ZIP code 21838

ZIP 21838 is a small town in Somerset County, Maryland, with 1,975 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #311 of 477 ranked by population — larger than 34% of them. The median age here is 46.2 years against 39.1 nationally, a markedly older profile that usually tracks retirees staying put and younger households leaving for work. 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 21838 earn a median of $85,577 a year, 9% above 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 4.4% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 21838 is valued at $179,200, 40.9% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,516 a month, 7.8% above the national figure, or roughly $18,192 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 21.3% 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 2.1×, 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. 92.8% 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. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

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 21838 is tabulated inside Somerset County, Maryland, one of 9 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 477 across Maryland. 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 21838 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 21838 reports a median household income of $85,577, 61% above the $53,139 county median, and 18% below the $104,338 typical MD ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $179,200, 12% above the county figure and 55% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,516 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Maryland charges 6% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 21838.

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 21838 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.