Why the "Huntley Median" Doesn't Tell You What You'll Actually Pay

Two calls came in during the same week this spring. One was from a couple who wanted to know why a new single-family home at Talamore was listed close to $590,000 when they'd read that the median home price in Huntley was somewhere in the low $400,000s. The other was from a woman looking to downsize into Del Webb Sun City who wanted to know why homes there kept selling in under a month if prices weren't really going anywhere.

Both callers had done their homework. Both were looking at a number that said "Huntley." Neither number described the home they were actually shopping for.

One Town, Three Price Tags

Huntley's town-level home value sits at $419,409 as of June 2026, up 4.0% over the past year. Narrow that to the 60142 zip code and the figure runs a little higher, $426,961 as of May 2026, up 2.6% year over year. Sales data for June 2026 put the median sold price at $486,045, with 260 homes changing hands that month compared with 235 the year before, and an average of 36 days on the market, up from 26 days the prior June.

That's the town number. It's also an average of at least three markets that are not behaving the same way.

A single "Huntley median" blends new construction that's still being built at today's labor and material costs with a 55+ resale community where every sale is a resale of something built years ago. Those two things don't move on the same clock.

Why the Numbers Split

The town-level number is being pulled up by growth that's easy to see if you know where to look. Huntley currently has five active residential subdivisions under construction combining for more than 600 new homes, including a 224-unit Lennar maintenance-free community, and a 326-unit M/I Homes residential project has recently been approved, according to the Village of Huntley's economic development office. That construction isn't happening in a vacuum. Two Amazon facilities now employ close to 3,500 people at peak, Northwestern Medicine's local workforce is approaching 2,000 and growing as a new $95 million medical building comes online, and employers like Weber-Stephen and Sanfilippo & Son have expanded their footprints along the Route 47 corridor. New rooftops chase new jobs, and new construction prices in today's costs, not last decade's.

Del Webb Sun City runs on a different mechanism entirely. Pulte built out the community's ranch homes and townhomes over roughly a decade and stopped adding new inventory years ago, so today's Sun City sale is always a resale, competing against other resales in a fixed pool of floor plans. That's a supply structure, not a demand problem. Homes there still moved in about 27 days on average through spring 2026, and 32 homes were pending as of early June 2026 at a median list price of $400,000, which tells you buyers are still showing up. The prices just aren't accelerating the way new construction prices can, because there's no ribbon-cutting adding fresh comparables to push the ceiling higher.

The New Twist Inside the 55+ Market

Here's the part that surprises even people who've followed Sun City for years. Talamore, Lennar's newer master-planned community, includes an active-adult section called Andare, built exclusively for buyers 55 and better, with mowing and snow removal built into the low-maintenance design. It's brand new construction, and current builder listings for the section run well above $400,000, with at least one home under construction priced at $472,282, well above the roughly $374,000 to $402,000 range that describes a typical Sun City resale.

A downsizer looking at "55+ homes in Huntley" is no longer choosing between one community and the rest of the market. They're choosing between an established, amenity-rich resale community with a fixed and aging inventory, and a newer build with modern finishes and a much smaller social footprint that's still filling in.

Neither choice is right or wrong. But if you're comparing them by a single median price you found online, you're not actually comparing the two products people are choosing between on the ground.

What Sun City Resale Buyers Actually Pay For

Inside the resale market, the priorities are narrower than they look from the outside. Buyers shopping Sun City tend to weigh floor plan first, then lot, then basement, in that order. Only about one in ten homes in the community has a basement, and the ones that do carry a real, durable premium over comparable homes without one. A lot backing to open space, a pond, or the Whisper Creek Golf Course tends to add somewhere in the range of $15,000 to $25,000 at resale compared with an interior lot.

Ownership costs are shifting too. The community's base HOA assessment, which covers the shared clubhouses and amenities managed through the Sun City Community Association of Huntley, rose from $155 a month in 2025 to $159 a month in 2026. It's a modest increase, but it's the kind of detail that shows up in a monthly budget and rarely shows up in a portal's headline price.

What This Means If You're Buying or Selling

If you're a move-up family comparing new construction to an established Huntley neighborhood, the town median won't tell you what a comparable resale home actually costs today. Pull comps from the specific subdivision, not the zip code.

If you're downsizing and weighing Del Webb Sun City against a newer active-adult build like Andare, decide first whether you're buying a lifestyle that already exists (established clubs, a golf course with decades of play on it, restaurants like Jameson's Charhouse already part of daily life) or a lifestyle that's still being built out. That decision matters more than the price gap between the two.

If you're selling inside Sun City, the town's rising median won't lift your comp. Your price ceiling is set by other resales in the same closed pool, so pricing strategy has to be built from Sun City sales, not Huntley sales.

Quick Questions

Is Del Webb Sun City still building new homes? No. Pulte finished construction there years ago, so every transaction in the community today is a resale.

Does everyone in a Sun City or Andare household need to be 55 or older? No. The age restriction applies to at least one resident of the household. Spouses and partners under 55 can live there too.

If Sun City prices are flat, why do homes still sell in under a month? Demand and price aren't the same thing. A flat or slightly softening median just means the ceiling on what similar homes have sold for hasn't moved much, even while buyers keep showing up quickly for well-priced, well-maintained listings.

Huntley isn't one market pretending to be complicated. It's several markets that happen to share a mailing address, each moving on its own clock. If you're trying to figure out which version of Huntley actually applies to the home you're buying or selling, that's exactly the kind of conversation Melanie Enriquez has with clients across McHenry County every week. Let's Connect and talk through what the numbers mean for your specific move.