Benson, Illinois.
Typical home $168,573 (+4.6% in a year). Peoria, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$412 (+87%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,483 +5%
- $161,089$168,573 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $24,026 +17%
- $144,547$168,573 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.
- Benson$885
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Benson, IL rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Benson, Woodford County, Illinois
Benson is a village of 412 people in Woodford County. Half its households earn more than $76,333 a year and half less, against $91,483 across Woodford County; 4% of its people live below the poverty line. 96% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 4% are rented. Unemployment in Woodford County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 1.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Benson is a very small village in Woodford County, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Residents tend to be older than in much of the country, and incomes run below the county's, though few households fall below the poverty line. Winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month, while July brings warm summer days, and the year is fairly wet.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, shops and the building trades. Across Woodford County, some of the biggest workplaces are Nucor Steel, Metamora Community Nursing Home and Edeco. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and most people drive a fair way to get to work, while a small share work from home.
Things to do. Everything on the list of nearby places is a longer drive away. The Peoria Zoo is the best known, and Evergreen Lake is a reservoir for time on the water. For a look at local history, the Metamora Courthouse State Historic Site is a museum within reach.
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- 184households
- 13%of adults have a degree
- 4%below the poverty line
- 24 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Woodford County had 11,272 jobs in 2025, 1.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 33° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 64°. About 22 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Minonk weather station, 6 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Woodford County
- Nucor SteelBuildings, prefabricated metal, manufacturing300
- Metamora Community Nursing Home623110 nursing care facilities skilled nursing facilities285
- EdecoMachine bases, metal, manufacturing266
- Parsons CompanyPaint sticks, metal, manufacturing260
- Versa PressBooks printing254
- CaseTractors and attachments, farm-type, manufacturing221
- Apostolic Christian Home of EurekaNursing homes214
- Fieldcrest CUSD 6School district193FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 37 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,520 people in all across the county; Benson has none of its own. School districts come 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively 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 Benson’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Woodford County and the Peoria, IL metro.
Benson home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Benson$168,573
- 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 Benson address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Benson — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.