ZIP code 78872

ZIP 78872 is a small town in Zavala County, Texas, with 1,166 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #1421 of 1,989 ranked by population — larger than 28% of them. The median age here is 27.7 years against 39.1 nationally, a distinctly younger profile, typical of places with students, military posts or a fast-growing family population. 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 78872 earn a median of $42,270 a year, 46.2% below the national figure of $78,538. Median household income counts every pre-tax dollar arriving at an address — wages, self-employment, Social Security, pensions, interest and public assistance — for everyone living there, so multi-earner households pull the figure up even where individual pay is modest. Poverty reaches 17.4% of residents here, above the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 78872 is valued at $96,900, 68.1% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $2,056 a month, 46.2% above the national figure, or roughly $24,672 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 58.4% 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 2.3×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so purchase prices are unusually low against local pay, the pattern in places where supply is plentiful and wage growth has been flat. 74.9% 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 78872 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 58.4% of median income while homes cost only 2.3× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price. A median age of 27.7 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.

All values below were released by the Census for this exact geography, with no gap-filling on our side. 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 78872 is tabulated inside Zavala County, Texas, one of 3 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 1,989 across Texas. 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 78872 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 78872 reports a median household income of $42,270, close to the $42,270 county median, and 38% below the $68,103 typical TX ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $96,900, 5% above the county figure and 50% below the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $2,056 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 78872 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 78872 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.