ZIP code 48897

ZIP 48897 is a small town in Barry County, Michigan, with 1,687 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #722 of 992 ranked by population — larger than 27% of them. The median age here is 41.9 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 48897 earn a median of $69,674 a year, 11.3% 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 7.8% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 48897 is valued at $208,000, 31.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $811 a month, 42.3% below the national figure, or roughly $9,732 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 14% 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 3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 83.8% 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. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

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 48897 is tabulated inside Barry County, Michigan, one of 8 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 992 across Michigan. 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 48897 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 48897 reports a median household income of $69,674, 10% below the $77,335 county median, and 4% above the $66,726 typical MI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $208,000, 19% below the county figure and 16% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $811 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 48897.

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 48897 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.