Saint Elmo, Illinois.
Typical home $127,567 (-6.0% in a year). Effingham, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$225 (+51%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Down $8,090 -6%
- $135,656$127,567 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $9,024 +8%
- $118,543$127,567 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.
- Saint Elmo$670
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 47 years.
Typical home values in Saint Elmo, IL fell 6.0% over the past year — slower than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Saint Elmo, Fayette County, Illinois
Saint Elmo is a city of 1,254 people in Fayette County. Half its households earn more than $45,294 a year and half less, against $60,944 across Fayette County. 82% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 18% are rented. Unemployment in Fayette County was 3.9% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in shops, 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Saint Elmo is a small city in Fayette County, Illinois, where most homes are lived in by the people who own them, a higher share of owners than in many places. Incomes run below the county's, and home values are modest. Few adults hold a four-year degree, and winters are cold, with January the coldest month, while July is warm and the year brings a fair amount of rain and melted snow.
Work. Residents work mostly in shops, in schools, hospitals and social care, in manufacturing, and in farming, forestry and mining. Within the city, some of the largest workplaces are Conagra Brands, which makes seasonings and dressings, Haven of St Elmo, a skilled nursing facility, and the St Elmo school district. Across Fayette County there are slightly fewer jobs than a year earlier, and unemployment is lower than it was a year ago.
Things to do. For time outdoors, Vandalia Lake is a reservoir a longer drive away, and Hidden Springs State Forest is a protected area also a longer drive off. History-minded visitors can head to the Vandalia State House State Historic Site, a museum, which is likewise a longer drive from town.
Report a mistake
- 456households
- 6%of adults have a degree
- 23 mintypical commute
- 9%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Fayette County had 4,954 jobs in 2025, 1.5% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 21°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 67°. About 41 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Brownstown Southwest weather station, 7 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Saint Elmo
- Conagra BrandsSeasoning and dressing manufacturing249
- Ryder SystemWarehouse & storage80
- St Elmo CUSD 202School district63FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 2 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 329 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
- Strong windRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
- DroughtRelatively moderate
- EarthquakesRelatively moderate
- Heat wavesRelatively moderate
- HailRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Saint Elmo’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 Fayette County and the Effingham, IL metro.
Saint Elmo home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Saint Elmo$127,567
- 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.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Saint Elmo6
Zip codes with a Saint Elmo address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Saint Elmo — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.