Alma, Illinois.
Typical home $128,314 (+4.4% in a year). Centralia, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$358 (+113%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $5,454 +4%
- $122,860$128,314 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $26,075 +26%
- $102,239$128,314 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.
- Alma$673
- 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 Alma, IL rose 4.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Alma, Marion County, Illinois
Alma is a village of 318 people in Marion County. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Marion County was 4.2% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Marion County work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Alma is a small village in Marion County, Illinois, where most homes are lived in by their owners and the typical home value is modest. Incomes in the village sit below the county's, and a four-year degree is less common among adults here than in most places. Winters are cold and summers are warm, with a little snow each year and plenty of rain through the seasons.
Work. Residents of Alma work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, in shops and in restaurants and hotels. Across Marion County, some of the largest workplaces are North American Lighting, SSM Health ST. Marys Hospital and Walmart. Unemployment across the county has eased compared with a year earlier, though the county has seen slightly fewer jobs than the year before.
Things to do. The closest outdoor option is Stephen A. Forbes State Recreation Area, a protected area a short drive away. Farther afield, Carlyle Lake is a large reservoir a longer drive away, and the Vandalia State House State Historic Site, also a longer drive away, is a museum for anyone interested in the state's early history.
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- 12%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
What people in Marion County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Marion County had 12,335 jobs in 2025, 0.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 67°. About 10 inches of snow and 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Salem weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Marion County
- North American LightingMotor vehicle electrical and electronic equipment manufacturing1,078
- SSM Health St. Marys HospitalGeneral hospital385FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters280
- Centralia HSD 200School district261FTE
- American Bath GroupPlumbing fixtures, plastics or fiberglass, manufacturing243
- Radiac AbrasivesAbrasive products manufacturing220
- Salem Township HospitalCritical access hospital184FTE
- Conagra BrandsCommercial bakeries181
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 42 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,146 people in all across the county; Alma 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 windVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Alma’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Marion County and the Centralia, IL metro.
Alma home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Alma$128,314
- 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.
Zip codes with a Alma address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Alma — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.