Walnut, Illinois.
Typical home $152,880 (+12.6% in a year). Ottawa, IL metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$475 (+145%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $17,110 +13%
- $135,770$152,880 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $41,794 +38%
- $111,085$152,880 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.
- Walnut$802
- 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 Walnut, IL rose 12.6% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Walnut, Bureau County, Illinois
Walnut is a village of 1,311 people in Bureau County. Half its households earn more than $61,750 a year and half less, against $69,257 across Bureau County; 7% of its people live below the poverty line. 87% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 13% are rented. Unemployment in Bureau County was 4.0% in August 2026, and the county had 0.1% 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 It can be wrong or out of date.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. Walnut is a small village in Bureau County, Illinois, where almost everyone lives in a home they own. Household incomes run a little below the county's, and typical home values are modest. Winters are cold and snowy and summers are warm, with a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Residents work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, other services and shops close behind. Across Bureau County, some of the largest workplaces are Walmart, Bureau Valley CUSD and St. Margarets Health in Spring Valley. Most people have a short commute, and few work from home.
Things to do. Green River State Wildlife Area is a protected area a short drive away, good for time outdoors. A longer drive brings you to the Ronald Reagan Boyhood Home, and to Hennepin Canal Parkway State Park, another protected area. Spoon River is also a longer drive away.
Report a mistake
- 549households
- 19%of adults have a degree
- 7%below the poverty line
- 20 mintypical commute
- 4%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Bureau County had 10,021 jobs in 2025, 0.1% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 29° and lows near 13°; warmest in July, with highs near 83° and lows near 63°. About 36 inches of snow and 37 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Walnut weather station, under a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Bureau County
- WalmartGeneral warehousing and storage1,153
- Princeton Retail Support Center - Ace HardwareHardware except motor vehicle merchant wholesalers545
- St. Margarets Health - Spring ValleyGeneral hospital402FTE
- WalmartWarehouse clubs and supercenters277
- Bureau Valley CUSD 340School district271FTE
- Allegion LCNFurniture hardware, metal, manufacturing266
- Martin EngineeringMining machinery & equipment manufacturing234
- Advanced Asphalt CompanyRoad construction231
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 34 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 4,776 people in all across the county; Walnut 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 windVery high
- TornadoesVery high
- DroughtRelatively high
- HailRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Cold wavesRelatively high
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Walnut’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 Bureau County and the Ottawa, IL metro.
Walnut home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Walnut$152,880
- 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.
- Walnut6
Zip codes with a Walnut address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Walnut — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.