Fulton, Illinois.
Typical home $162,733 (+3.0% in a year). Sterling, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$413 (+94%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,676 +3%
- $158,057$162,733 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $30,725 +23%
- $132,008$162,733 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.
- Fulton$854
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Fulton, IL rose 3.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Fulton, Whiteside County, Illinois
Fulton is a city of 3,647 people in Whiteside County. Half its households earn more than $45,581 a year and half less, against $67,500 across Whiteside County; 15% 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 residents work in manufacturing, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Fulton is a small city in Whiteside County, Illinois, with a modest population. Household incomes run well below the county's, and more people live below the poverty line than a typical household would suggest. Homes here are valued at a level that many buyers would find within reach, and a four-year degree is held by a minority of adults.
Work. Manufacturing is the leading line of work among residents, followed by schools, hospitals and social care, then shops and professional and business services. The largest workplaces in Fulton include Diamond Drives, the River Bend school district and J. T. Cullen Co, a metal fabrication firm. The typical trip to work is short, and few people work from home. Across Whiteside County, there are fewer jobs than a year earlier, and unemployment is lower than it was a year before.
Things to do. Ashford University Field and the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre are both in or beside town, offering a stadium and a theatre close to home. A short drive away, Bickelhaupt Arboretum is a botanical garden, and Morrison-Rockwood State Park is a protected area for walking and time outdoors. Winters are cold, with the coldest weather in January, summers are warm, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
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- 1,664households
- 21%of adults have a degree
- 15%below the poverty line
- 16 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents 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 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 65°. About 34 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Fulton L&d #13 weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Fulton
- Diamond Drives449
- River Bend CUSD 2School district106FTE
- J. T. Cullen CoLiners, industrial, fabricated metal plate work, manufacturing63
- Mediacom CommunicationsTelecommunications carriers, wired29
- FultonBuilder's hardware, metal, manufacturing28
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 4 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 569 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Fulton’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 Whiteside County and the Sterling, IL metro.
Fulton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Fulton$162,733
- 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 4 Fulton listings — 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.
- Fulton27.47%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Fulton24
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Fulton8
Zip codes with a Fulton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Fulton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.