Buena Vista, MI population, income and ZIP codes

Buena Vista CDP is a mid-size town in Michigan, with 5,904 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #160 of 745 ranked by population — larger than 78% of them. The median age here is 34.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in Buena Vista CDP earn a median of $38,835 a year, 50.6% below the national figure of $78,538 and 37% below the $61,715 median for the 438 Michigan cities we cover. Household income here is measured before tax and pooled across everyone at the address, which is why it reads higher than typical individual earnings in the same area. Poverty reaches 31.4% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in Buena Vista CDP is valued at $51,800, 82.9% below the national figure and 69% below the $166,100 peer median, while median gross rent runs $875 a month, 37.8% below the national figure, or roughly $10,500 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 27% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 1.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 66% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Every value on this page is published directly by the Census for this area — nothing is modelled or interpolated. Small-area estimates still carry wider margins of error than state or national figures, so check the linked ACS tables before relying on them for lending, appraisal or legal work.