Albany, Illinois.
Typical home $169,952 (+5.0% in a year). Sterling, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$453 (+103%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,139 +5%
- $161,813$169,952 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $35,596 +26%
- $134,356$169,952 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Albany$892
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 15 years.
Typical home values in Albany, IL rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Albany, Whiteside County, Illinois
Albany is a village of 864 people in Whiteside County. Half its households earn more than $62,857 a year and half less, against $67,500 across Whiteside County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 89% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 11% are rented. Unemployment in Whiteside County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 4.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Albany is a small village in Whiteside County where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Incomes run a little below the county's, and few households live below the poverty line. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, and in shops. Across Whiteside County, some of the largest workplaces are CGH Medical Center, Wahl Clipper and the Sterling school district. Work has been harder to come by lately, with fewer jobs across the county than a year earlier, though unemployment has eased since last year. A four-year degree is held by fewer adults here than is typical, and most people drive a moderate distance to work.
Things to do. Albany Mounds State Historic Site, an archaeological site, lies in or beside town. A short drive away are the Wapsipinicon River and Bickelhaupt Arboretum, a botanical garden. For a longer outing, the Figge Art Museum is a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 320households
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Whiteside County had 20,285 jobs in 2025, 4.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 65°. About 32 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Clinton #1 weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Whiteside County
- HALO Branded SolutionsGeneral merchandise, durable goods, merchant wholesalers2,463
- CGH Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,213FTE
- WalmartRefrigerated warehousing and storage1,020
- Wahl ClipperHair clippers for human use, electric, manufacturing787
- Sterling CUSD 5School district540FTE
- Diamond Drives449
- CGH Medical CenterFamily physicians' offices380
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters340
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 75 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,621 people in all across the county; Albany has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Strong windRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Albany’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively moderate. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Whiteside County and the Sterling, IL metro.
Albany home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Albany$169,952
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Albany6
Zip codes with a Albany address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Albany — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.