O'Neil Property Group
A village of 50,000 in southeastern DuPage County built around a real downtown, three BNSF Metra stations, and one of the widest housing ranges in the western suburbs—from Sears catalog homes and mid-century ranches to $1M+ new builds on rebuilt blocks.
Downers Grove is what people picture when they say “train-town suburb”—a village of just over 50,000 in southeastern DuPage County, about 22 miles west of the Loop, organized around a downtown that actually functions as one. Main Street has the Metra station at one end, the 1928 Tivoli Theatre a block away, and restaurants, coffee shops, and a Saturday market in between. Unlike suburbs that built a “town center” in the 1990s, this one has been accumulating since 1832, when Pierce Downer settled at the crossing of two Potawatomi trails.
The housing stock tells that story block by block. Downers Grove holds one of the larger concentrations of Sears catalog homes in the country, along with Victorians and four-squares near downtown, waves of mid-century ranches and split-levels north and south of the core, 1970s–1990s subdivisions toward the village’s edges, and a steady teardown-and-rebuild market that has been replacing tired stock with $1M+ new construction on walkable blocks. Few western suburbs offer this much range inside one school system and one downtown.
The commute is the other pillar. Three BNSF Metra stations—Main Street, Fairview Avenue, and Belmont—sit inside village limits, so a large share of town is genuinely walkable or bikeable to a train. Express runs reach Union Station in roughly half an hour at peak; locals take closer to an hour. Drivers get I-88, I-355, and I-294 within minutes, Ogden Avenue for the daily errands, and both O’Hare and Midway inside a 30–40 minute run in normal traffic.
Who fits here? Commuters who want the train without giving up a yard; buyers who want a downtown they will actually use; move-up families targeting District 58 and District 99; and downsizers using the condo and townhome stock to stay near the station. Who doesn’t: buyers chasing the cheapest possible detached home in the region—the same dollar goes further west in Kendall and Kane Counties, and we tell clients honestly when that trade makes sense for them.
The BNSF line is the spine: Main Street and Fairview Avenue stations serve the historic core, Belmont serves the west side with a large commuter lot. By road, I-355 runs the western edge, I-88 crosses the north, and I-294 is minutes east—three tollways forming a triangle around town. Ogden Avenue (Route 34) is the retail corridor, and 75th Street and 63rd Street carry the east–west load across the south side. Pace bus routes connect the stations, and both airports are a practical drive.
Downers Grove runs two markets at once—a competitive detached market and a value-priced attached market—and reading them separately is the key to shopping either one well.
Detached sales have centered in the mid $500s in recent activity, with broader typical-value measures near the low $500s. Walkable downtown blocks and rebuilt streets price well above that; mid-century stock toward the edges prices below it. Location inside town moves the number more than square footage does.
Condos start in the mid $100s, established townhomes run the $200s and $300s, vintage and mid-century detached homes mostly trade in the $300s to $600s, and teardown-lot new construction runs from the $900s past $2M. Few towns let a buyer graduate this many times without changing school systems.
Well-priced detached listings regularly go pending within the first two weeks, and roughly half of recent sales have closed at or above list. The attached market moves in a lower gear—slower, more negotiable, and more sensitive to fees and financing rules.
A typical week carries somewhere between one and two hundred active listings across all property types. That sounds deep, but it splits across two ZIP codes, every price band, and a dozen product types—the specific search most buyers actually want is usually thin.
Effective property tax rates in Downers Grove run around 1.85% with median bills in the low $7,000s—and DuPage County rates generally sit below Kane, Kendall, and Will. When buyers cross-shop the western suburbs, the tax line is a genuine Downers Grove advantage. We pull the actual bill on every property.
Detached homes have appreciated strongly and sell competitively. Condos and townhomes are the value door into the same downtown and schools—cheaper entry, softer appreciation, association rules that need reading. Pricing strategy, offer strategy, and inspection focus all differ by segment.
A historic core, mid-century blocks, edge subdivisions, and a busy rebuild market—here’s how the village actually breaks down for buyers.
The blocks around Main Street and Fairview Avenue stations—Victorians, four-squares, Sears kit homes, and new infill within walking distance of the Tivoli, the Saturday market, and the train. The most durable premium in town lives here.
Search Downers Grove Homes →North of the tracks and Maple Avenue—areas like Denburn Woods and the Pierce Downer streets—where wooded lots, older architecture, and proximity to downtown combine into some of the village’s most sought-after addresses.
Browse $500K+ Homes →Randall Park, Oak Creek, Orchard Brook, Johnson Woods, and similar pockets—1950s–1970s ranches and split-levels on established streets. This is the village’s attainable detached stock, and it is also where the rebuild market shops for lots.
Browse $300K–$500K →El Sierra, Dunham Place, Farmingdale Village, and the 75th–87th Street corridors—1960s through 1990s subdivision stock with larger yards and quick access to I-355 and I-55. More house per dollar than the walk-to-train zones.
Browse 4+ Bedroom Homes →Acadia on the Green’s elevator condos downtown, Westbrook West, Lake in the Woods, Bending Oaks, the Villas of Maple Woods, and Cameo’s 55+ community—the value door into Downers Grove, from the mid $100s.
Browse Condos →Downers Grove runs one of DuPage’s busiest teardown-and-rebuild markets—custom new construction replacing tired stock on walkable blocks near downtown and the stations. Lot value, not house value, drives these deals.
Browse Luxury & New →Active MLS listings across Downers Grove, updated in real time. The specific home most buyers want—the right price band, the right side of town, the right train walk—is usually a short list, so alerts and speed matter here.
Most of the village is served by Downers Grove Grade School District 58 for elementary and middle grades and by Community High School District 99, whose two comprehensive high schools—North and South—both sit in town. Portions of the village edges are served by neighboring districts.
A K–8 district operating a dozen-plus neighborhood elementary schools across the village plus Herrick and O’Neill middle schools—most students walk or take a short ride to a school inside their own part of town.
The district’s north campus on Main Street, a short walk from downtown and the Main Street Metra station, serving the northern half of the village and nearby communities.
The district’s south campus off 63rd Street, serving southern Downers Grove along with parts of Woodridge, Darien, and Westmont.
A graduate health-sciences university with its main campus on 31st Street in Downers Grove—medical, dental, and pharmacy programs that anchor a steady professional population in town. The College of DuPage’s main campus is a short drive away in Glen Ellyn.
Note: School and attendance boundaries in and around Downers Grove do not follow village limits—edge areas are served by neighboring districts, and boundaries change. Always verify the current school assignment for any specific address directly with the district before you buy—our team confirms this on every showing.
Downtown Downers Grove is the village’s living room—restaurants, coffee, and shops radiating from the Main Street station. Its anchor is the Tivoli Theatre, opened Christmas Day 1928 as one of the very first theaters in the country built for sound film, still running movies and live shows under Classic Cinemas as a rare surviving single-screen movie palace.
The downtown calendar keeps a small-town rhythm at suburban scale: a Saturday market through the warm months, summer car shows and concert nights, a fine arts festival, holiday tree lighting, and an ice sculpture festival in the dead of winter. Living near downtown means most of it happens within a short walk.
The Downers Grove Park District manages roughly 600 acres across about 50 parks, headlined by Patriots Park and the 150-acre Lyman Woods preserve—oak woodland, marsh, and prairie with trails and an interpretive center inside village limits. The Morton Arboretum’s 1,700 acres sit just up the road in Lisle.
The Downers Grove Golf Club occupies the site of the first 18-hole golf course in the United States, laid out in the 1890s by Charles Blair Macdonald for the original Chicago Golf Club—you can still play nine holes on that historic ground. The park district adds a recreation center, pools, and year-round programs.
Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital—a full-service hospital with a Level I trauma center—sits inside the village on 39th Street, and Midwestern University’s clinics add dental and eye care. For day-to-day life and for resale value, in-town health care is a quiet but real asset.
Ogden Avenue carries the daily retail load through town, the Butterfield Road and Finley Road corridors add big-box and grocery options minutes north, and Oakbrook Center—one of the region’s largest shopping centers—is about ten minutes up I-88 in Oak Brook.
The pattern is consistent: the train, the downtown, and the schools—in that order or close to it. Buyers relocating from the city keep their commute and gain a yard; suburban move-up buyers land a walkable downtown they will actually use; downsizers stay near the station in the condo stock. Downers Grove rarely needs to be sold to anyone who has spent a Saturday there.
Housing spans more than almost any DuPage market—from mid-$100s condos to $2M+ new construction—so the entry point is a choice, not a barrier. Effective property tax rates around 1.85% with median bills in the low $7,000s sit below most of Kane, Kendall, and Will Counties, which softens the monthly math against cheaper-sticker towns further west.
Two ZIP codes split the village at roughly the tracks—60515 north, 60516 south—and the north–south divide is the first filter most buyers apply, since each side leans on its own high school, parks, and commute pattern. Water is Lake Michigan-sourced through the DuPage Water Commission, with ComEd and Nicor for utilities. We map every showing route around the train schedule on purpose—you learn the town faster that way.
Your calendar fills with downtown events, your commute becomes a walk or a five-minute drive to one of three stations, and your weekend errands stay off the expressways. In exchange for that convenience, expect competition when you buy—the well-priced detached listings draw multiple offers, and winning here is usually about preparation rather than luck.
Our office is at 201 E Veterans Parkway in Yorkville, and we represent buyers and sellers across the western suburbs every week—from the Fox Valley through DuPage. That range means we can tell you honestly what your dollar buys in Downers Grove versus the towns around it.
Train-town markets price on walk time, express schedules, and parking reality—details portals never surface. We know how the three-station geography moves value block by block, and we build showing plans around it.
In a rebuild market, some listings are houses and some are lots wearing houses. We help sellers price for both buyer pools and help buyers recognize when land value, not the kitchen, is setting the number.
Condos and townhomes run on association math—fees, reserves, rental rules, and financing eligibility. We read the documents before you write, because the association’s finances are as much a part of the purchase as the unit.
Professional photography, strategic pricing, targeted marketing, contract negotiation, and closing coordination—the same full stack we bring to every listing, tuned for a market where presentation and speed decide outcomes.
Our Google reviews tell the story: responsive communication, local expertise, and results. We earn referrals by delivering a level of service that national platforms and discount brokerages can’t match.
Real results from real clients. Here’s what buyers and sellers say about working with our team.
The process of selling our home with Ryan was as seamless as one could hope for! He was so professional and supportive throughout the entire process.
Working with O’Neil Property Group was hands-down one of the best decisions I’ve made as a first-time investor. Kealan and his team guided me through every step.
Kealan was great to work with and made selling our house easy. We would definitely call O’Neil Property Group again!
Wow what a great experience. Kealan and his team sold my house very quickly and had multiple offers.
Loved working with Kealan to buy our home in Yorkville. Very knowledgeable and got us our dream home in a tough market. Highly recommend.
Kealan executed a perfect home sale and home purchase strategy to meet our expectations. We reached sales price, purchase price, and timing goals.
Whether you’re chasing a walk-to-train Victorian, a mid-century ranch with rebuild potential, or the right condo near downtown, our team is ready to help you make the right move.
