Gays, Illinois.
Typical home $191,012 (+5.8% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$483 (+93%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $10,498 +6%
- $180,514$191,012 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $25,239 +15%
- $165,773$191,012 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.
- Gays$1,003
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 24 years.
Typical home values in Gays, IL rose 5.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Gays, Moultrie County, Illinois
Gays is a village of 218 people in Moultrie County. Unemployment in Moultrie County was 3.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Moultrie County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Gays is a very small village in Moultrie County, in the flat farm country of central Illinois. It is the sort of place where residents are likely to know one another by name. Homes here are valued below what many buyers would expect to pay in much of the country, and household incomes across Moultrie County run somewhat above the typical American small-town level. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a modest amount of snow, and summers are warm, with July the hottest.
Work. Residents of Gays work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in the building trades, and very few work from home. Across Moultrie County, some of the largest workplaces are Masterbrand, which makes kitchen cabinets, Hydro-Gear in Sullivan, which makes hydrostatic drives, and Agri-Fab, which makes lawn and garden equipment. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year ago, and the number of jobs has edged up slightly.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Lake Paradise and Lake Mattoon are both a short drive away, and the Shelbyville State Fish and Wildlife Area is also close by. Farther afield, Lake Shelbyville is a large reservoir a longer drive away, and Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site is a protected area that takes a longer drive to reach.
Report a mistake
- 10%below the poverty line
- 3%work from home
What people in Moultrie County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Moultrie County had 5,171 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 65°. About 14 inches of snow and 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Windsor weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Moultrie County
- MasterbrandKitchen cabinets, stock or custom wood, manufacturing505
- Hydro-Gear, SullivanHydrostatic drives manufacturing461
- Agri-FabLawn and garden equipment manufacturing256
- Sullivan CUSD 300School district174FTE
- Bruder Tank128
- Okaw Valley CUSD 302School district104FTE
- Marvin Keller TruckingGeneral freight trucking, long-distance, truckload101
- Moultrie County BeaconIntellectual and developmental disability homes100
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 15 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,985 people in all across the county; Gays has none of its own. 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 windVery high
- Inland floodingVery high
- Cold wavesVery high
- LightningVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Gays’ census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very high. 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 Moultrie County.
Gays home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gays$191,012
- 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 Gays address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gays — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.