ZIP code 49043

ZIP 49043 is a small town in Van Buren County, Michigan, with 2,264 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #658 of 992 ranked by population — larger than 33% of them. The median age here is 40.3 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 49043 earn a median of $35,500 a year, 54.8% 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 31.6% of residents here, well above the 12.4% national rate, which is the single clearest signal in this dataset that median income here is carried by a narrow band of households.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 49043 is valued at $144,600, 52.3% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $792 a month, 43.7% below the national figure, or roughly $9,504 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 26.8% 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 4.1×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is harder here than in the average US market. 55.2% 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.

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 49043 is tabulated inside Van Buren County, Michigan, one of 14 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 49043 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 49043 reports a median household income of $35,500, 44% below the $63,253 county median, and 47% below the $66,726 typical MI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $144,600, 12% below the county figure and 19% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $792 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 49043.

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 49043 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.