Amboy, Illinois.
Typical home $183,421 (+9.2% in a year). Dixon, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$546 (+131%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,409 +9%
- $168,011$183,421 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $45,716 +33%
- $137,705$183,421 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.
- Amboy$963
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 12 years.
Typical home values in Amboy, IL rose 9.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Amboy, Lee County, Illinois
Amboy is a city of 2,278 people in Lee County. Half its households earn more than $68,258 a year and half less, against $70,292 across Lee County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 76% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 24% are rented. Unemployment in Lee County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Amboy is a small city in Lee County, Illinois, and most homes here are lived in by their owners, at a higher rate than is typical across the country. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and typical home values are modest. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm days, and the year is fairly wet.
Work. Residents work mainly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and in the building trades. Few people work from home, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Across Lee County, some of the largest workplaces are Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital, Crest Foods Co and Raynor Garage Doors, and the county has been adding jobs, with unemployment lower than a year ago.
Things to do. Franklin Creek State Natural Area is a protected area a short drive away. Farther out, a longer drive brings you to White Pines Forest State Park, another protected area, and to the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, a museum-style historic site tied to a president's early years.
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- 1,002households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 1%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lee County had 12,642 jobs in 2025, 2.2% more 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 83° and lows near 64°. About 31 inches of snow and 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Dixon 1W weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lee County
- Katherine Shaw Bethea HospitalGeneral hospital716FTE
- Crest Foods CoContract packaging713
- Department of CorrectionsCorrectional institutions563
- Raynor Garage DoorsGarage doors, metal, manufacturing536
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters334
- Help At HomeHomemaker's service for elderly or disabled persons, non-medical314
- Dixon USD 170School district312FTE
- Sewer Equipment Co. of AmericaDraglines, crawler, manufacturing310
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 39 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,409 people in all across the county; Amboy has two 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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Amboy’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 Lee County and the Dixon, IL metro.
Amboy home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Amboy$183,421
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Amboy11
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Amboy address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Amboy — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.