ZIP code 78242

ZIP 78242 is a small city in Bexar County, Texas, with 35,976 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #278 of 1,989 ranked by population — larger than 86% of them. The median age here is 29 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. Places under 65,000 residents only appear in the five-year release, never the one-year file, so these values pool sixty months of responses and lag the current year by design.

Households in ZIP 78242 earn a median of $48,979 a year, 37.6% 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 24.4% 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 78242 is valued at $128,500, 57.6% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,230 a month, 12.5% below the national figure, or roughly $14,760 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 30.1% 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 2.6×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 52.8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, so the market leans more heavily on renters. Rent is reported gross — contract rent plus tenant-paid utilities — which is why it runs above the advertised price on a listing for the same unit.

ZIP 78242 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 30.1% of median income while homes cost only 2.6× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 29 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.

No figure on this page is estimated by us; each one comes straight from the published ACS tables for this area. 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 78242 is tabulated inside Bexar County, Texas, one of 70 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,989 across Texas. This is a dense urban ZIP, where a single postal boundary can hold more residents than an entire rural county. 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 78242 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 78242 reports a median household income of $48,979, 25% below the $65,131 county median, and 28% below the $68,103 typical TX ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $128,500, 42% below the county figure and 34% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,230 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Texas charges 6.25% statewide, and local governments overlapping 78242 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 78242 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.