Effingham, Illinois.
Typical home $235,050 (+2.9% in a year). Effingham, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$620 (+101%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $6,730 +3%
- $228,319$235,050 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $46,076 +24%
- $188,974$235,050 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.
- Effingham$1,234
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 16 years.
Typical home values in Effingham, IL rose 2.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Effingham, Effingham County, Illinois
Effingham is a city of 12,252 people in Effingham County. Half its households earn more than $72,377 a year and half less, against $80,404 across Effingham County; 15% of its people live below the poverty line. 66% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 34% are rented. Unemployment in Effingham County was 2.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% more 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Effingham is a small city where most homes are lived in by their owners, and where a typical home costs less than in much of the country. Incomes run below the county's as a whole, and the median age is close to that of the country at large, so the town is neither especially young nor especially old. Winters are cold and snowy, and summers turn properly warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels also employing a good share. Among the largest workplaces in town are The Sherwin-Williams Company, Walmart and St. Anthonys Memorial Hospital. Getting to work takes very little time here, and unemployment across Effingham County has eased over the past year.
Things to do. Lake Kanagga, a reservoir in or beside town, is the closest place to get out on the water. A short drive away are Lake Sara, another reservoir, and Salt Creek, a river. For a longer outing, Hidden Springs State Forest is a protected area a longer drive away.
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- 5,423households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 13 mintypical commute
- 12%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Effingham County had 23,401 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 66°. About 15 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Effingham 3SW weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Effingham
- The Sherwin-Williams CompanyGeneral warehousing and storage609
- Plastics524
- SIMOS Insourcing SolutionsStaffing460
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters381
- St. Anthonys Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital356FTE
- Effingham CUSD 40School district269FTE
- C.E.F.S. Economic OpportunitySocial service agencies, family240
- Kirby Foods IGA PlusGrocery stores203
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 45 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,787 people in all. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Hailrelatively high in parts of EffinghamRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Effingham’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 Effingham County and the Effingham, IL metro.
Effingham home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Effingham$235,050
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 3 Effingham listings, and the typical home goes pending in 8 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.
- Effingham29.94%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Effingham8
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Effingham65
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Effingham22
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Effingham$215,164
- United States$371,407
Zip codes with a Effingham address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Effingham — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.