JDC Group
North Center neighborhood in Chicago

North Center Homes for Sale | Roscoe Village and St. Ben's

Single-family homes, new construction, brick two-flats, and vintage condos across five neighborhoods between Montrose Avenue and Diversey Parkway.

Find Your Home in
North Center

North Center at a Glance

Population
Approximately 35,400 (North Center community area, 2019 to 2023 American Community Survey five-year estimates)
Size
Approximately
2.07 square miles
community area 5
Median Sale Price
Approximately
$815,000
October 2025, 129 sales, up roughly 11 percent year over year
Median Price Per Square Foot
Approximately
$460
October 2025, up roughly 31 percent year over year
Roscoe Village Median
Approximately
$694,000
at approximately $395 per square foot
Days on Market
Approximately
40 days
community-wide and approximately 34 days in Roscoe Village
Walk Score
90 of 100 for North Center and 89 for Roscoe Village
Transit
CTA Brown Line at Addison, Irving Park, and Montrose
ZIP Codes
60618 primarily, with 60613 and 60657 at the edges

Sources: U.S. Census Bureau (2019 to 2023 American Community Survey five-year estimates), Redfin North Center and Roscoe Village neighborhood market data (October 2025 and most recent reported month), Walk Score via Redfin, and Chicago Transit Authority. Figures should be confirmed against MRED / MLS data and reviewed each January.

Neighborhood Guide

North Center Real Estate
|
The North Side's Single-Family Market

North Center is the North Side neighborhood where buyers go when they want a house rather than a condo, and most North Center homes for sale are single-family homes, new construction, and brick two-flats rather than the high-rise and courtyard inventory that dominates the lakefront markets. Officially community area 5, it covers about 2.07 square miles, bounded by Montrose Avenue on the north, Diversey Parkway on the south, the Chicago River on the west, and Ravenswood Avenue on the east. Roughly 35,400 people live here. It sits directly west of Lakeview, south of Lincoln Square, and north of the Lincoln Park and Logan Square boundary, which puts it one neighborhood back from the lake in every direction that matters for price.

Local Highlights & Amenities

What to Love About North Center

  • 1

    Houses, Not Just Condos

    This is the North Side neighborhood with real single-family inventory. Wide lots, brick two-flats, gut rehabs, and a steady pipeline of new construction mean a buyer looking for a house with a yard and a garage has actual choices here rather than one listing a month.

  • 2

    A Deep Public School Bench

    Alexander Graham Bell School on North Oakley Avenue and John C. Coonley Elementary on North Leavitt Street are the two attendance-boundary schools that shape this market, and Lane Tech College Prep, one of the largest selective enrollment high schools in Chicago Public Schools, sits inside the neighborhood on West Addison Street.

  • 3

    Roscoe Village's Storefront Main Street

    Roscoe Street between Damen and Western is a low-rise run of independent restaurants, taverns, and shops with sidewalk seating and no chain presence to speak of. It functions as the neighborhood's commercial center without ever feeling like a destination district.

  • 4

    Fieldhouse Parks, Not Just Green Space

    Hamlin Park at 3035 North Hoyne Avenue carries an outdoor pool, two indoor gymnasiums, tennis and basketball courts, ball fields, and a dog park, and Revere Park at 2509 West Irving Park Road adds a recently remodeled fieldhouse and an enclosed playground. These are programmed Chicago Park District facilities rather than lawns.

  • 5

    Three Brown Line Stations and the River Trail

    CTA Brown Line stations at Addison, Irving Park, and Montrose sit inside the neighborhood, putting the Loop within a direct ride, and the Chicago River forms the western boundary with riverside path segments and Clark Park along it.

  • 6

    German Taverns and Neighborhood Breweries

    Laschet's Inn on West Irving Park Road is one of the last genuine German taverns on the North Side, and Begyle Brewing on West Cuyler Avenue and Dovetail Brewery on West Belle Plaine Avenue anchor the southern end of the Ravenswood Avenue brewery corridor known as Malt Row.

    • Sub-Areas and Property Types

    North Center Neighborhoods |
    A Buyer's Guide

    Most buyers searching this community area are searching for one of its pockets rather than for North Center itself. Five neighborhoods sit inside the boundaries, and school attendance lines cut across all of them, which is why the pocket name alone never settles a pricing question here.

    Northcenter

    Northcenter, written as one word to distinguish it from the community area, is the northern half of the area around the Lincoln, Damen, and Irving Park intersection. It holds the largest concentration of the neighborhood's single-family homes and most of its new construction, including the streets inside the Bell and Coonley attendance boundaries where teardowns and rebuilds have been most active. Housing runs from vintage brick two-flats and workers' cottages to 4,000 and 5,000 square foot new builds on 30-foot lots, which means two houses on the same block can be separated by two million dollars. This is the pocket where identifying the builder and the boundary matters most.

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    Roscoe Village

    Roscoe Village occupies the southern half of the community area, centered on the Roscoe Street commercial strip between Damen and Western. It is the best-known name in North Center and often used as though it were the whole neighborhood. Housing is denser and more varied than in Northcenter, mixing brick two-flats and three-flats, vintage courtyard condo buildings, townhomes, and single-family homes both vintage and new. A recent Redfin median for Roscoe Village came in near $694,000 at about $395 per square foot, below the community area figure, largely because the condo and townhome share of sales is higher here.

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    St. Ben's

    St. Ben's, short for St. Benedict, is the pocket around the St. Benedict parish campus on North Leavitt Street, roughly between Addison and Montrose west of Damen. It is one of the more settled residential parts of the North Side, built out with brick bungalows, two-flats, and single-family homes on quiet one-way streets, with St. Benedict Preparatory School and Coonley Elementary both nearby. The intake lists St. Ben's as a named service area, and it is worth treating as its own search term, because buyers who use the name rarely search for North Center instead.

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    Hamlin Park

    The Hamlin Park pocket takes its name from the park at 3035 North Hoyne Avenue and covers the southeastern corner of the community area, near the Lakeview and Lincoln Park boundaries. Housing here leans toward two-flats, three-flats, and vintage condo conversions, with newer townhome development filling former industrial parcels. It generally offers the shortest walk to the Lakeview restaurants and the lowest entry prices in the community area, and the park itself, with its pool, gyms, courts, and dog park, is the pocket's main draw.

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    Lathrop Homes

    At the far southern tip, where Diversey Parkway, Clybourn Avenue, and the Chicago River meet, sits the Julia C. Lathrop Homes, a 1930s public housing development listed on the National Register of Historic Places and redeveloped over the past decade as a mixed-income community with restored historic buildings and new construction alongside them. It is unlike anything else in the community area: low-rise, landscaped, riverfront, and a mix of market-rate and affordable units. Buyers should treat it as its own market with its own rules rather than comparing it to the surrounding blocks.

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    Living in North Center | Dining, Shopping, and Things to Do

    AllDiningShoppingThings to DoParks

    Dining

    North Center's restaurants are almost entirely independent and almost entirely neighborhood-scale, clustered on Roscoe Street, Irving Park Road, and Lincoln Avenue rather than spread across the community area.

    Turquoise Cafe and Restaurant

    Turquoise Cafe and Restaurant, at 2147 West Roscoe Street, is the strip's most ambitious kitchen, doing Turkish and Mediterranean cooking with mezze, kebabs, and a wine list, and it draws from well beyond the neighborhood.

    Laschet's Inn

    Laschet's Inn, at 2119 West Irving Park Road, is a genuine German tavern serving schnitzel, goulash soup, and imported drafts in a room that has not been redecorated for effect. It is one of the last of its kind on the North Side.

    Piazza Bella

    Piazza Bella, at 2114 West Roscoe Street, is the long-running Italian room on the strip, with handmade pasta and sidewalk tables.

    Village Tap

    Village Tap, at 2055 West Roscoe Street, is the neighborhood pub, with a back beer garden, televised games, and a chicken Caesar wrap locals order by name.

    Four Moon Tavern

    Four Moon Tavern, at 1847 West Roscoe Street, is a small tavern with a pool table, a jukebox, and a kitchen that turns out better food than the room suggests.

    Roscoe Village Pub

    Roscoe Village Pub, at 2159 West Addison Street, is the quieter alternative, with a back patio, a fireplace, and a whiskey list.

    Begyle Brewing

    Begyle Brewing, at 1800 West Cuyler Avenue, is a neighborhood brewery with a patio and rotating food trucks rather than a kitchen.

    Dovetail Brewery

    Dovetail Brewery, at 1800 West Belle Plaine Avenue, brews traditional European lagers and runs brewery tours. It sits at the community area's eastern edge on the Ravenswood Avenue corridor.

    Shopping

    Retail here is functional rather than a draw, which is a fair trade for the housing. Roscoe Street between Damen and Western is the main street, a low-rise stretch of independent shops, salons, and services alongside the restaurants, with almost no national chain presence. Buyers who want a dense boutique corridor should look at the Southport Corridor in Lakeview or the Lincoln Avenue strip in Lincoln Square, both a short trip away, and both covered on their own pages.

    Lincoln Avenue and Irving Park Road

    Lincoln Avenue and Irving Park Road carry more everyday retail, hardware, and services.

    Groceries

    For full-size groceries most residents drive or take a short trip to the stores along Western Avenue and Ashland Avenue, or north into Lincoln Square.

    Lutz Bakery

    Lutz Bakery on West Montrose Avenue, a long-standing pastry shop at the neighborhood's northern edge, is the closest thing to a destination food shop in the immediate area.

    Things to Do

    The park system is the reason families stay here through several moves.

    Hamlin Park

    Hamlin Park at 3035 North Hoyne Avenue is the anchor, with an outdoor swimming pool, two indoor gymnasiums, tennis and basketball courts, baseball fields, a large picnic area, a dog park, and a fieldhouse running programming year round.

    Revere Park

    Revere Park at 2509 West Irving Park Road has a recently remodeled fieldhouse and a fully enclosed soft-surface playground with two structures, which makes it the better choice for small children.

    The Chicago River

    The Chicago River forms the western boundary, with riverside path segments and green space along it, and the Brown Line stations at Addison, Irving Park, and Montrose put the rest of the city within a direct ride.

    Parks

    The park system is the reason families stay here through several moves. Hamlin Park at 3035 North Hoyne Avenue is the anchor, with an outdoor swimming pool, two indoor gymnasiums, tennis and basketball courts, baseball fields, a large picnic area, a dog park, and a fieldhouse running programming year round. Revere Park at 2509 West Irving Park Road has a recently remodeled fieldhouse and a fully enclosed soft-surface playground with two structures, which makes it the better choice for small children. Both run Chicago Park District classes and camps, and between them they cover most of the community area.

    North Center Schools

    Lincoln Square is not the comparison here. North Center is served entirely by Chicago Public Schools, District 299, and what makes this neighborhood different from the others in this project is not the number of schools but how directly attendance boundaries drive price. Two elementary boundaries in particular are advertised in listing headlines, and buyers should confirm boundaries for a specific address before assuming anything from a pocket name.

    Public Elementary Schools

  • Alexander Graham Bell School

    3730 North Oakley Avenue

    Alexander Graham Bell School, at 3730 North Oakley Avenue, is an attendance-boundary elementary school and the boundary most frequently cited in North Center listing copy. Streets inside it have seen concentrated teardown and new construction activity.

  • John C. Coonley Elementary School

    4046 North Leavitt Street

    John C. Coonley Elementary School, at 4046 North Leavitt Street, is the other boundary named repeatedly in listings, covering much of the northern part of the community area.

  • Audubon Elementary School

    3500 North Hoyne Avenue

    Audubon Elementary School, at 3500 North Hoyne Avenue, serves the blocks between Roscoe Village and the eastern boundary.

  • Friedrich L. Jahn Public School

    3149 North Wolcott Avenue

    Friedrich L. Jahn Public School, at 3149 North Wolcott Avenue, serves the southern Roscoe Village and Hamlin Park blocks.

    • Public High Schools

  • Alcott College Prep High School

    2957 North Hoyne Avenue

    Alcott College Prep High School, at 2957 North Hoyne Avenue, is a Chicago Public Schools option in the southern part of the community area. Its elementary campus sits in Lincoln Park.

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  • Lane Tech College Prep High School

    2501 West Addison Street

    Lane Tech College Prep High School, at 2501 West Addison Street, is a Chicago Public Schools selective enrollment high school and one of the largest in the district, admitting students citywide by test score rather than by address. Having it inside the neighborhood does not confer a seat, but it does mean a short commute for students who earn one.

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    • Independent and Parochial Schools

  • St. Benedict Preparatory School

    3900 North Leavitt Street

    St. Benedict Preparatory School, at 3900 North Leavitt Street, is a Catholic school on the St. Benedict parish campus that gives the St. Ben's pocket its name.

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    • Questions & Answers

    Frequently Asked Questions About North Center Real Estate

    Everything you need to know about buying a home in Chicago's neighborhood.

    Ask Julie & Chris →
    01

    Why is North Center more expensive per square foot than Lakeview?

    Because the housing mix is different and the demand driver is different. Redfin recorded a North Center median of about $460 per square foot in October 2025, against roughly $430 in central Lakeview over the three months ending May 2026. Those periods do not match, so treat the comparison as direction rather than a precise spread, but the direction holds. Lakeview's inventory is heavily weighted toward condominiums, including a large stock of one and two-bedroom units, while North Center's is weighted toward single-family homes, new construction, and two-flats. Buyers here are paying for a house, a yard, and in many cases a specific school attendance boundary, and there is far less of that product available.

    01

    What is the average home price in North Center?

    The median sale price was about $815,000 in October 2025 across 129 sales, up roughly 11 percent year over year, at about $460 per square foot. That community-area figure sits above Roscoe Village, where a recent Redfin median came in near $694,000 at about $395 per square foot, because Roscoe Village has a higher share of condo and townhome sales. Recent active inventory showed single-family homes averaging near $1.9 million in list price and new construction inside the most sought-after school boundaries listed from roughly $2.5 million to $3.4 million. Confirm any figure against current MLS data before acting on it.

    01

    Is Roscoe Village the same as North Center?

    No. Roscoe Village is a neighborhood inside the North Center community area, occupying roughly its southern half around the Roscoe Street commercial strip between Damen and Western. North Center is one of Chicago's 77 official community areas and contains five named neighborhoods: Northcenter, Roscoe Village, St. Ben's, Hamlin Park, and the Julia C. Lathrop Homes. Roscoe Village is the best-known of them and is often used as though it covered the whole area, which matters for pricing, because Roscoe Village medians run below the community area figure.

    01

    How much do school attendance boundaries affect prices in North Center?

    Enough that listing agents put them in headlines. Homes inside the Alexander Graham Bell School and John C. Coonley Elementary School attendance boundaries command a premium that shows up in list prices, in where builders buy teardowns, and in the concentration of new construction on specific streets. Redfin maintains a dedicated search page for one of those boundaries. The practical implication for a buyer is that two similar houses a street apart can be priced very differently, and that a pocket name such as St. Ben's or Northcenter does not tell you which boundary a property sits in. Boundaries also change. Confirm the assignment for any specific address directly with Chicago Public Schools rather than relying on listing copy or a map overlay.

    01

    What kinds of homes can you buy in North Center?

    This is the most single-family-oriented market of the four North Side neighborhoods covered on this site. Buyers will find vintage brick two-flats and three-flats, workers' cottages, brick bungalows, greystones, gut rehabs, townhomes, vintage courtyard condo buildings, and a large volume of new construction single-family homes, many of them 4,000 to 5,000 square feet on 30-foot lots. There are effectively no high-rises. The Lathrop Homes site at the southern tip adds restored 1930s low-rise buildings and new construction in a mixed-income setting, which is a different market again.

    01

    What is there to do in North Center?

    The honest answer is that the parks and the taverns are the draw, and the neighborhood borrows its cultural amenities from its neighbors. Hamlin Park has an outdoor pool, two indoor gymnasiums, tennis and basketball courts, ball fields, and a dog park, and Revere Park has a remodeled fieldhouse and an enclosed playground, with Chicago Park District programming at both. Roscoe Street between Damen and Western carries independent restaurants and taverns including Turquoise, Piazza Bella, Village Tap, and Four Moon Tavern, Laschet's Inn on Irving Park Road is one of the last genuine German taverns on the North Side, and Begyle Brewing and Dovetail Brewery anchor the brewery corridor along Ravenswood Avenue. For a cinema, a theater, or a music venue, residents go to the Southport Corridor in Lakeview or Lincoln Avenue in Lincoln Square, both a short trip away.

    01

    How is JDC Group different from other North Center real estate agents?

    JDC Group has worked the Chicago market since 1996 and serves North Center from an office at 2350 North Lincoln Avenue. In a market priced this heavily on attendance boundaries and new construction, the useful knowledge is specific rather than general: which boundary a given block actually sits in, how builders working the same streets differ in quality and finish, how a vintage two-flat compares to a new build two doors down, and how Roscoe Village pricing diverges from the community area figure. Julie Chesne holds the Certified Residential Specialist, Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist, Accredited Buyer's Representative, and Real Estate Negotiation Expert designations, along with the Senior Real Estate Specialist and Certified Senior Advisor credentials for clients handling a later-life move, a downsize, or the sale of a longtime family home. JDC Group is affiliated with COMPASS and has been recognized as a Chicago Association of Realtors Top Producer.

    Find Your Home in North Center

    JDC Group has been helping buyers and sellers across North Center and the North Side since 1996, from vintage two-flats and courtyard condos in Roscoe Village to new construction single-family homes in Northcenter and St. Ben's. Whether you are searching for North Center homes for sale, weighing a new build against a rehab, preparing a listing, or working through a downsize or an estate sale, Julie Chesne and the JDC Group team at COMPASS will give you a straight read on the block, the boundary, and the number. Call (773) 807-8580 or email julie.chesne@compass.com to start the conversation.

    start the conversation
    Phone

    (773) 807-8580

    Email

    julie.chesne@compass.com

    Office

    2350 N Lincoln Ave 3rd Floor, Chicago, IL 60614

    Team
    JDC Group at Compass
    Agent
    Julie Chesne, Realtor
    Hours
    9AM to 9PM, Monday through Sunday
    License
    471003470