ZIP code 12521

ZIP 12521 is a small town in Columbia County, New York, with 1,874 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1080 of 1,824 ranked by population — larger than 40% of them. The median age here is 51.5 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 12521 earn a median of $85,208 a year, 8.5% above 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 8.7% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 12521 is valued at $327,800, 8% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,571 a month, 11.7% above the national figure, or roughly $18,852 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 22.1% 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 3.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 92.4% 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.

A median age of 51.5 puts ZIP 12521 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.

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 12521 is tabulated inside Columbia County, New York, one of 31 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,826 across New York. 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 12521 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 12521 reports a median household income of $85,208, close to the $84,396 county median, and 7% above the $79,429 typical NY ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $327,800, close to the county figure and 41% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,571 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

New York charges 4% statewide, and local governments overlapping 12521 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 12521 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.