Macon, Illinois.
Typical home $159,977 (+4.6% in a year). Decatur, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$421 (+101%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $7,107 +5%
- $152,870$159,977 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $36,239 +29%
- $123,738$159,977 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.
- Macon$840
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Macon, IL rose 4.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Macon, Macon County, Illinois
Macon is a city of 1,177 people in Macon County. 78% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 22% are rented. Unemployment in Macon County was 5.1% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Macon is a small city in Macon County, Illinois, where nearly everyone lives in a home they own. Homes here are priced modestly, and household incomes across the county sit in the middle range, with a small share of residents living below the poverty line. Winters are cold, with snow on the ground at times, and summers turn warm, with rain and melted snow spread through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, followed by manufacturing, shops, and transport, warehouses and utilities. Across Macon County, Decatur Memorial Hospital, Archer Daniels Midland Company and Decatur SD 61 are among the largest places to work. Few adults hold a four-year degree, a typical commute is fairly long, and only a small number work from home. Unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year ago, and the number of jobs has edged up slightly.
Things to do. Macon Speedway, a race track, is in or beside town. A short drive away are Lake Decatur, a reservoir, and Scovill Zoo. For a quiet walk among trees, Spitler Woods State Natural Area is also a short drive away, and Robert Allerton Park, a botanical garden, is a longer drive.
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- 447households
- 10%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 29 mintypical commute
- 6%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Macon County had 45,164 jobs in 2025, 0.3% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 85° and lows near 66°. About 14 inches of snow and 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Decatur Wtp weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Macon County
- Decatur Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital1,615FTE
- Archer Daniels Midland Company942
- Decatur SD 61School district654FTE
- Archer Daniels Midland Company650
- Ameren IllinoisElectric power transmission, control, and distribution468
- Bodine Electric of DecaturLow voltage electrical work464
- Help At HomeHomemaker's service for elderly or disabled persons, non-medical464
- PrimientWet milling corn and other vegetables450
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 122 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 16,057 people in all across the county; Macon 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
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- Cold wavesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Macon’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively low. 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 Macon County and the Decatur, IL metro.
Macon home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Macon$159,977
- Illinois$295,943
- United States$366,157
Levy by levy, and a check of one home’s own bill, the site covers Ohio’s property tax.
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.
- Macon6
Zip codes with a Macon address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Macon — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.