Hi! My name is Tony Anczer, I grew up in the south Chicago Suburbs and lived my adult life in NW Indiana. This blog post explains what its like to live in NW Indiana from my entire life experience of living in the Region.
I am a real estate agent licensed in Illinois and Indiana. Feel free to reach out with any real estate buying or selling needs in Indiana or Illinois. Call me directly on my cell at 708-608-3000 or reach out via email at Tony@Anczer.com.
What This Blog Post Covers:
Most everyone has their own working-definition of what exactly is northwest Indiana, but it is generally the northwest area of the state with west limit being the Illinois border, and north limit being Lake Michigan. NW Indiana includes the counties of Lake County, Porter County, The Towns that NW Indiana includes:
Overall, the schools in Northwest Indiana are good to great. Munster Indiana leads the pack in school ratings. Illiana Christian school has the highest SAT scores in the region. There are so many different school districts and different schools, that the best resource to get the current status of schools is the website https://www.greatschools.org/.
Indiana also has the Indiana Choice Scholarship Program which the state pays towards private school tuition if you prefer to send your kids to private schools. The amount the state pays varies slightly depending on what school district you live in.
If you are looking to learn more about Northwest Indiana, this video is for you! As a Northwest Indiana realtor, I love to use video for listings, to record home tours for buyers, and to create community information videos like this “All About Northwest Indiana” video. This video includes content on houses for sale and homes for sale in NW Indiana, which will help you see what types of homes are in which areas of the town.
There’s a lot to do in NW Indiana, and we are close to Chicago, of which there are endless things to do in Chicago. I live in St. John, and from my house to downtown Chicago (without traffic) is about 50 minutes.
To list a few of the highlights:
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Northwest Indiana is a pretty broad area, so it really depends on where you want to be in Northwest Indiana. As a Northwest Indiana realtor South of Lowell gets rural quickly. I usually find that people are looking to be either in the south end of NWI (Cedar Lake or Lowell area), in the tri-town area (Dyer, Schererville, Munster), or east towards Valparaiso. Crown Point draws a lot of people because of all that downtown Crown Point has to offer.
Northwest Indiana has developed a lot over the years, and the roads are generally a bit undersized for rush hour. During the daytime you can zip around with ease, and then during rush hour expect drive times to be 50% to twice as long.
Overall, the schools are pretty good. A great resource to learn more about local schools is the website greatschools.com. We choose to send our kids to private Christian schools, and that’s not because we don’t want our kids to be in the public schools, but is a faith based decision, and the state pays for the majority of private school tuition from the Choice Scholarship program. In 2025, the state pays about $6,500 towards each my my kids’ tuition (the exact amount varies a little bit depending on what school district you are in.)
For all of Northwest Indiana, NIPSCO is the natural gas and electric service provider. Which agency provides water and sewer service varies by the town you are in – generally you would reach out to the town you live and the town itself provides water and sewer for most of the NW communities.
