Atlanta, Illinois, a small but vibrant community in Logan County, has experienced significant changes in its housing market over the past decade. This analysis focuses on the shifts in homeownership rates, average home prices, and average rent prices from 2013 to 2024. The homeownership rate in Atlanta has shown a remarkable upward trend. In 2013, 76% of residents owned their homes. This percentage steadily increased, reaching 84% by 2018. Since then, it has stabilized at 82% from 2020 to 2022. This high rate of homeownership indicates a strong preference for property ownership among the city's residents. Concurrently, average home prices have also been on the rise. In 2014, the average home price was $101,877. By 2022, this figure had increased to $136,457, representing a 33.9% growth over eight years.

The trend in homeownership rates appears to have been influenced by federal interest rates. From 2013 to 2016, when interest rates were historically low (ranging from 0.11% to 0.40%), homeownership in Atlanta increased from 76% to 79%. As interest rates began to rise more significantly from 2017 (1%) to 2019 (2.16%), homeownership continued to grow, reaching 84% in 2018 before slightly decreasing to 82% by 2020. This suggests that while low interest rates initially encouraged homeownership, other local factors may have sustained the high rates even as interest rates increased.

Conversely, the percentage of renters in Atlanta has decreased over time. In 2013, 24% of residents were renters, but this figure dropped to 16% by 2018 and has remained at 18% since 2020. Despite this decrease in the renter population, average rent prices have shown a gradual increase. In 2013, the average rent was $695, rising to $714 by 2022, an increase of 2.7% over nine years. This modest increase in rent prices, despite a shrinking renter population, could be attributed to improvements in rental properties or overall economic growth in the area.