Ashton, Illinois.
Typical home $200,737 (+8.6% in a year). Dixon, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$586 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $15,961 +9%
- $184,776$200,737 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $49,090 +32%
- $151,648$200,737 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.
- Ashton$1,054
- 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 Ashton, IL rose 8.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Ashton, Lee County, Illinois
Ashton is a village of 967 people in Lee County. Half its households earn more than $62,778 a year and half less, against $70,292 across Lee County; 14% of its people live below the poverty line. 63% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 37% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Ashton is a small village in Lee County, Illinois, in farm country. Household incomes run below the county's, and a somewhat larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is typical nationally. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying below freezing, while July is warm; the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mainly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in transport, warehouses and utilities, and in banks, insurance and property. Across Lee County, the largest workplaces include Katherine Shaw Bethea Hospital, Crest Foods Co and Raynor Garage Doors. Unemployment across the county is lower than a year earlier, and the county has added jobs. Commutes are on the long side, and few people work from home.
Things to do. Rochelle Railroad Park and Franklin Creek State Natural Area are both a short drive away, the first a town park and the second a protected natural area. Nachusa Grasslands, also a short drive off, is a protected area of open prairie. White Pines Forest State Park is a longer drive away, for a day among the trees.
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- 400households
- 12%of adults have a degree
- 14%below the poverty line
- 27 mintypical commute
- 5%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 28° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 61°. About 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Rochelle weather station, 8 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; Ashton 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 windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively 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 Ashton’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.
Ashton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Ashton$200,737
- 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.
- Ashton5
Zip codes with a Ashton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Ashton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.