River Forest, IL population, income and ZIP codes

River Forest village is a mid-size town in Illinois, with 11,489 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #201 of 1,462 ranked by population — larger than 86% of them. The median age here is 40.1 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in River Forest village earn a median of $148,711 a year, 89.3% above the national figure of $78,538 and 100% above the $74,244 median for the 698 Illinois cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 2.2% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in River Forest village is valued at $676,900, 123.1% above the national figure and 278% above the $179,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,411 a month, essentially level with the national figure, or roughly $16,932 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 11.4% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 4.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 89% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.