Mason, Illinois.
Typical home $188,002 (+7.1% in a year). Effingham, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$457 (+86%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $12,492 +7%
- $175,510$188,002 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $25,960 +16%
- $162,042$188,002 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.
- Mason$987
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 23 years.
Typical home values in Mason, IL rose 7.1% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Mason, Effingham County, Illinois
Mason is a town of 323 people in Effingham County. Half its households earn more than $65,455 a year and half less, against $80,404 across Effingham County. Unemployment in Effingham County was 2.9% in August 2026, and the county had 0.7% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in shops, then schools and health care.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Mason is a very small town in Effingham County, Illinois, where neighbors are likely to know one another by sight. Household incomes run below the county's, and the typical home is priced modestly. Few adults here hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and highs staying near freezing, and some snow falls each year. Summers turn properly warm, with July the hottest month, and rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in shops, in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, and in the building trades. The commute is a fairly short drive for most, and very few people work from home. Across Effingham County, some of the largest workplaces are The Sherwin-Williams Company, which runs a warehousing operation, Stevens Industries, which makes wood cabinets and furniture, and Walmart. Jobs in the county grew slightly last year, and unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Salt Creek, a river, is a short drive away and suits a quiet afternoon by the water. Farther afield, a longer drive brings you to Hidden Springs State Forest, a protected area with woods to walk through. Lake Kanagga, a reservoir, is also a longer drive away. Vandalia State House State Historic Site, a museum, makes an outing for anyone interested in the state's history.
Report a mistake
- 5%of adults have a degree
- 23 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Effingham County had 23,401 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 20°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 66°. About 15 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Effingham 3SW weather station, 11 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Effingham County
- The Sherwin-Williams CompanyGeneral warehousing and storage609
- Patterson Technolgy CenterDental equipment and supplies merchant wholesalers559
- Plastics524
- Stevens IndustriesWood cabinet and furniture manufacturing500
- SIMOS Insourcing SolutionsStaffing460
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters381
- St. Anthonys Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital356FTE
- Three Z PrintingPrinting, engraving, on paper products345
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 75 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 8,894 people in all across the county; Mason has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); 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
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mason’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 Effingham County and the Effingham, IL metro.
Mason home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mason$188,002
- 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 Mason address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mason — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.