ZIP code 27970

ZIP 27970 is a small town in Washington County, North Carolina, with 2,769 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #530 of 853 ranked by population — larger than 37% of them. The median age here is 51.4 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 27970 earn a median of $30,556 a year, 61.1% 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 33.4% 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 27970 is valued at $105,100, 65.4% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,021 a month, 27.4% below the national figure, or roughly $12,252 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 40.1% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is severely stretched — a median-income renter clears the cost-burden line by a wide margin before utilities beyond the gross-rent definition. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 3.4×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 70.7% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. 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 27970 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 40.1% of median income while homes cost only 3.4× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 51.4 puts ZIP 27970 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 27970 is tabulated inside Washington County, North Carolina, one of 3 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 853 across North Carolina. Population sits in the small-town band, typically one main street plus the addresses that feed into it. 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 27970 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 27970 reports a median household income of $30,556, 28% below the $42,342 county median, and 51% below the $62,646 typical NC ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $105,100, close to the county figure and 48% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,021 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

North Carolina charges 4.75% statewide, and local governments overlapping 27970 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 27970 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.