Lerna, Illinois.
Typical home $189,003 (+16.2% in a year). Charleston-Mattoon, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$589 (+146%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $26,298 +16%
- $162,705$189,003 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $58,836 +45%
- $130,167$189,003 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.
- Lerna$992
- 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 Lerna, IL rose 16.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Lerna, Coles County, Illinois
Lerna is a village of 226 people in Coles County. Unemployment in Coles County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Coles 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Lerna is a very small village in Coles County, Illinois, home to only a handful of residents compared with most towns. Homes here are priced below what is typical for the country as a whole, and few adults hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January highs hovering just above freezing and lows well below it, while July brings warm days. Rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Most residents who hold jobs work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing, or in restaurants, hotels and entertainment. Across Coles County, some of the biggest employers are Sarah Bush Lincoln Health Center, Eastern Illinois University and Lake Land College. The typical commute is a little longer than a quick drive across town, and only a small group of people work from home.
Things to do. A short drive away, Lincoln Log Cabin State Historic Site is a protected area tied to the Lincoln family's history, and Fox Ridge State Park offers woods and trails to walk. Lake Charleston, a reservoir, is also a short drive away, and a longer drive brings you to Lake Shelbyville, a larger reservoir.
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- 11%of adults have a degree
- 21 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What people in Coles County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Coles County had 23,624 jobs in 2025, 1.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 66°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mattoon Coles County Airport weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Coles County
- Sarah Bush Lincoln Health CenterGeneral hospital2,322FTE
- Eastern Illinois UniversityUniversity or college1,191
- Lake Land CollegeTwo-year college609
- RK HoldingsFarm supply store549
- Mattoon CUSD 2School district464FTE
- SIMOS Insourcing SolutionsStaffing402
- Charleston CUSD 1School district386FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters364
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 57 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 8,859 people in all across the county; Lerna has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), colleges from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) 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
- DroughtRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Lerna’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 Coles County and the Charleston-Mattoon, IL metro.
Lerna home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Lerna$189,003
- 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 Lerna address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Lerna — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.