Sparta, Illinois.
Typical home $127,737 (+3.5% in a year).
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$361 (+117%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $4,274 +3%
- $123,463$127,737 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $34,758 +37%
- $92,979$127,737 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.
- Sparta$670
- Illinois$1,553
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 11 years.
Typical home values in Sparta, IL rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Sparta, Randolph County, Illinois
Sparta is a city of 4,095 people in Randolph County. 58% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 42% are rented. Unemployment in Randolph County was 3.2% in August 2026, and the county had 1.2% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Sparta is a small southern Illinois city where the population is a little older than the typical American town, and a majority of homes are lived in by their owners. Typical home values sit at a modest level, and a larger share of residents live below the poverty line than is common nationally. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month and a light amount of snow, while July brings hot summers and the year is fairly wet overall.
Work. People who live in Sparta work mainly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and restaurants and hotels also employing many residents. Some of the largest workplaces in town are Spartan Light Metal Products, which makes aluminum die-castings, Walmart, and Sparta Community Hospital. Commutes are short, and very few people work from home. Across Randolph County, jobs slipped slightly last year, though unemployment is lower than it was a year earlier.
Things to do. Close to town, Baldwin Lake State Fish and Wildlife Area and Peabody River State Fish and Wildlife Area are both a short drive away and offer protected land for outdoor time, and the Charter Oak Schoolhouse is a small museum a short drive away. For a longer outing, Fort de Chartres and Fort Kaskaskia State Historic Site are historic sites a longer drive away.
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- 1,932households
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 24%below the poverty line
- 19 mintypical commute
- 2%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Randolph County had 11,252 jobs in 2025, 1.2% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 40° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 88° and lows near 66°. About 11 inches of snow and 46 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Sparta West weather station, 2 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Sparta
- Spartan Light Metal Products Inc. - SpartaAluminum die-castings, unfinished, manufacturing336
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters249
- Sparta Community HospitalCritical access hospital182FTE
- Randolph County Care CenterNursing homes68
- Discovery Senior LivingSkilled nursing facilities46
- Buchheit of SpartaFarm supply stores29
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 6 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 1,083 people in all. Hospitals come 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
- Strong windVery high
- Winter weatherVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- Heat wavesVery high
- EarthquakesRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Sparta’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively high. 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 Randolph County.
Sparta home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Sparta$127,737
- 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 6 Sparta 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.
- Sparta17.70%
- United States26.90%
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Sparta22
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Sparta6
Zip codes with a Sparta address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Sparta — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.