ZIP code 48185

ZIP 48185 is a small city in Wayne County, Michigan, with 48,364 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #12 of 992 ranked by population — larger than 98% of them. The median age here is 38.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger 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 48185 earn a median of $59,085 a year, 24.8% 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 13% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 48185 is valued at $183,500, 39.5% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,123 a month, 20.1% below the national figure, or roughly $13,476 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.8% 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. 56.3% 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.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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 48185 is tabulated inside Wayne County, Michigan, one of 69 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 992 across Michigan. 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 48185 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 48185 reports a median household income of $59,085, 3% above the $57,577 county median, and 11% below the $66,726 typical MI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $183,500, 18% above the county figure and close to the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,123 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Michigan charges 6% statewide, and no local sales tax is layered on top, so the state rate is the full amount collected in 48185.

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 48185 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.