ZIP code 28643

ZIP 28643 is a small town in Ashe County, North Carolina, with 4,241 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #460 of 853 ranked by population — larger than 46% of them. The median age here is 43.2 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly older profile than the country as a whole. 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 28643 earn a median of $48,464 a year, 38.3% 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 10.1% of residents here, below the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 28643 is valued at $133,500, 56% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,238 a month, 11.9% below the national figure, or roughly $14,856 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 30.7% 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 2.8×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 80.6% 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. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

ZIP 28643 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 30.7% of median income while homes cost only 2.8× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price.

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 28643 is tabulated inside Ashe County, North Carolina, one of 11 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 28643 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 28643 reports a median household income of $48,464, 5% below the $50,946 county median, and 23% below the $62,646 typical NC ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $133,500, 33% below the county figure and 34% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,238 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 28643 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 28643 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.