Roberts, Illinois.
Typical home $129,822 (+2.8% in a year). Pontiac, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$310 (+84%) since Feb 2021.
- 1 year
- Up $3,540 +3%
- $126,282$129,822 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $21,605 +20%
- $108,218$129,822 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.
- Roberts$681
- 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 Roberts, IL rose 2.8% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Roberts, Ford County, Illinois
Roberts is a village of 345 people in Ford County. Unemployment in Ford County was 3.6% in August 2026, and the county had 3.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Ford County work in schools and health care, then shops.
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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Roberts is a very small village in Ford County, Illinois, among the farm country of the central part of the state. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and snow on the ground through much of the season, and summers turn properly hot by July. Rain and melted snow fall steadily through the year, a fair amount more than a dry climate would bring.
Work. Most people who live here work in schools, hospitals and social care, in shops, in manufacturing, or in professional and business services, and very few work from home. Across Ford County, the biggest employers include Gibson Area Hospital and Health Services, the Paxton-Buckley-Loda school district and Colmac Coil Midwest, which makes air-conditioning equipment. Unemployment in the county is lower than it was a year earlier, though there are somewhat fewer jobs in the county than there were the year before.
Things to do. Bayles Lake, a reservoir, and Lake Iroquois, a lake, are both a short drive away and make easy outings for a day by the water. Farther afield, the Octave Chanute Aerospace Museum is a longer drive away and suits an afternoon indoors. Salt Creek, a river, is also a longer drive from the village.
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- 206households
- 29%below the poverty line
- 2%work from home
What people in Ford County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Ford County had 5,525 jobs in 2025, 3.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 35° and lows near 16°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 63°. About 25 inches of snow and 44 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Piper City weather station, 10 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Ford County
- Gibson Area Hospital and Health SvcsCritical access hospital631FTE
- Paxton-Buckley-Loda CUD 10 SchoolsSchool district200FTE
- Gibson City-Melvin-Sibley CUSD 5School district160FTE
- Colmac Coil MidwestAir-conditioners, unit, manufacturing158
- IFF-Gibson CitySoybean protein concentrates made in crushing mills149
- AZCO Earthrise SolarIndustrial building construction, general contractors139
- Accolade Healthcare of Paxton on PellsSkilled nursing facilities133
- Tri Point CUSD 6-JSchool district107FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 17 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,082 people in all across the county; Roberts has none of its own. Hospitals come from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023) and school districts 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 windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- TornadoesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Roberts’ 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 Ford County and the Pontiac, IL metro.
Roberts home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Roberts$129,822
- 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 Roberts address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Roberts — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.