Fenton, Illinois.
Typical home $232,528 (+7.3% in a year). Sterling, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$104 (+9%) since Nov 2023.
- 1 year
- Up $15,886 +7%
- $216,642$232,528 since Sep 2025
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.
- Fenton$1,220
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Fenton, IL rose 7.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Fenton, Whiteside County, Illinois
Fenton is a township of 561 people in Whiteside County. Half its households earn more than $58,950 a year and half less, against $67,500 across Whiteside County; 10% of its people live below the poverty line. Unemployment in Whiteside County was 3.8% in August 2026, and the county had 4.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Whiteside 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Fenton is a very small township in Whiteside County, Illinois, in farm country where neighbors tend to know one another. Household incomes run below the county's, and typical home values are modest. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold and snowy, with January the coldest month and July the warmest, and a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, retail, and professional and business services also employing many. Very few work from home. Across Whiteside County, some of the largest workplaces are CGH Medical Center, Wahl Clipper and the Sterling school district. Unemployment in the county is lower than a year ago, though the county has fewer jobs than it did the year before.
Things to do. Prophetstown State Recreation Area, a protected area, and Lake Carlton are both a short drive away, good for time outdoors. A longer drive brings you to Niabi Zoo and to the Bickelhaupt Arboretum, a botanical garden.
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- 9%of adults have a degree
- 10%below the poverty line
- 4%work from home
What people in Whiteside County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Whiteside County had 20,285 jobs in 2025, 4.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 12°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 62°. About 32 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Morrison weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Whiteside County
- HALO Branded SolutionsGeneral merchandise, durable goods, merchant wholesalers2,463
- CGH Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,213FTE
- WalmartRefrigerated warehousing and storage1,020
- Wahl ClipperHair clippers for human use, electric, manufacturing787
- Sterling CUSD 5School district540FTE
- Diamond Drives449
- CGH Medical CenterFamily physicians' offices380
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters340
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 75 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 10,621 people in all across the county; Fenton has none of its own. 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
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms across Whiteside County, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Whiteside County and the Sterling, IL metro.
Fenton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fenton$232,528
- 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 Fenton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fenton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.