Cragsmoor, NY

ZIP code 12420 is assigned to Cragsmoor, NY, and falls within Ulster County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 435 people live inside it.

At 163 residents per square mile spread over 2.665 square miles, 12420 reads as a rural area. It is a sparsely populated postal code, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings run above the national median. At $108,250, 12420 sits comfortably in the upper half, ahead of 87% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 12420 costs close to the national median. A typical home is valued at $206,000 against a US median of $207,500. Ownership dominates: 100.0% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, which usually signals an established residential area with relatively low turnover.

The building stock is dominated by detached single-family houses, which account for 100.0% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1943, making the housing here largely pre-war. The vacancy rate of 31.4% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews notably young, with a median age of 29.8 against 42 nationally. Households are relatively large at 3.37 people on average, with 93.0% classified as family households.

Getting to work takes 37.4 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 95.1% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 12420 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 12420 offers a compact profile of Cragsmoor: 435 residents, a median household income of $108,250, 30.5% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 0.0%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 12420 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Cragsmoor may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.