Most Southern Illinois towns are selling the houses they already had. Carterville is selling houses that did not exist two years ago.
Of the 70 properties on the market in Carterville today, three were built in the last two years — two of them carry a 2026 build date. That sounds like a small number until you go looking for the same thing in the towns around it, and find that new construction in this part of the county is the exception, not the pattern.
That is the single most useful thing to understand about Carterville as a buyer: you are not shopping the same inventory you are shopping five miles away, and the price difference between towns is less mysterious than it looks once you see what is actually for sale.
What Is Actually on the Market
Seventy properties are listed in Carterville right now. Forty-seven of them are houses that publish both bedroom count and square footage, which is the set we can say anything useful about:
| Median asking price | Median size | Median year built | Median price per sq ft |
|---|---|---|---|
| $239,000 | 1,724 sq ft | 1972 | $124 |
The year is the number to sit with. A median build year of 1972 means half the houses for sale in Carterville are newer than that — and 14 of the 47 were built in 2000 or later, close to a third of the market. That tracks with the town's own housing data: more than 27% of all housing units in Carterville were built after 2000, in a region where most towns' stock is dominated by the 1920s through the 1960s.
There are still twelve pre-1950 houses on the market here, and some of them are the best value in town by the foot. But Carterville is one of the few places in the county where a buyer who wants something built in their own lifetime has real choices.
How the Neighbors Compare
Here is what the last twelve months of closed sales look like across four Williamson County towns — September 2025 through August 2026, every recorded sale, blended by volume:
| Town | Homes sold, 12 months | Blended median |
|---|---|---|
| Marion | 941 | $213,773 |
| Carterville | 413 | $208,891 |
| Johnston City | 148 | $159,150 |
| Herrin | 502 | $133,582 |
A couple of things worth saying plainly, because the easy version of this table is wrong.
Carterville is not the most expensive town in the county. Marion's twelve-month median runs slightly ahead of it, on more than twice the sales volume. Carterville is expensive relative to its immediate neighbors, not relative to the whole map.
And a lower median is not a worse town. Herrin sold more homes in twelve months than Carterville did and did it at a median $75,000 lower — which, if you are a buyer trying to get into a house, is an argument for Herrin, not against it. Different stock, different entry price, five minutes apart. We have an office in each, and we are not going to pretend one of them is the right answer for everybody.
What the gap mostly reflects is what we just walked through: what is standing, how old it is, and how much of it is new.
About the Schools — And the Part Nobody Warns You About
Carterville is served by Carterville Community Unit School District 5, which runs Carterville High School, Carterville Junior High and Carterville Intermediate School. John A. Logan College sits in town as well, which is unusual for a community of roughly 5,800 people and is a genuine factor for families thinking about dual-credit coursework.
We are not going to rank districts for you in a blog post. If school performance is part of your decision, the honest source is the Illinois Report Card, and we publish the district-by-district numbers straight from it on our own Southern Illinois schools page. Read it yourself and draw your own conclusion.
Here is the part that actually costs people money, and almost nobody mentions it:
⚠️ District lines do not follow city limits
A Carterville mailing address does not guarantee a Carterville CUSD 5 school, and a Herrin or Marion address does not rule one out. Boundaries in this part of Williamson County cross town lines in both directions, and they do it street by street. If the district matters to your decision, get it verified for the exact address before you write an offer — not after. Any SIRE broker will confirm it with the district for you, in writing, and it takes a day. We have watched this go wrong for families and it is not a mistake you can undo at closing.
Three Houses That Show What Carterville Is Building
🏗️ E Vermont St — $219,900 · Built 2026
A brand-new three-bedroom under $220,000 is not a thing that exists in most of this county. At $142 a foot it is priced above the town median per foot, which is exactly what you would expect — you are paying for a house where nothing has a service life behind it. No roof timeline, no wiring question, no furnace math. For a first-time buyer who has been losing out on fixer-uppers and does not have a renovation budget behind the down payment, this is the cleanest entry into Carterville on the board.
🏠 Noah Ln — $295,000 · Built 2020
Noah Lane is a small pocket of newer homes — there are several on the street from the mid-2010s onward — and it is the closest thing Carterville has to a modern subdivision feel. Six years old means the builder warranty is gone but the appliances, roof and systems are all still early in their lives, and a third of an acre is a real yard. This is the profile that moves fastest in town: newer, three bedrooms, nothing to do.
🌟 Main St — $330,000 · Built 2023
Twenty-six hundred square feet, three years old, on better than half an acre — and at $125 a foot it is priced under the town's median per square foot, which for a house this new is the number that should get your attention. The larger, newer end of Carterville is where the per-foot math quietly turns in the buyer's favor, the same pattern we found in Marion earlier this week. Size is cheaper here than newness is.
Also on the market and worth a look: a second 2026 build on Anderson St at $274,000 (3 bed, 1,650 sq ft); a 2025-built four-bedroom on Oregon St at $239,000; a 2019 build on Main St at $275,000; and a 2006 home on Hawkeye Ct at $245,000. At the other end entirely, an 1886 four-bedroom on S Division St is asking $225,000 for 2,861 square feet — $79 a foot, the cheapest square footage in town, and a completely different kind of project.
💰 New Construction Moves Fast
The three newest houses in town are all under $275,000, and houses in that range do not wait for anybody. Free, no-pressure pre-qualification with Jarod Sanders, SIRE's in-house lender.Jarod Sanders · CrossCountry Mortgage · NMLS #2337228
What Else Is in Town
Carterville has grown more than 23% since 2000, which makes it one of the faster-growing communities in Southern Illinois, and 68.5% of its homes are owner-occupied — a high figure that shows up in how the neighborhoods feel. The cost of living index sits at 76.9 against a national average of 100.
Beyond the schools and the college: Walker's Bluff Resort is in Carterville, and Crab Orchard Lake is minutes from town, with Kinkaid and Giant City a short drive further. The town sits directly between Marion and Carbondale, so a Carterville address puts both job markets, both hospital systems and SIU inside a fifteen-minute commute. That is the practical case for the town, and it has nothing to do with any school ranking.
Everything on the Market in Carterville
Live listings, newest first — the same feed our brokers work from.
What Greg Holthaus Tells Buyers Looking at Carterville
People come to me having already decided Carterville is the answer, usually because somebody at work told them it was. Fine — but decide it for your own reasons. If it is the newer housing, that is real and I can show you the inventory to prove it. If it is the commute between Marion and Carbondale, that is real too. If it is the school district, then get the district verified for the specific address, because the lines do not run where people assume they run and I have seen families find that out late. And do not write off Herrin or Johnston City while you are at it. Same county, same brokers, a lot more house for the money, and about five minutes of difference in your morning. The goal is the right house, not the right zip code.
Carterville Real Estate FAQ
How much does a house cost in Carterville, IL?
Is there new construction in Carterville, IL?
Why are Carterville home prices higher than Herrin's?
What school district serves Carterville, IL?
🏠 Thinking About Carterville?
Tell us what you are looking for — new construction, an established neighborhood, a specific street — and a SIRE broker will send you what actually fits. If schools matter to your decision, say so and we will verify the district for any address before you write an offer.
📱 Got a Question About This Market? Text Greg.
Buying? Selling? Not sure where to start? Text Greg Holthaus directly — just tell him you saw his blog. He'll help you think through your decision, match you with the best broker for your situation, and point you in the right direction. He's open to a text any time.
Text Greg · 618.925.8654
Who is Greg Holthaus?
Greg Holthaus is the Owner and Designated Managing Broker of Southern Illinois Realty Experts, with 25+ years in Southern Illinois real estate and more than 10,000 transactions closed. He leads a full-service operation — home sales, mortgage, title, and property management under one roof — with offices in Marion, Herrin, and Carbondale. Meet Greg ›
About the numbers: Active listing counts, asking prices, square footage and build years come from local MLS listing data for Carterville (ZIP 62918) as of September 11, 2026. Twelve-month sale figures cover September 2025 through August 2026 and come from local MLS closed-sale data; the “blended median” is each month’s median weighted by that month’s number of sales, which is an approximation of a true twelve-month median, not the same statistic. Population, growth, owner-occupancy and cost-of-living figures are from our own Carterville community page; school district information is from the Illinois Report Card as published on our schools page. Listings are represented by various brokerages, and any home mentioned here can go pending, sell, or change price at any time — if something catches your eye, reach out and we’ll confirm current status. School district boundaries must be verified for a specific address; nothing here is a guarantee of school assignment. Nothing here is a loan offer, rate quote, or guarantee.