Cowden, Illinois.
Typical home $156,405 (-0.9% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$433 (+112%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $1,470 -1%
- $157,875$156,405 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $22,539 +17%
- $133,867$156,405 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.
- Cowden$821
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 22 years.
Typical home values in Cowden, IL fell 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Cowden, Shelby County, Illinois
Cowden is a village of 515 people in Shelby County. Half its households earn more than $62,031 a year and half less, against $72,095 across Shelby County. Unemployment in Shelby County was 3.1% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Shelby County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Cowden is a small village in Shelby County, Illinois, with a population that puts it among the smaller communities in the area. Household incomes here run below the county's, and the typical home is valued at a modest level compared with many parts of the country. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and nights well below freezing. Summers are warm, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and professional and business services also common. Across Shelby County, some of the largest workplaces are Graphic Packaging International, which makes paper and paperboard, the Shelbyville school district, and Walmart. Relatively few adults hold a four-year degree, and the typical commute is fairly long. Unemployment in the county has eased over the past year, and the county has added a few jobs.
Things to do. Becks Creek, a river, is a short drive away. Lake Shelbyville, a large reservoir, is a longer drive, as is Wolf Creek State Park, a protected area. Hidden Springs State Forest is also a longer drive, and Vandalia State House State Historic Site, a museum, is another longer drive for those who like history.
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- 10%of adults have a degree
- 28 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What people in Shelby County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Shelby County had 4,919 jobs in 2025, 1.5% more 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 67°. About 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Shelbyville Dam weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Shelby County
- Graphic Packaging InternationalPaper and paperboard866
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters199
- Shelbyville CUSD 4School district192FTE
- Shelby CountyGeneral services departments, government125
- P&H MFGSemi-trailer manufacturing110
- Manor Court of ShelbyvilleSkilled nursing facilities104
- Hshs Good Shepherd HospitalCritical access hospital69FTE
- Cowden-Herrick CUSD 3ASchool district67FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 13 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,693 people in all across the county; Cowden has none 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
- LightningVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Cowden’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 Shelby County.
Cowden home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Cowden$156,405
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Cowden7
Zip codes with a Cowden address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Cowden — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.