ZIP code 49891

ZIP 49891 is a very small community in Alger County, Michigan, with 605 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #867 of 992 ranked by population — larger than 12% of them. The median age here is 50.1 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 49891 earn a median of $51,250 a year, 34.7% below the national figure of $78,538. The median is the midpoint household, not an average, so a handful of very high earners cannot drag it upward the way they distort a mean. Poverty reaches 10.4% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 49891 is valued at $140,900, 53.6% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,375 a month, 2.2% below the national figure, or roughly $16,500 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 32.2% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is a stretch on median earnings. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 2.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 94.3% 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.

ZIP 49891 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 32.2% of median income while homes cost only 2.7× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 50.1 puts ZIP 49891 well into retirement-weighted territory, which pulls median household income down even where household wealth is high, because retirement draws are counted differently from wages.

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 49891 is tabulated inside Alger County, Michigan, one of 9 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 49891 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 49891 reports a median household income of $51,250, 13% below the $58,639 county median, and 23% below the $66,726 typical MI ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $140,900, 15% below the county figure and 21% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,375 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 49891.

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 49891 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.