Mount Vernon, Illinois.
Typical home $138,087 (+7.4% in a year), asking rent $992 . Mount Vernon, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$331 (+84%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,511 +7%
- $128,576$138,087 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $25,865 +23%
- $112,222$138,087 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.
- Mount Vernon$725
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 17 years.
Typical home values in Mount Vernon, IL rose 7.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Mount Vernon, Jefferson County, Illinois
Mount Vernon is a city of 14,600 people in Jefferson County. Half its households earn more than $55,357 a year and half less, against $63,118 across Jefferson County; 17% of its people live below the poverty line. 53% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 47% are rented. Unemployment in Jefferson County was 4.6% in August 2026, and the county had 0.6% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Mount Vernon is a small city in southern Illinois and the seat of Jefferson County. Residents are somewhat younger than in many American towns, and most have not finished a four-year degree. Incomes run below the county's, and more homes are lived in by their owners than rented. Winters are cold, with some snow, summers are warm, and rain and melted snow fall at a steady rate through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels also providing a good share of jobs. Among the larger workplaces in Mount Vernon are SSM Health Good Samaritan Hospital, Walmart and a warehousing and storage operation. Most people have a short trip to work, and few work from home.
Things to do. The closest outdoor spot is Rend Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area, a protected area a short drive away. A longer drive leads to Rend Lake itself, a reservoir, and to Wayne Fitzgerrell State Recreation Area, another protected area. For something different, DuQuoin State Fairgrounds Racetrack is a race track a longer drive from town.
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- 6,108households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 17%below the poverty line
- 14 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Jefferson County had 19,432 jobs in 2025, 0.6% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 38° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 67°. About 10 inches of snow and 45 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Mount Vernon Northeast weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Mount Vernon
- Mt VernonGeneral warehousing and storage969
- SSM Health Good Samaritan HospitalGeneral hospital748FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters350
- Help At HomeHomemaker's service for elderly or disabled persons, non-medical278
- City of Mt. VernonPolice departments144
- Lowe's Companies, INCHomecenter127
- Kroger Louisville KMASupermarkets and other grocery except convenience stores122
- Crossroads Community HospitalGeneral hospital109FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 29 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 5,017 people in all. 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
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of Mount VernonRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mount Vernon’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 Jefferson County and the Mount Vernon, IL metro.
Mount Vernon home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mount Vernon$138,087
- 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.
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Mount Vernon listings, and the typical home goes pending in 32 days — the market is cooling.
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
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Mount Vernon26.56%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Mount Vernon96
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Mount Vernon24
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Mount Vernon$138,782
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Zip codes with a Mount Vernon address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mount Vernon — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.