Kempton, Illinois.
Typical home $180,014 (+8.2% in a year). Pontiac, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$440 (+87%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $13,671 +8%
- $166,343$180,014 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $30,470 +20%
- $149,544$180,014 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.
- Kempton$945
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Kempton, IL rose 8.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Kempton, Ford County, Illinois
Kempton is a village of 176 people in Ford County. 94% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 6% are rented. Unemployment in Ford County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 3.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Ford 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Kempton is a very small village in Ford County, Illinois, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. The typical age is a little older than the typical American's, and the typical home value sits fairly modest. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a good deal of snow most years, while summers turn properly warm by July.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing, and in professional and business services. Across Ford County, some of the largest workplaces are Gibson Area Hospital and Health Svcs, the Paxton-Buckley-Loda CUD 10 Schools and Colmac Coil Midwest. The usual trip to work is a long one, and only a small share of people work from home. Jobs across the county fell last year, and unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Kankakee River State Park is a protected area along the river, a longer drive away. The Iroquois River, also a longer drive away, is another place to be near water. Mazon Creek is a protected area for those who like quiet walking, likewise a longer drive from the village.
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- 12%of adults have a degree
- 36 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What people in Ford County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ford County had 5,525 jobs in 2025, 3.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 63°. About 25 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Piper City weather station, 13 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ford County
- Gibson Area Hospital and Health SvcsCritical access hospital631FTE
- Paxton-Buckley-Loda CUD 10 SchoolsSchool district200FTE
- Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley CUSD 5School district160FTE
- Colmac Coil MidwestAir-conditioners, unit, manufacturing158
- IFF-Gibson CitySoybean protein concentrates made in crushing mills149
- AZCO Earthrise SolarIndustrial building construction, general contractors139
- Accolade Healthcare of Paxton on PellsSkilled nursing facilities133
- Tri Point CUSD 6-JSchool district107FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,082 people in all across the county; Kempton has none 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Kempton’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 Ford County and the Pontiac, IL metro.
Kempton home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Kempton$180,014
- 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 Kempton address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Kempton — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.