Madison, Illinois.
Typical home $53,647 (-9.8% in a year). St. Louis, MO-IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$158 (+128%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $5,803 -10%
- $59,450$53,647 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $8,095 +18%
- $45,552$53,647 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.
- Madison$282
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 21 years.
Typical home values in Madison, IL fell 9.8% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Madison, Madison County, Illinois
Madison is a city of 3,171 people in Madison County. Half its households earn more than $49,326 a year and half less, against $75,793 across Madison County. Unemployment in Madison County was 3.5% in August 2026, and the county had 2.2% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Madison 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Madison is a small industrial city in Madison County, Illinois, close to St. Louis. Household incomes here are well below the county's, and homes cost far less than in many parts of the country. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and most people have a short trip to work. Winters are cold, summers are hot, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing, and in professional and business services. Some of the largest workplaces in town are Maverick Transportation, the Madison school district and Lapham-Hickey Steel, which reflects the city's long ties to trucking, schools and metalwork. Very few people work from home, and unemployment across the county is lower than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Cahokia, an archaeological site, is a short drive away, as is Gateway Arch National Park, a national park on the St. Louis riverfront. Fans of live sport can head to Busch Stadium, also a short drive away. The Missouri Botanical Garden is another short drive for a quieter afternoon.
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- 1,291households
- 9%of adults have a degree
- 18 mintypical commute
- 2%work from home
What people in Madison County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Madison County had 107,517 jobs in 2025, 2.2% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 89° and lows near 69°. About 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Cahokia St. Louis Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Madison
- Maverick Transportation, LLC - MadisonGeneral freight trucking, long-distance, truckload121
- Madison CUSD 12School district97FTE
- Interco Trading CompanyMetal scrap and waste merchant wholesalers73
- MR Bult'sSpecialized freight trucking, long-distance72
- Lapham-Hickey SteelSteel manufacturing47
- County MaterialsPipe, concrete, manufacturing44
- Allied Crawford IllinoisPipe, metal, merchant wholesalers39
- CENPRO Services of IllinoisAsbestos abatement services34
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 11 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 541 people in all. School districts come 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
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Winter weatherRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Madison’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 Madison County and the St. Louis, MO-IL metro.
Madison home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Madison$53,647
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Madison7
Zip codes with a Madison address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Madison — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.