ZIP code 29471

ZIP 29471 is a small town in Dorchester County, South Carolina, with 1,332 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #335 of 424 ranked by population — larger than 21% of them. The median age here is 38.8 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger 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 29471 earn a median of $32,029 a year, 59.2% 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 28.7% 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 29471 is valued at $116,100, 61.7% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $930 a month, 33.9% below the national figure, or roughly $11,160 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 34.8% 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 3.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 72.5% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans toward owners. The rent line includes utilities paid by the tenant, a definition worth remembering when comparing it against a landlord's quoted rate.

ZIP 29471 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 34.8% of median income while homes cost only 3.6× 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 29471 is tabulated inside Dorchester County, South Carolina, one of 8 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 424 across South Carolina. 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 29471 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 29471 reports a median household income of $32,029, 51% below the $65,679 county median, and 44% below the $57,227 typical SC ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $116,100, 46% below the county figure and 30% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $930 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

South Carolina charges 6% statewide, and local governments overlapping 29471 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 29471 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.