Elberon, VA

ZIP code 23846 is assigned to Elberon, VA, and falls within Surry 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 487 people live inside it.

At 11 residents per square mile spread over 42.599 square miles, 23846 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 $91,169, 23846 sits comfortably in the upper half, ahead of 77% 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 23846 costs close to the national median. A typical home is valued at $242,900 against a US median of $207,500. Ownership dominates: 90.7% 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 67.3% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1993, making the housing here from the later twentieth century. The vacancy rate of 22.9% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews considerably older than the national median, with a median age of 69.1 against 42 nationally. Households average just 1.81 people, and 26.0% consist of one person living alone — a signature of areas with a lot of studio and one-bedroom stock.

Getting to work takes 44.4 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 95.5% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 23846 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, 23846 offers a compact profile of Elberon: 487 residents, a median household income of $91,169, 20.4% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 8.6%. 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. 23846 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Elberon 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.