Custer, MT population, income and ZIP codes

Custer CDP is a very small community in Montana, with 155 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #271 of 497 ranked by population — larger than 45% of them. The median age here is 59.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. At this population the ACS sample is small, so the margin of error around every dollar figure below is wide — treat the numbers as a band, not a point, and expect them to move between annual releases without the place itself changing.

Households in Custer CDP earn a median of $70,000 a year, 10.9% below the national figure of $78,538 and 11% above the $62,992 median for the 94 Montana cities we cover. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 18.1% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Custer CDP is valued at $121,700, 59.9% below the national figure and 51% below the $250,900 peer median, while median gross rent runs $431 a month, 69.3% below the national figure, or roughly $5,172 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 7.4% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is cheap relative to what people here earn. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 1.7×, 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. 81.2% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, an owner-dominated market where rental listings are scarce and rent medians rest on a thin sample. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

A median age of 59.5 puts Custer CDP well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages. With 155 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare Custer CDP against its county rather than against national figures.

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.