ZIP code 51554

ZIP 51554 is a very small community in Mills County, Iowa, with 167 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #870 of 970 ranked by population — larger than 10% of them. The median age here is 20.6 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 ZIP 51554 earn a median of $100,208 a year, 27.6% above the national figure of $78,538. 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 9% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 51554 is valued at $257,100, 15.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs not published a month. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 100% 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.

A median age of 20.6 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. With 167 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 51554 against its county rather than against national figures.

The Census withheld gross rent for ZIP 51554 because the sample was too thin to publish at this geography. Those values were suppressed at the source, not lost in our dataset, and we do not model a replacement. Everything else on this page comes straight from the ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year tables.

ZIP 51554 is tabulated inside Mills County, Iowa, one of 7 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 970 across Iowa. This is one of the smallest tabulated ZIP areas in the state, the kind of rural route where a single subdivision or farm cluster accounts for most addresses. County assignment on this page follows the largest share of the ZIP's land area, which matters where a delivery route crosses a county line: mail addressed to 51554 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 51554 reports a median household income of $100,208, 12% above the $89,665 county median, and 41% above the $71,182 typical IA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $257,100, 14% above the county figure and 70% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at not published a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Iowa charges 6% statewide, and local governments overlapping 51554 may add county, city or special-district levies on top. We publish the state floor for this ZIP rather than guessing a combined figure, because ZIP boundaries and taxing-district boundaries were drawn for different purposes and do not line up.

Everything above comes from the Census Bureau American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates for this ZIP Code Tabulation Area, with sales tax rates traced to the state revenue agency. Five-year estimates pool sixty months of responses, so they are stable enough to compare 51554 with its neighbours but always trail the current year, and any value the Census suppressed for sample size is shown as unpublished rather than filled in with a model.