ZIP code 87731

ZIP 87731 is a very small community in San Miguel County, New Mexico, with 515 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #227 of 372 ranked by population — larger than 39% of them. The median age here is 23.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 87731 earn a median of $26,782 a year, 65.9% 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 0% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 87731 is valued at $173,400, 42.8% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs not published a month. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 6.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 84.9% 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.

Home values sit at 6.5× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere. A median age of 23.5 means a large student or early-career population; income medians in places like this understate household resources, since many residents are supported from outside the address.

The Census withheld gross rent for ZIP 87731 because the sample was too thin to publish at this geography. Those values were suppressed at the source, not lost in our dataset, and we do not model a replacement. Everything else on this page comes straight from the ACS 2019-2023 ACS 5-year tables.

ZIP 87731 is tabulated inside San Miguel County, New Mexico, one of 17 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 87731 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 87731 reports a median household income of $26,782, 49% below the $52,416 county median, and 50% below the $53,479 typical NM ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $173,400, 10% below the county figure and close to the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at not published 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 87731 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 87731 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.