ZIP code 04938

ZIP 04938 is a mid-size town in Franklin County, Maine, with 10,368 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #25 of 427 ranked by population — larger than 94% of them. The median age here is 41 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 04938 earn a median of $54,281 a year, 30.9% below the national figure of $78,538. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 15% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 04938 is valued at $169,300, 44.2% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $910 a month, 35.3% below the national figure, or roughly $10,920 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 20.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.1×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 62.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. 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 04938 is tabulated inside Franklin County, Maine, one of 16 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 427 across Maine. This is a mid-sized suburban ZIP inside a county that is split across many delivery areas. 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 04938 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 04938 reports a median household income of $54,281, 7% below the $58,182 county median, and 17% below the $65,739 typical ME ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $169,300, 5% below the county figure and 27% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $910 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Maine charges 5.5% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 04938.

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 04938 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.