Leaf River, Illinois.
Typical home $146,267 (+13.9% in a year). Rochelle, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$465 (+153%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $17,825 +14%
- $128,442$146,267 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $46,090 +46%
- $100,177$146,267 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.
- Leaf River$768
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 9 years.
Typical home values in Leaf River, IL rose 13.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Leaf River, Ogle County, Illinois
Leaf River is a village of 432 people in Ogle County. Half its households earn more than $79,500 a year and half less, against $82,132 across Ogle County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 84% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 16% are rented. Unemployment in Ogle County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 3.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Ogle County 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Leaf River is a small village in Ogle County, Illinois, home to a small community. Nearly all of the homes are lived in by their owners, and a typical house here costs less than the typical home across much of the country. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and fewer adults hold a four-year degree than in many places. Winters are cold, with January highs hovering around freezing, and summers turn warm in July, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and transport and warehousing close behind. Across Ogle County, some of the largest workplaces are Rochelle Foods, Constellation and Rochelle Community Hospital. The county has fewer jobs than it did a year ago, though unemployment there is lower than it was a year earlier. Commutes tend to be fairly long, and very few people work from home.
Things to do. White Pines Forest State Park and Lowden State Park, both protected areas, are a short drive away and suit walks and time outdoors. Chana School, a museum, is also a short drive. For a longer outing, Anderson Japanese Gardens is a botanical garden a longer drive away.
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- 17%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 28 mintypical commute
- 3%work from home
What people in Ogle County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ogle County had 14,427 jobs in 2025, 3.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Polo 5NW weather station, 12 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ogle County
- Rochelle FoodsBacon, slab and sliced, made from purchased carcasses815
- ConstellationElectric power generation, nuclear715
- E D Etnyre & CoConstruction machinery manufacturing450
- Wheatland Tube Western TubeTube made from purchased iron or steel383
- Rochelle Community HospitalCritical access hospital347FTE
- Meridian CUSD 223School district286FTE
- Byron CUSD 226School district268FTE
- Del MonteLabeling services262
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 44 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 6,025 people in all across the county; Leaf River 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
- Inland floodingVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- HailRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Leaf River’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 Ogle County and the Rochelle, IL metro.
Leaf River home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Leaf River$146,267
- 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 Leaf River address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Leaf River — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.