Highland Lakes, NJ population, income and ZIP codes

Highland Lakes CDP is a small town in New Jersey, with 3,941 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #343 of 700 ranked by population — larger than 51% of them. The median age here is 49.3 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 Highland Lakes CDP earn a median of $129,500 a year, 64.9% above the national figure of $78,538 and 21% above the $106,926 median for the 543 New Jersey cities we cover. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 3% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in Highland Lakes CDP is valued at $291,200, 4% below the national figure and 29% below the $412,500 peer median, while median gross rent runs $1,862 a month, 32.4% above the national figure, or roughly $22,344 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 17.3% 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 2.2×, 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. 92.6% 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. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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.