ZIP code 52501

ZIP 52501 is a small city in Wapello County, Iowa, with 30,341 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #20 of 970 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 39.4 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older 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 ZIP 52501 earn a median of $59,091 a year, 24.8% below the national figure of $78,538. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 17.6% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 52501 is valued at $109,600, 63.9% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $955 a month, 32.1% below the national figure, or roughly $11,460 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 19.4% 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 1.9×, 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. 65.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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.

ZIP 52501 is tabulated inside Wapello County, Iowa, one of 7 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 970 across Iowa. This is a dense urban ZIP, where a single postal boundary can hold more residents than an entire rural county. 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 52501 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 52501 reports a median household income of $59,091, 3% below the $61,046 county median, and 17% below the $71,182 typical IA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $109,600, close to the county figure and 28% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $955 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 52501 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 52501 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.