with a large and growing Hispanic population. You buy Dunning for the block and the price, and the ledger says the price has been catching up fast.

Last updated August 2026.