Jonesboro, Illinois.
Typical home $132,963 (-4.6% in a year). Cape Girardeau, MO-IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$214 (+44%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $6,370 -5%
- $139,333$132,963 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $7,050 -5%
- $140,012$132,963 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.
- Jonesboro$698
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Jonesboro, IL fell 4.6% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Jonesboro, Union County, Illinois
Jonesboro is a city of 1,711 people in Union County. 77% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 23% are rented. Unemployment in Union County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 2.6% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Jonesboro is a small city in Union County, in the hilly southern end of Illinois. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values are modest. Incomes in the county are on the lower side, and more people here live below the poverty line than is typical across the country. Winters are cold, with some snow, and summers run hot, with a fair amount of rain through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with shops, manufacturing, and restaurants, hotels and entertainment also employing a good share. Across Union County, some of the largest workplaces are Choate Mental Health Center, Walmart and Anna CCSD 37 Schools. Commutes are short, and few people work from home. Unemployment in the county has eased over the past year, though the number of jobs there has slipped.
Things to do. Trail of Tears State Forest and the Union County State Fish and Wildlife Area, both protected areas, are a short drive away, as is Union Lookout, a tourist attraction. For a longer outing, Giant City State Park is a protected area a longer drive away, and Lake of Egypt is a lake a longer drive away as well.
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- 772households
- 29%of adults have a degree
- 21%below the poverty line
- 17 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Union County had 5,238 jobs in 2025, 2.6% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 45° and lows near 25°; warmest in July, with highs near 90° and lows near 69°. About 10 inches of snow and 51 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Anna Nne weather station, 3 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Union County
- Choate Mental Health CenterPsychiatric hospital662FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters184
- JR's CentreWorkshops for persons with disabilities161
- Anna CCSD 37School district100FTE
- Dyno Nobel Wolf LakeExplosives manufacturing99
- Chamness CareGroup homes, intellectual and developmental disability81
- Anna Jonesboro CHSD 81School district69FTE
- Kroger Louisville KMASupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores66
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 861 people in all across the county; Jonesboro has one 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
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively 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 Jonesboro’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 Union County and the Cape Girardeau, MO-IL metro.
Jonesboro home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Jonesboro$132,963
- 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.
- Jonesboro11
Zip codes with a Jonesboro address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Jonesboro — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.