Skokie rent history: how rents have changed since 2020

The typical Skokie rent has gone from about $1,566/month in December 2020 to $2,179 in May 2026 — +39% (+$613) over roughly 6 years. Below is the full year-by-year record, not the smoothed recent slice you see on the home page.

Skokie rent index, the full series

Year-by-year average rent

Each year's figure is the average of every month Zillow published for that year, so the year-over-year column compares annual averages and seasonality doesn't distort it. 2026 runs only through May 2026 — treat those partial years accordingly.

What the record shows

The Skokie index rose in every full year on record. The steepest climb was 2022 (+10.1%), part of the nationwide 2021–2022 rent surge; the most recent full year, 2025, came in softer at +5.9%. So far in 2026 the index is +2.0% versus the 2025 average — well below the surge-era pace, consistent with a market that is still rising but decelerating.

Over the 6-year span the highest monthly reading was $2,179 in May 2026 — which is right now, so the index is at an all-time high, and the lowest was $1,555 in January 2021.

Read this honestly

• Smoothed index, not asking rents. ZORI tracks the typical observed market rent and is smoothed across listings, so it lags and mutes the sharp moves real renters felt — especially during the 2021–2022 spike.
• Recent months get revised. Zillow restates the last several months as more data arrives (usually under ~1%), so the newest figures here can shift slightly month to month.
• History, not a forecast. A 6-year record of rising rents is not a promise they keep rising. This is what happened, not what will.

See current Skokie rent and the per-ZIP breakdown, the best time of year to rent, or how we compute all of this.