Sheep Springs, NM population, income and ZIP codes

Sheep Springs CDP is a very small community in New Mexico, with 369 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #294 of 527 ranked by population — larger than 44% of them. The median age here is 28.6 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 Sheep Springs CDP earn a median of $28,750 a year, 63.4% below the national figure of $78,538 and 47% below the $54,029 median for the 153 New Mexico 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 35% 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 Sheep Springs CDP is valued at $97,500, 67.9% below the national figure and 49% below the $190,000 peer median, while median gross rent runs $825 a month, 41.3% below the national figure, or roughly $9,900 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 34.4% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 71.6% 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.

Sheep Springs CDP is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 34.4% of median income while homes cost only 3.4× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 28.6 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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.