ZIP code 87499

ZIP 87499 is a very small community in San Juan County, New Mexico, with 829 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #194 of 372 ranked by population — larger than 47% of them. The median age here is 49.1 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 87499 earn a median of $34,946 a year, 55.5% below the national figure of $78,538. This figure covers the household, not the worker: two people on ordinary wages at one address outrank a single professional in the same table. Poverty reaches 26.3% 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 87499 is valued at $77,300, 74.5% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $950 a month, 32.4% below the national figure, or roughly $11,400 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 32.6% 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 2.2×, 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. 87.6% 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.

ZIP 87499 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 32.6% of median income while homes cost only 2.2× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. With 829 residents, a handful of survey responses moves every median on this page. Compare ZIP 87499 against its county rather than against national figures.

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 87499 is tabulated inside San Juan County, New Mexico, one of 16 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 372 across New Mexico. 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 87499 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 87499 reports a median household income of $34,946, 19% below the $42,966 county median, and 35% below the $53,479 typical NM ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $77,300, 38% below the county figure and 56% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $950 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

New Mexico charges 4.875% statewide, and local governments overlapping 87499 may add county, city or special-district levies on top. We publish the state floor for this ZIP rather than guessing a combined figure, because ZIP boundaries and taxing-district boundaries were drawn for different purposes and do not line up.

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 87499 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.