ZIP code 52561

ZIP 52561 is a small town in Mahaska County, Iowa, with 1,179 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #419 of 970 ranked by population — larger than 56% of them. The median age here is 28.3 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 52561 earn a median of $64,018 a year, 18.5% below the national figure of $78,538. 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 16.6% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 52561 is valued at $102,200, 66.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $675 a month, 52% below the national figure, or roughly $8,100 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 12.7% 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 1.6×, 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. 67% 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.

A median age of 28.3 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.

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.

ZIP 52561 is tabulated inside Mahaska County, Iowa, one of 9 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 970 across Iowa. Fewer than 2,500 people are counted here, so the ZIP behaves like a village delivery route rather than a neighbourhood. 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 52561 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 52561 reports a median household income of $64,018, close to the $64,018 county median, and 10% below the $71,182 typical IA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $102,200, 5% below the county figure and 33% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $675 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 52561 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 52561 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.