Pekin, Illinois.
Typical home $142,409 (+6.4% in a year), asking rent $901 . Peoria, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$415 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $8,524 +6%
- $133,885$142,409 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $41,686 +41%
- $100,723$142,409 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.
- Pekin$747
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 10 years.
Typical home values in Pekin, IL rose 6.4% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Pekin, Tazewell County, Illinois
Pekin is a city of 31,731 people in Tazewell County. Half its households earn more than $60,790 a year and half less, against $77,982 across Tazewell County; 13% of its people live below the poverty line. 68% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 32% are rented. Unemployment in Pekin was 4.4% in August 2026, and Tazewell County had 0.4% fewer 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Pekin is a city on the Illinois River in Tazewell County, a community large enough to feel like a town of its own. Residents are somewhat older than in many American towns, and most homes are lived in by their owners. Incomes run below the county's as a whole, and a four-year degree is less common among adults here than in much of the country. Winters are cold, with snow most years, and summers turn warm.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing and the restaurant, hotel and shop trades close behind. Among the largest workplaces in Pekin are Pekin Memorial Hospital, the Pekin Public School District and Alto Pekin, a manufacturer of denatured alcohol. Most people have a fairly short drive to work, and only a small group work from home.
Things to do. Pekin Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area sits in or beside town, a park for time outdoors close to home. A short drive away are the Mackinaw River, for those who like to be near water, and Fort Crevecoeur, a historic fort. Peoria Zoo is a longer drive for a day out.
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- 13,503households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 13%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 7%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Tazewell County had 46,709 jobs in 2025, 0.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 34° and lows near 18°; warmest in July, with highs near 86° and lows near 66°. About 26 inches of snow and 38 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Peoria Greater Peoria Airport weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Pekin
- Help At HomeHomemaker's service for elderly or disabled persons, non-medical792
- Pekin PSD 108School district408FTE
- Pekin CSD 303School district302FTE
- Tazewell County Resource CentersActivity centers for disabled persons, the elderly, and persons diagnosed with intellectual and developmental disabilities265
- Pekin Memorial HospitalGeneral hospital258FTE
- Alto PekinDenatured alcohol manufacturing241
- Winpak Heat SealCommercial flexographic printing220
- Pekin Park DistrictGeneral services departments, government193
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 33 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 3,824 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals 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
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Strong windrelatively high in parts of PekinRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherrelatively high in parts of PekinRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Pekin’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 Tazewell County and the Peoria, IL metro.
Pekin home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Pekin$142,409
- 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 3 Pekin listings, and the typical home goes pending in 9 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.
- Pekin34.63%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Pekin9
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Pekin114
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Pekin52
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Pekin$141,694
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Pekin100.52%
Zip codes with a Pekin address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Pekin — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.