Chatham, Illinois.
Typical home $308,412 (+6.7% in a year), asking rent $1,604 . Springfield, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$887 (+121%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $19,355 +7%
- $289,057$308,412 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $90,812 +42%
- $217,599$308,412 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.
- Chatham$1,619
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Chatham, IL rose 6.7% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Chatham, Sangamon County, Illinois
Chatham is a village of 14,377 people in Sangamon County. Half its households earn more than $106,773 a year and half less, against $75,357 across Sangamon County; 3% of its people live below the poverty line. 81% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 19% are rented. Unemployment in Sangamon County was 3.8% 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 government.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Chatham is a village in Sangamon County, and it is home to a younger population than many towns of its size, with a good number of families. Incomes run well above the county's, and very few residents live below the poverty line. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and a large share of adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest. Rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents most often work in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by government, shops and professional and business services. Among the largest workplaces in Chatham are the Ball Chatham school district, Niemann Foods and Reflections Memory Care. The typical commute is a short one, and a good number of people work from home. Across Sangamon County there are somewhat fewer jobs than a year earlier, and unemployment is lower than it was then.
Things to do. A short drive away, Lincoln Home National Historic Site and the Old State Capitol State Historic Site are museums that tell the story of Abraham Lincoln's years in Springfield. Lake Springfield, a reservoir a short drive off, is a place to spend time by the water. For a longer outing, Lincoln's New Salem is a museum a longer drive away.
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- 5,624households
- 53%of adults have a degree
- 3%below the poverty line
- 23 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Sangamon County had 130,936 jobs in 2025, 2.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 36° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 66°. About 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Springfield #2 weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Chatham
- Ball Chatham CUSD 5School district610FTE
- Niemann Foods77
- Reflections Memory Care - ChathamAssisted living facilities for the elderly32
- Chistopian ServicesPlumbing contractors31
- Meridian Senior Living623312 assisted living facilities for the elderly24
- Village of Chatham - 117 E Mulberry Police DeptCriminal justice statistics centers, government22
- ChathamMail and parcel delivery20
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 206 people in all. 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
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Chatham’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 Sangamon County and the Springfield, IL metro.
Chatham home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Chatham$308,412
- 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 Chatham listings, and the typical home goes pending in 6 days — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
- Chatham37.16%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Chatham40
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Chatham19
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Chatham$334,262
- United States$371,553
Zip codes with a Chatham address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Chatham — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.