Benton, Wisconsin.
Typical home $210,494 (+12.6% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$653 (+144%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $23,506 +13%
- $186,989$210,494 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $61,499 +41%
- $148,996$210,494 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.
- Benton$1,105
- Wisconsin$1,770
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Benton, WI rose 12.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Benton, Lafayette County, Wisconsin
Benton is a village of 946 people in Lafayette County. Half its households earn more than $80,938 a year and half less, against $76,462 across Lafayette County; 8% of its people live below the poverty line. 80% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 20% are rented. Unemployment in Lafayette County was 2.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.6% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Benton is a small village in Lafayette County, Wisconsin, and most of the homes there are lived in by their owners. Household incomes run a little above the county's, and fewer residents live below the poverty line than you might expect in a rural area. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a good deal of snow, while summers turn warm, with July the warmest.
Work. Residents work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and professional and business services close behind. Across Lafayette County, some of the largest workplaces are Mexican Cheese Producers, the Darlington Community School District and Memorial Hospital of Lafayette CTY. Most people drive to work, and the trip is a fairly typical one, while only a small number work from home.
Things to do. Within a longer drive, the Galena River is one of the nearer rivers for time on the water, and Dubuque Arboretum and Botanical Gardens offers a quiet place to walk among planted gardens. Apple River Canyon State Park is a protected area for those who like to hike and be outdoors. Each of these is a longer drive away.
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- 423households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 8%below the poverty line
- 25 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lafayette County had 4,934 jobs in 2025, 2.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 27° and lows near 10°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 62°. About 38 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Galena weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Lafayette County
- Mexican Cheese ProducersCheese manufacturing220
- Darlington Community School DistrictSchool district132FTE
- Memorial Hospital of Lafayette CTYCritical access hospital121FTE
- Wisconsin Whey Protein - DarlingtonWhey, raw, liquid, manufacturing117
- J&R UndergroundSubstation and switching station, power transmission line, construction99
- V&V Supremo Foods90
- Prairie Farms Dairy - Shullsburg CreameryCheese manufacturing87
- Pecatonica Area School DistrictSchool district68FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 946 people in all across the county; Benton has one of its own. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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 moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Lafayette County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very 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 Lafayette County.
Benton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Benton$210,494
- Wisconsin$337,196
- 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 Benton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Benton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.