Gridley, Illinois.
Typical home $212,887 (+3.5% in a year). Bloomington, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$635 (+132%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,152 +3%
- $205,735$212,887 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $63,254 +42%
- $149,633$212,887 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.
- Gridley$1,117
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Gridley, IL rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Gridley, McLean County, Illinois
Gridley is a village of 1,456 people in McLean County. Half its households earn more than $67,250 a year and half less, against $79,905 across McLean County; 6% of its people live below the poverty line. 72% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 28% are rented. Unemployment in McLean County was 3.4% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Gridley is a small village in McLean County, Illinois, where most homes are lived in by their owners, more than is typical across the country. Household incomes run below the county's, and typical home values are modest. Winters are cold, with a fair amount of snow, and summers turn warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with others in manufacturing, in banks, insurance and property, and in shops. Across McLean County, some of the largest workplaces are Illinois State University, McLean County USD 5 and Rivian Motorway in Normal. The commute is fairly long, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. Lake Bloomington, a reservoir, and Money Creek, a river, are both a short drive away and suit time on the water. For a longer outing, Miller Park Zoo and Fell Arboretum, a botanical garden, are each a longer drive away. The Prairie Aviation Museum is also a longer drive.
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- 551households
- 28%of adults have a degree
- 6%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 13%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. McLean County had 87,006 jobs in 2025, 2.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 32° and lows near 15°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 63°. About 20 inches of snow and 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Chenoa weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in McLean County
- Rivian Motorway (Normal, Illinois)Assembly plants, light trucks on chassis of own manufacture5,309
- Illinois State UniversityUniversity or college3,570
- McLean County USD 5School district1,988FTE
- City of BloomingtonParks, nature1,113
- Carle Bromenn Medical CenterGeneral hospital1,030FTE
- St. Joseph Medical CenterGeneral hospital843FTE
- FerreroChocolate bars made from cocoa beans678
- Bloomington SD 87School district565FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 144 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 28,686 people in all across the county; Gridley has two of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24), school districts 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
- Cold wavesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Gridley’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 McLean County and the Bloomington, IL metro.
Gridley home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Gridley$212,887
- 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.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Gridley address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Gridley — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.