ZIP code 23138

ZIP 23138 is a small town in Mathews County, Virginia, with 1,066 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #631 of 903 ranked by population — larger than 30% of them. The median age here is 48.8 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 23138 earn a median of $76,306 a year, 2.8% 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 2% of residents here, less than half the 12.4% national rate.

The typical owner-occupied home in ZIP 23138 is valued at $270,800, 10.7% below the national figure, while median gross rent runs $2,054 a month, 46.1% above the national figure, or roughly $24,648 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 32.3% 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 3.5×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is easier here than in the average US market. 84.3% 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 23138 is the unusual combination of expensive to rent and cheap to buy: rent takes 32.3% of median income while homes cost only 3.5× it. Where that pattern shows up, the gap is normally down to down-payment and credit barriers rather than price.

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 23138 is tabulated inside Mathews County, Virginia, one of 15 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 903 across Virginia. 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 23138 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 23138 reports a median household income of $76,306, 4% above the $73,570 county median, and 5% above the $72,517 typical VA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $270,800, 22% below the county figure and 6% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $2,054 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

Virginia charges 4.3% statewide, and local governments overlapping 23138 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 23138 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.