Karnak, Illinois.
Typical home $77,151 (+0.9% in a year). Paducah, KY-IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$60 (+17%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $714 +1%
- $76,437$77,151 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Down $18,062 -19%
- $95,213$77,151 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.
- Karnak$405
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, prices here aren't rising.
Typical home values in Karnak, IL rose 0.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Karnak, Massac County, Illinois
Karnak is a village of 430 people in Massac County. Half its households earn more than $46,818 a year and half less, against $65,116 across Massac County. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Massac County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.2% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Massac County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Karnak is a very small village in Massac County, in the far southern tip of Illinois. Most homes are lived in by their owners, and typical home values are low compared with much of the country. Household incomes in the village run well below the county's, and relatively few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold and summers are hot, with only a little snow but plenty of rain through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in transport, warehouses and utilities, and in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Very few work from home. Across Massac County, the largest workplaces include Harrah's Metropolis, Massac UD 1 Schools and Massac Memorial Hospital. Unemployment in the county is lower than it was a year earlier, though the number of jobs has slipped slightly.
Things to do. The Henry N. Barkhausen Cache River Wetlands Center, a museum, is in or beside town. A short drive away are Cache River State Natural Area and Heron Pond – Little Black Slough Nature Preserve, both protected areas. Fort Massac, an archaeological site, is a longer drive away.
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- 162households
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 1%work from home
What people in Massac County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Massac County had 2,853 jobs in 2025, 0.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 43° and lows near 26°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 69°. About 7 inches of snow and 49 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Grand Chain Dam weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Massac County
- Harrah's MetropolisGaming330
- Massac UD 1 SchoolsSchool district217FTE
- HoneywellUranium oxide manufacturing210
- Solstice Advanced Materials USUranium compounds, not specified elsewhere by process, manufacturing210
- Massac Memorial HospitalCritical access hospital184FTE
- Turner Specialty ServicesAll other specialty trade contractors102
- Tutera Senior Living & Health CareSkilled nursing facilities80
- American Electric Power46
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 10 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,353 people in all across the county; Karnak has none of its own. School districts come 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
- Strong windVery high
- EarthquakesVery high
- Ice stormsRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Heat wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Karnak’s 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 Massac County and the Paducah, KY-IL metro.
Karnak home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Karnak$77,151
- 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 Karnak address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Karnak — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.