Brownstown, Illinois.
Typical home $175,395 (+3.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$448 (+95%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,364 +4%
- $169,031$175,395 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $28,367 +19%
- $147,028$175,395 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.
- Brownstown$921
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 20 years.
Typical home values in Brownstown, IL rose 3.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Brownstown, Fayette County, Illinois
Brownstown is a village of 690 people in Fayette County. Unemployment in Fayette County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Fayette County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Brownstown is a very small village in Fayette County, Illinois, where people tend to know one another. Homes here are priced modestly, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is typical across the country. Very few adults hold a four-year degree, and hardly anyone works from home. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the hottest. Rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents mostly work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing and in the building trades. Across Fayette County, some of the largest workplaces are Walmart, the Vandalia school district and Fayette County Hospital. Unemployment across the county is lower than a year ago, though the county had slightly fewer jobs last year than the year before.
Things to do. The Vandalia State House State Historic Site, a museum, is a short drive away and is the closest of the better-known places nearby. A longer drive brings you to Vandalia Lake, a reservoir, and to Hidden Springs State Forest, a protected area good for a walk among the trees. Becks Creek, a river, is also within a longer drive for those who like to be near water.
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- 4%of adults have a degree
- 20%below the poverty line
- 2%work from home
What people in Fayette County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Fayette County had 4,954 jobs in 2025, 1.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 67°. About 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Brownstown Southwest weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Fayette County
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters296
- Vandalia CUSD 203School district256FTE
- Conagra BrandsSeasoning and dressing manufacturing249
- Fayette County HospitalCritical access hospital248FTE
- Odyssey Fulfillment Managed ServicesTransportation, warehousing and logistics96
- VRC Engineered Solutions-VansealExtruded, molded or lathe-cut rubber goods manufacturing85
- Wabash Valley Produce IllinoisEggs, processed, manufacturing83
- Midwest Services GroupExcavation contractors82
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 16 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,583 people in all across the county; Brownstown has two 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Brownstown’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 Fayette County.
Brownstown home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Brownstown$175,395
- 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 Brownstown address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Brownstown — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.