Polo, Illinois.
Typical home $179,416 (+2.3% in a year). Rochelle, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$470 (+100%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,080 +2%
- $175,336$179,416 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $30,422 +20%
- $148,994$179,416 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.
- Polo$942
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 19 years.
Typical home values in Polo, IL rose 2.3% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Polo, Ogle County, Illinois
Polo is a city of 2,291 people in Ogle County. 59% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 41% are rented. Unemployment in Ogle County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 3.4% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in manufacturing, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Polo is a small city in Ogle County, Illinois, with more homes lived in by their owners than rented. Typical home values are modest, and most adults do not hold a four-year degree. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers are warm, with July the warmest; rain and melted snow add up to a fair amount over the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in manufacturing, in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, and in government. Among the largest workplaces in Polo are PNC, which makes plastic bags and film, the Polo school district, and Birkey's, an agricultural machinery and equipment wholesaler. Ogle County has fewer jobs than a year earlier, though unemployment there is lower than it was a year ago, and the typical commute is a fairly long one.
Things to do. White Pines Forest State Park, a protected area, is a short drive away, as is Pine Creek, a river. Farther afield, a longer drive takes you to the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, also a protected area, and to Chana School, a museum.
Report a mistake
- 1,075households
- 18%of adults have a degree
- 26 mintypical commute
- 8%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ogle County had 14,427 jobs in 2025, 3.4% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 30° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 84° and lows near 62°. About 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Polo 5NW weather station, 4 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Polo
- PNCBags, plastics film, single wall or multiwall, manufacturing115
- Polo CUSD 222School district91FTE
- Birkey's- PoloAgricultural machinery and equipment merchant wholesalers33
- Polo Fire Protection DistrictAmbulance and fire service combined25
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 3 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 173 people in all. 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
- HailRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Polo’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 Ogle County and the Rochelle, IL metro.
Polo home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Polo$179,416
- 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 Polo listings — the market is roughly in balance.
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.
Not enough data to draw this yet.
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Polo18
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Polo6
Zip codes with a Polo address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Polo — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.