Illinois is packed with great places to live… But there’s only one city where you could get paid to live there.
Grafton, a scenic city near the Illinois-Missouri border, has a land rebate program to entice future residents to plant roots there. The Grafton Hills neighborhood offers more than two dozen available lots for $5,000 each, and buyers will have three years to build a home on the site. The city will reimburse the cost of the land from the city’s escrow account after the home is built, which is “a great deal,” Mayor Mike Morrow told St. Louis-based Fox 2 Now. The station notes that the city plans to buy back the land at $4,000 if the buyer doesn’t build a home on the property within three years.
“Grafton is a town in Illinois with a population of 695. Grafton is in Jersey County,” Niche.com, which aims to “give you all of the data, reviews, and insights in one place to make your search as easy as possible,” describes of the city. “Living in Grafton offers residents a sparse suburban feel and most residents own their homes. In Grafton there are a lot of bars and restaurants. Many retirees live in Grafton and residents tend to be conservative. The public schools in Grafton are above average.”
“It sits right at the intersection of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers,” Morrow told Fox 2 Now of the properties. “And it’s very quiet and peaceful. Then in the wintertime, through the trees, you can get a beautiful view of the river and so forth, depending upon where you are — obviously not from all of the locations… Grafton is a gorgeous little town.”