Burlington, WI

Burlington started as a mill town. Wisconsin Public Radio reported in December 2022 that the Echo Lake dam on the White River, just north of where it joins the Fox River, was built in 1835 to power flour and saw mills, and that it has not produced power for the city since 1933. The pond behind that dam is Echo Lake, which still sits at the north edge of downtown.

The city's history page says the first land claim was made around December 1835, that the settlement was first called Foxville, and that the name changed to Burlington on July 15, 1839. After the dam, sawmill and grain mill came the first bridge over the Fox River. Burlington incorporated as a village in 1886 and became a city in 1900, and the city still posts both charters.

The housing stock carries that history. A 2012 architectural survey led to the Kane Street Historic District, which the Wisconsin Historical Society's review board listed on the State Register of Historic Places on November 22, 2013. The city's page points owners of homes in the district to the state's 25% historic homes tax credit for qualifying rehab work.

Manufacturing shaped the modern city. The Racine County Economic Development Corporation calls Burlington "the Chocolate City" for its Nestlé plant and counts more than 750 businesses in town. For a buyer, the practical takeaway is that Burlington is a working city with jobs, a hospital and a downtown, rather than a resort town.

Burlington sits in western Racine County, about 35 road miles southwest of downtown Milwaukee and about 49 miles north of Vernon Hills, Illinois. The Census Bureau's 2024 gazetteer gives the city 7.724 square miles of land and 0.253 square miles of water. Of that land, 7.473 square miles are in Racine County and 0.25 square miles are in Walworth County.

The Walworth County piece is small and commercial. The Department of Revenue's 2025 equalized values for Walworth County show $16.3 million of property in the city's Walworth portion, all of it commercial or agricultural, with no residential value. In practice, every house in the city is in Racine County, and the Walworth piece matters only for its slightly different tax rate.

The DOR counted 11,137 people in the city for 2025. The 2020 census counted 11,047.

The most important boundary is the one around the city. Burlington is surrounded by the Town of Burlington, a separate municipality with its own town board, tax rate and police contract. Both share the Burlington 53105 mailing address, and so do parts of the Towns of Lyons, Brighton and Wheatland and the Village of Rochester. When I look at a listing that says "Burlington," the tax bill tells me which municipality it is, and that decides the rate, the services and who handles zoning. Browns Lake and Bohners Lake are both in the town, and they are covered in my Town of Burlington guide.

I split Burlington into four areas when I talk about it, because age, lot size and price change between them.

Downtown and the historic grid sit where the Fox and White rivers meet. This is where the oldest houses are, many on lots under a quarter acre, along with the Kane Street Historic District and the blocks around Pine, Chestnut and State streets. Listings I opened on October 5, 2026 show the range: a 1901 house on Conkey Street at $349,900, a rebuilt 1901 Victorian on West Chestnut Street at $399,900 and a 1925 house on Kendall Street at $275,000.

The Echo Lake side covers the blocks north and west of downtown near the lake, Echo Veterans Memorial Park and the city's Browns Lake Golf Course. Homes here are mostly mid-century houses on city lots. The lake itself is a small, shallow city flowage, covered in its own section below.

The established subdivisions fill the east and west sides, with 1950s to 1990s ranches and two-stories on lots of about a quarter acre. Recent sales on Dardis Street, Park Avenue and Lewis Street, built between 1955 and 1991, closed between $462,500 and $475,000 in the summer of 2026.

The new south side is where Burlington is growing. Schaefer Farm, off Heartland Drive, Revere Street, Freedom Trail and Concord Circle, had 2026-built single-family homes listed from $454,990 to $509,990 and ranch townhomes from $349,990 to $459,990 on October 5, 2026. On the northeast edge, a 2026 build on one of the last lots in Glen at Stonegate sold for $599,900 in July 2026, and the Falcon Ridge condominiums north of downtown had a 2022 unit listed at $499,000.

Burlington is a mix of houses and apartments, more like an older small city than a suburb. The 2020-2024 American Community Survey counts 4,850 housing units (plus or minus 284). About 2,746 of them, 57%, are detached single-family houses. Another 307 are in two- to four-unit buildings, 663 in buildings of five to 19 units and 886 in buildings of 20 or more. Of 4,626 occupied homes, 2,624 (57%) are owner-occupied.

The age curve is long. The median Burlington home was built in 1970. About 931 homes, 19% of the stock, were built before 1940, the largest single group in the survey. The 1950s, 1960s and 1970s each added roughly 640 to 700 homes, and about 773 were built since 2000. That spread is why one street can hold a Victorian and the next a 1990s ranch.

The ACS puts the median owner value at $276,600 (plus or minus $23,342), above Racine County's $251,400. The survey counts only about 46 owner-occupied homes valued at $750,000 to $999,999 and none above $1 million. The median gross rent is $999 a month (plus or minus $117).

The DOR's 2025 equalized values for Racine County show the tax base: $989.7 million of the city's $1.53 billion in Racine County real estate is residential, about 65%, and $452.5 million is commercial. Land is only about 11% of the residential value, typical of a city with small lots.

Each age group has its own inspection list. On a pre-1940 house I look at the foundation, the electrical service and any knob-and-tube wiring, and the age of the sewer lateral. On a 1950s to 1970s house it is the roof, windows and mechanicals. On new construction it is the warranty terms and the grading and drainage, which matters in a river town.

Downtown Burlington is the city's main draw. It is also a construction zone in 2026. The city's project page describes a full reconstruction of North Pine Street from Milwaukee Avenue to Jefferson Street and West Chestnut Street from Milwaukee Avenue to Pine Street. The council approved the contract on March 3, 2026, and construction began April 20, 2026.

The design keeps two-way traffic on Pine Street but narrows the drive lanes from 14 feet to 12 feet with a curbless "valley curb." Outside it, each side gets 18.5 feet of flex space, with parking stalls marked by color and planters or bollards to separate people from cars. The project also replaces the water main on East Chestnut Street, upgrades sanitary and storm sewers and replaces service laterals.

By mid-August the first phase was finished. TMJ4 reported on August 19, 2026 that curb, gutter, sidewalk and new concrete pavement were in on Chestnut Street and parts of Pine Street, with trees, lighting and planters still to come, and that phase two had closed two blocks of Pine Street between Chestnut and Jefferson for storm sewer and underground electrical work. Work was expected to wrap up in the fall.

For a buyer, two things follow. First, homes within a few blocks of Pine Street will sit next to a rebuilt streetscape with new utilities underneath, which is the kind of public investment I like to see before buying near a downtown. Second, if you are touring in the fall of 2026, expect detours; the city posts a detour map and weekly updates on the project page.

Echo Lake is the city's own lake, and it is not a boating lake. The Wisconsin DNR lists it as a 70-acre flowage with a maximum depth of 11 feet and a mean depth of 2 feet, with one boat landing and seven public parks or public lands within 1,000 feet. It is a park lake and a view, with paddling and fishing rather than skiing.

The dam behind it has been the city's biggest public decision of the decade. The city's Echo Lake page explains that a 2015 dam failure analysis found the dam could not pass a modeled 500-year flood, and the DNR required compliance by July 2025, either by modifying the dam or removing it. In a November 8, 2022 advisory referendum, 2,665 votes (59.6%) favored modifying the dam and restoring the lake, and on December 6, 2022 the council unanimously approved the modification.

Construction is underway now. A pre-construction meeting was held March 17, 2026 with Janke General Contractors and Ayres Associates, and the city's March 2026 update scheduled spillway work to start April 1, concrete in early May and the crest gates and an overlook deck in early August. The city's timeline puts dredging in 2027: about 115,000 cubic yards of sediment, which the city says will remove nearly 500,000 pounds of phosphorus and return the lake to a historical depth.

The city estimates the whole project at $10 million to $12 million: about $3.5 million for the dam, $4 million to $5 million for dredging and about $2 million for park improvements. It lists a $1 million DNR Dam Municipal Grant awarded in 2022, a tentative $723,320 in park and trail grants and $10 million in state funding in the 2025-2027 budget passed July 3, 2025.

For anyone buying near Echo Lake, I would expect construction noise through 2026, dredging work in 2027 and a better lake and park at the end of it.

Zillow's home value index put the typical Burlington home at $365,351 in August 2026, up 4.9% from a year earlier and 9.0% over two years. For comparison, Zillow's August 2026 figures were $318,751 for Racine County, $402,015 for the 53105 ZIP code, which takes in the lake towns around the city, $445,626 for Waterford and $399,526 for Lake County, Illinois.

That makes Burlington about $34,000 below Lake County's typical home. Coming from Lake County, the comparison I would make is house for house: a city lot with sewer and water, a short walk or drive to a downtown, and a lower purchase price, against a Wisconsin tax rate that is not low (see the tax section).

Redfin's public data counted 103 Burlington sales in the 12 months from June 2025 through May 2026, against 105 the year before. Monthly medians ranged from $250,000 (November 2025, five sales) to $407,500 (July 2025). In May 2026 the median was $382,500 on eight sales, homes sold at 100.6% of list on average after a median 43 days, and inventory stood at 30 homes, up from 16 a year earlier.

The closings I could see show the same range. Movoto's MetroMLS-sourced sold pages, opened October 5, 2026, list these city sales: a 2026 build in Glen at Stonegate on 1.3 acres at $599,900 (July 30), a new Schaefer Farm house on Revere Street at $508,990 (July 1), a 1955 house on Dardis Street at $475,000 (August 14), a 1991 house on Park Avenue at $470,000 (July 16), an 1890 house on Amanda Street at $361,000 (July 15) and a 1930 cottage of 732 square feet on Wainwright Avenue at $279,000 (August 18).

With about eight or nine sales a month, one new-construction closing can move a monthly median by $50,000, so I price a Burlington house from its own comparable sales: historic against historic, new build against new build. If you're running numbers, my guide to how much house you can afford in 2026 is a good place to start.

Inside the city limits, no. The highest city sale I found in the Movoto sold data for the summer of 2026 was the $599,900 Glen at Stonegate build, and the highest city listing on October 5, 2026 was a 2022 Falcon Ridge condominium at $499,000. The 2020-2024 ACS estimates no owner-occupied homes in the city worth $1 million or more. Burlington's appeal is price, services and a downtown, not estates.

The $1 million-plus market is around the city, not in it. In the same Movoto data, every Burlington-address sale above $1 million in June through August 2026 was outside the city line. The top one was a Browns Lake house on Lake Street with 89 feet of frontage that sold for $1,718,000 on June 17, 2026, in the Town of Burlington. Others were a house on about 35 acres on North English Settlement Avenue at $1,575,000 (July 16) and a 2023 contemporary on the same road at $1,505,000 (July 21), both in the Village of Rochester, and a house on 80th Street in the Town of Wheatland at $1,695,000 (August 20).

The listings tell the same story. On October 5, 2026 the top Burlington-address listings were a 62-acre property on 288th Avenue in the Town of Brighton at $2,250,000, a 41-acre historic farm on Warren Road in the Town of Lyons at $2,195,000 and nearly 80 acres of development land on Fish Hatchery Road in the Town of Burlington at $4,995,000.

So the question for a $2 million buyer is which lake or which acreage. Browns Lake is the deepest frontage market close to the city and is covered in my Town of Burlington guide. For horse property and large estates west of the city, see my Town of Lyons guide, and for acreage to the southeast, my Town of Brighton guide. If what you want is the Geneva Lake tier, that is a different market about 26 minutes west, in my Lake Geneva guide.

Wisconsin taxes run on assessed value times a mill rate, and Burlington's assessments are close to market, which makes the math simple. The DOR's 2025 Town, Village and City Taxes report puts the city's Racine County portion at an assessment level of 0.99, meaning assessments averaged about 99% of market value.

For taxes levied in 2025 and collected in 2026, the DOR gives the Racine County portion a gross rate of 1.647% of full value and a net rate of 1.506% after the state school levy credit. The small Walworth County portion, which has no homes, runs 1.582% gross and 1.465% net. Of the $25.2 million levied in the Racine portion, about 40% goes to the Burlington Area School District, about 40% to the city, 15% to Racine County and 3% to Gateway Technical College.

Divided by the 0.99 assessment level, the net rate works out to about $15.21 per $1,000 of assessed value. Coming from Lake County, Illinois, the tax bill is the first thing people compare, and at about 1.5% of value Burlington is not the low-tax Wisconsin some buyers expect.

A worked example. A $365,000 primary residence, at Zillow's typical value, assessed at the 0.99 level would carry about $361,350 of assessed value and a 2025 net bill of about $5,496. The lottery and gaming credit, a $27,000 credit value times the school tax rate, comes to roughly $185 by my estimate, for a net near $5,311, or about 1.46% of value. A second home or rental gets no lottery credit. Wisconsin's real estate transfer fee is $0.30 per $100 of value, or $1,095 on that sale. This is general information, not tax advice; your bill depends on the parcel, its assessment and your credits.

City homes are on municipal water and sewer. The city's rate page lists a quarterly water service charge of $31.10 for a standard 5/8-inch meter plus a $30.78 public fire charge, and usage at $2.75 per 100 cubic feet for the first 5,000 cubic feet (rates effective September 14, 2023). Sewer, effective January 1, 2025, is $33.48 a quarter plus $4.50 per 100 cubic feet. By my arithmetic, a home using 2,000 cubic feet a quarter, about 15,000 gallons, would pay roughly $240 a quarter for both. The city's wastewater plant also treats sewage from the Browns Lake and Bohners Lake sanitary districts in the town.

Fire service comes from the Burlington Fire Department, a combination department of full-time, part-time and volunteer staff, and the city reports an ISO Class 2 rating, which the city notes can lower fire insurance premiums.

Flooding is the item I would never skip in Burlington. The city sits where the White River joins the Fox, and in April 2026 the Fox came over its banks. The Racine County Eye reported that the Fox overflowed into Burlington neighborhoods after days of heavy rain, and that the county and city handed out sandbags on the 600 block of Maryland Avenue. A WISN report on April 21 showed Beaumont Field's playground and ball diamonds underwater and homeowners along the river running extra sump pumps, with one comparing it to flash flooding in 2017. In July, TMJ4 reported that FEMA had denied public infrastructure aid to Racine County while individual homeowners could still apply for assistance.

On any house near either river, I would check the FEMA flood map, get a flood insurance quote before the inspection period ends and ask the seller in writing about water in the basement in April 2026 and 2017.

The whole city is in the Burlington Area School District, a K-12 district that also covers the surrounding Town of Burlington and parts of several neighboring towns. The DOR's 2025 apportionment puts all of the city's Racine County value in the district, so there is no split-district question inside the city the way there is in many Wisconsin lake towns.

The elementary schools run K4 or kindergarten through grade 4."

Grades 5 through 8 go to Karcher Middle School."

The district has made hard budget choices recently. WISN reported in March 2024 that a February 2024 operating referendum failed by roughly 300 votes, leaving a $5 million gap, and that the district closed Lyons Center Elementary in the Town of Lyons as part of closing it. The superintendent said then that the district expected to go back to voters. I did not find a later referendum result, so I would check the district's site for anything on an upcoming ballot, because a passed referendum changes the school line on the tax bill.

Gateway Technical College also runs a Burlington Center next to the high school campus, per an OpenStreetMap extract I pulled on October 5, 2026. Attendance areas inside the district follow the address, so I confirm the elementary assignment with the district office before an offer.

Burlington is a highway crossroads without an interstate. The Burlington Bypass carries WIS 11, WIS 36 and WIS 83 around the south and east sides of the city, per an OpenStreetMap extract I pulled on October 5, 2026. WIS 36 runs northeast toward Milwaukee, WIS 11 runs east toward Racine and west toward Elkhorn, WIS 83 runs south toward the Illinois line and Antioch, and WIS 142 runs southeast toward Kenosha and I-94.

I ran free-flow routes from downtown on the OSRM routing engine, which uses OpenStreetMap roads and no traffic, on October 5, 2026. Treat these as best-case estimates.

Vernon Hills is about 49 road miles and 65 minutes. Downtown Chicago is about 75 miles and 97 minutes. O'Hare is about 72 miles, and the router gave 108 minutes, which looks long against the Loop time; I would allow about the same as downtown Chicago and check it in real traffic. Downtown Milwaukee is about 35 miles and 54 minutes, and Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport about 30 miles and 49 minutes, so Mitchell is usually the easier airport from Burlington. Racine is about 29 miles and 46 minutes, Lake Geneva about 13 miles and 26 minutes, and Madison about 83 miles and 108 minutes.

That puts Burlington just inside the 90-minute ring from Vernon Hills that most of the Lake County buyers I talk to use as a weekend limit, and closer to Milwaukee than to Chicago. For a daily drive to the Loop it is a long commute; for a hybrid week or a Milwaukee-area job it works.

Burlington has no passenger rail. The closest train is Amtrak at Sturtevant, about 22 road miles and 34 minutes from downtown by the same free-flow router. In Amtrak's published schedule feed for the week of October 4, 2026, the Sturtevant station has six weekday Hiawatha trains toward Chicago Union Station, the first at 7:43 a.m., with rides of 76 to 84 minutes, plus one daily Borealis train. On Saturdays there are six Hiawatha trains toward Chicago and on Sundays five, again plus the Borealis.

The Metra options are in Illinois and Kenosha. I counted trains in Metra's GTFS schedule data for service in effect through October 4, 2026. Antioch, on the North Central Service, is about 20 miles and 30 minutes from downtown Burlington and has seven weekday trains each way, with morning rides to Union Station of 92 to 103 minutes and no weekend service. Fox Lake, the end of the Milwaukee District North line, is about 23 miles and 37 minutes away, with 16 weekday trains each way, morning rides of 88 to 102 minutes and nine each way on Saturdays and Sundays. Kenosha, at the end of the Union Pacific North line, is about 26 miles and 41 minutes away, with 10 weekday trains to Ogilvie and 9 back.

Door to door, a Burlington to Loop train trip runs about two hours by any of these. For a hybrid schedule, Sturtevant's Hiawatha is the fastest ride once you're on the train; Fox Lake has the most trains.

Burlington's parks follow its rivers. An OpenStreetMap extract I pulled on October 5, 2026 places Echo Veterans Memorial Park on Echo Lake, Wehmhoff Jucker Park, Riverfront Park and Riverside Park along the Fox River downtown, and two canoe and kayak launches on the rivers. Beaumont Field and the Hintz Complex hold the ball fields, and the Wehmhoff Woodland Preserve sits north of the city. The city's Echo Lake project adds new trails, lighting and an overlook on the dam.

Browns Lake Golf Course sits inside the city limits on the west side of Browns Lake, by my geocoding of its OpenStreetMap location, and Fischer County Park's beach and boat launch on Browns Lake are about 2 miles east of downtown in the Town of Burlington. The Burlington Community Aquatic Center at 394 Amanda Street is run by a nonprofit without tax dollars, with a 2026 resident daily rate of $8 and a nonresident rate of $10.

Large public land surrounds the city. The same extract shows units of the DNR's Honey Creek Wildlife Area to the north and west, the Burlington State Habitat Area to the south and the Richard Bong State Recreation Area about 8 miles southeast.

Daily life runs downtown: the Burlington Public Library, City Hall and the post-reconstruction shopping blocks. Aurora Memorial Hospital of Burlington is on the city's west side, and Burlington Municipal Airport, a city-owned general aviation field, sits on the west edge of town. The city's airport page describes it as unmanned and financially self-supporting.

Four things are moving in Burlington in late 2026.

The first two are public projects covered above: the Pine Street and Chestnut Street reconstruction, expected to finish in the fall of 2026, and the Echo Lake dam work, with spillway construction in 2026 and dredging planned for 2027. Together they put new streets, utilities, trails and a deeper lake in the middle of the city within about a year.

The third is Schaefer Farm on the south side. The Milwaukee Business Journal reported on March 4, 2026 that the nation's largest homebuilder bought a $3.12 million portion of Schaefer Farms with plans for more, and the listings name D.R. Horton as the builder. On October 5, 2026, Movoto showed 2026-built houses there from $454,990 to $509,990 and ranch townhomes from $349,990 to $459,990, so this is where most of the city's new inventory is coming from.

The fourth is a set of Plan Commission hearings. The city's notices, posted September 18, 2026, schedule October 13, 2026 hearings on a conditional use permit for non-metallic mining at 7148 McHenry Street in an M-4 manufacturing district, a drive-through at 950 Milwaukee Avenue and a truck rental use at 656 McHenry Street. If you're looking at a house near McHenry Street on the south side, the mining permit is worth reading in full, because it can mean truck traffic and noise.

The city has its own Burlington Police Department at 224 E. Jefferson Street, which patrols all of the city and handles calls, investigations and records. Fire and rescue come from the Burlington Fire Department at 165 W. Washington Street. I don't characterize any town or neighborhood. Anyone who wants the data can ask the department or look up any agency on the FBI's Crime Data Explorer.

Browns Lake is about 2 miles from downtown, Bohners Lake about 5, and Geneva Lake about 26 minutes.

Taxes run about 1.5% of value, close to the Illinois range rather than below it. Parts of the city near the Fox and White rivers flooded in April 2026. Downtown streets are torn up into the fall of 2026, and Echo Lake dredging follows in 2027. The district has already closed one school after a failed referendum.

The one thing I would never skip here is confirming whether a "Burlington" listing is in the city or the town, because the tax rate, sewer, police service and lake access all change at that line.