Payson, Illinois.
Typical home $166,957 (+2.2% in a year). Quincy, IL-MO metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$329 (+60%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $3,658 +2%
- $163,299$166,957 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $3,738 +2%
- $163,219$166,957 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.
- Payson$876
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Payson, IL rose 2.2% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Payson, Adams County, Illinois
Payson is a village of 1,025 people in Adams County. Half its households earn more than $60,478 a year and half less, against $66,220 across Adams County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 83% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 17% are rented. Unemployment in Adams 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 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Payson is a small village in Adams County, Illinois, where nearly everyone owns the home they live in. Incomes are somewhat below the county's, and a smaller share of adults hold a four-year degree than in many places. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, summers turn warm by July, and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops and the building trades also employing many. Across Adams County, some of the largest workplaces are Blessing Hospital, The Knapheide Manufacturing Company and Quincy Schools. Few people work from home, and the typical commute is a bit longer than a quick trip across town.
Things to do. The Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum and Mark Twain Cave are both a short drive away, and Riverview Park in Hannibal, Missouri, is close by too for a stroll. For something farther out, the New Philadelphia National Historic Site, an archaeological site, is a longer drive away.
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- 393households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 26 mintypical commute
- 5%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Adams County had 32,380 jobs in 2025, 0.7% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 19°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 66°. About 36 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Quincy Regional Airport weather station, 9 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Adams County
- Blessing HospitalGeneral hospital2,457FTE
- The Knapheide Manufacturing CompanyMotor vehicle body manufacturing1,218
- Quincy SD 172School district1,139FTE
- Titan Wheel Corporation of IllinoisFarm tractors and attachments manufacturing653
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters390
- John Wood Community CollegeTwo-year college306
- Hollister-WhitneyElevators, passenger and freight, manufacturing281
- Peters Heating and Air ConditioningHeating, ventilation and air-conditioning contractors274
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 79 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 11,210 people in all across the county; Payson has one of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023), school districts from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and colleges from IPEDS (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
- Heat wavesRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- LightningRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Payson’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 Adams County and the Quincy, IL-MO metro.
Payson home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Payson$166,957
- 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 Payson address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Payson — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.