ZIP code 98104

ZIP 98104 is a mid-size town in King County, Washington, with 15,870 residents counted in the Census American Community Survey 2019-2023 ACS 5-year estimates, which places it #197 of 605 ranked by population — larger than 67% of them. The median age here is 36.5 years against 39.1 nationally, a slightly younger profile than the country as a whole. 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 98104 earn a median of $61,866 a year, 21.2% 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 27.8% 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 98104 is valued at $663,000, 118.5% above the national figure, while median gross rent runs $1,511 a month, 7.5% above the national figure, or roughly $18,132 across a full year. A household on the local median income would put about 29.3% of gross pay toward that rent against the federal 30% cost-burden threshold, so renting here is within the standard affordability guideline. The home-price-to-income ratio works out to 10.7×, against roughly 3.9× nationally, so buying is out of reach on local earnings alone and the ownership market leans on outside income, equity or dual high earners. 8% of occupied homes are owner-occupied versus 65% nationally, a renter-majority market, so rent figures matter more here than the home-value line. Gross rent folds in the utilities a tenant pays separately, so it is closer to the real monthly outlay than a headline rent figure.

Home values sit at 10.7× median household income, far past the 3.9× national mark, so ownership costs here are set by something other than local wages — second homes, retirees with equity, or commuters earning elsewhere.

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 98104 is tabulated inside King County, Washington, one of 86 ZIP areas the Census publishes for that county and 605 across Washington. This is a mid-sized suburban ZIP inside a county that is split across many delivery areas. 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 98104 can be handled by a post office in a neighbouring county even though the tabulation area is filed here.

Against its own county, 98104 reports a median household income of $61,866, 51% below the $127,093 county median, and 23% below the $80,861 typical WA ZIP. Owner-occupied homes are valued at a median of $663,000, 17% below the county figure and 57% above the statewide ZIP median. Rent is reported gross — the contract amount plus tenant-paid utilities — at $1,511 a month, which is why it reads higher than the advertised rent on a listing for the same unit.

A taxable purchase made inside 98104 carries 10.45% at the register, assembled from the Seattle jurisdiction stack: the Washington state rate plus every county, municipal and special district levy that reaches this address. Because those district boundaries were drawn for schools, transit and hospital funding rather than for mail delivery, two addresses inside 98104 can legitimately fall under different totals — the rate shown here is the one that applies to the dominant jurisdiction.

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 98104 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.