Oakford, Illinois.
Typical home $158,760 (+6.9% in a year). Springfield, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$342 (+70%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $10,293 +7%
- $148,467$158,760 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $19,794 +14%
- $138,966$158,760 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.
- Oakford$833
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 26 years.
Typical home values in Oakford, IL rose 6.9% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Oakford, Menard County, Illinois
Oakford is a village of 234 people in Menard County. Unemployment in Menard County was 3.3% in August 2026, and the county had 4.8% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Menard County work in schools and health care, then government.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Oakford is a small Illinois village, among the smallest places in Menard County, where neighbors tend to know one another. Homes here are typically valued well below what many older homeowners would expect to pay elsewhere in the state. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and the village gets a moderate amount of snow; summers are warm, with July the hottest, and rain and melted snow arrive steadily through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with government, shops, and banks, insurance and property also employing many. Across Menard County, the largest workplaces include Porta CUSD, Athens CUSD and Greenview CUSD, all school districts. Few adults in the village hold a four-year degree, and the typical commute to work is a long one.
Things to do. Revis Hill Prairie and Sand Prairie-Scrub Oak State Nature Preserve are protected areas a short drive away and suit a quiet walk among native prairie and sand-country plants. For history, Lincoln's New Salem and Lincoln Home National Historic Site are museums a longer drive away, and both are well worth a day trip. Anderson Lake, a longer drive off, offers a place to spend time by the water.
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- 8%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 33 mintypical commute
What people in Menard County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Menard County had 1,858 jobs in 2025, 4.8% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 17°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 65°. About 15 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Petersburg 1E weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Menard County
- Porta CUSD 202School district193FTE
- Managed By- Heritage Operations GroupSkilled nursing facilities99
- Athens CUSD 213School district92FTE
- Niemann Foods42
- Greenview CUSD 200School district35FTE
- Menard Electric CooperativeElectric distribution35
- Prairieland FSAgricultural chemicals merchant wholesalers32
- Sloan Implement CompanyPower equipment stores, outdoor21
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 5 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 229 people in all across the county; Oakford has none of its own. 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
- Strong windVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- HailRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Oakford’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 Menard County and the Springfield, IL metro.
Oakford home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Oakford$158,760
- 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 Oakford address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Oakford — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.