Champaign, Illinois.
Typical home $236,141 (+3.8% in a year), asking rent $1,466 (+5.2%). Champaign-Urbana, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$659 (+113%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,661 +4%
- $227,480$236,141 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $57,742 +32%
- $178,399$236,141 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.
- Champaign$1,239
- 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 Champaign, IL rose 3.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Champaign, IL rose 5.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Champaign runs $431/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $446 in Nov 2023.
That is $1,897 a month against $1,466 rent: a $1,239 mortgage payment, plus $405 property tax and $253 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Champaign
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$1,897
- Renting$1,466
- Mortgage only$1,239
Property tax · $405/mo 2.06% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Champaign County, IL
Insurance & upkeep · $253/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Champaign, Champaign County, Illinois
Champaign is a city of 88,302 people in Champaign County. Half its households earn more than $56,118 a year and half less, against $63,683 across Champaign County; 26% of its people live below the poverty line. 44% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 56% are rented. Unemployment in Champaign was 4.0% in August 2026, and Champaign County had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then restaurants and hotels.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 24 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. Champaign is a college city, and it feels like one: residents are young for the country, with far more renters than owners, and incomes that sit below the county's. A large share of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and snowy, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by restaurants, hotels and entertainment, and professional and business services. The largest workplaces in Champaign include the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Champaign CUSD 4 and FedEx. Commutes are short, and some people work from home.
Things to do. Gies Memorial Stadium, home ground for the university's football, and Krannert Art Museum are both in or beside town. The Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, a theatre, is also close at hand. For a walk among plants, the University of Illinois Arboretum is a short drive away.
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- 36,815households
- 53%of adults have a degree
- 26%below the poverty line
- 15 mintypical commute
- 17%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Champaign County had 95,049 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 65°. About 21 inches of snow and 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Champaign 3S weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Champaign
- University of Illinois Urbana-ChampaignUniversity or college12,905
- Champaign CUSD 4School district1,953FTE
- FedExCourier and express delivery services1,031
- Parkland CollegeTwo-year college724
- MainMedical doctors' offices485
- Duncan Road Distribution CenterGeneral warehousing and storage404
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters345
- Horizon Hobby LLC ChampaignToys merchant wholesalers288
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 84 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,359 people in all. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Champaign’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 Champaign County and the Champaign-Urbana, IL metro.
Champaign home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Champaign$236,141
- 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.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Champaign listings, and the typical home goes pending in 18 days — the market is cooling.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Champaign29.92%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Champaign18
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Champaign243
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Champaign82
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Champaign$229,813
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Champaign99.26%
Zip codes with a Champaign address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Champaign — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zip codes in Champaign
| Zip activate to sort by Zip | Place activate to sort by Place | Population sorted descending, activate to sort ascending | Rent activate to sort by Rent | Home value activate to sort by Home value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 61820 | Champaign | 40,599 | $1,264 | $182,975 |
| 61821 | Champaign | 28,611 | $1,536 | $204,107 |
| 61822 | Champaign | 27,642 | $1,822 | $332,481 |