Waikoloa, HI

ZIP code 96738 is assigned to Waikoloa, HI, and falls within Hawaii 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 7,407 people live inside it.

At 93 residents per square mile spread over 79.848 square miles, 96738 reads as a rural area. It is a smaller postal code by population, 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 $90,545, 96738 sits comfortably in the upper half, ahead of 76% 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 96738 costs far above the national median. A typical home is valued at $686,700 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $2,251 a month. Ownership dominates: 78.4% 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 48.1% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1995, making the housing here from the later twentieth century. The vacancy rate of 43.3% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews broadly in line with the national age profile, with a median age of 43.3 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.75 people, and 73.7% are family households.

Getting to work takes 31.1 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 70.9% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 96738 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, 96738 offers a compact profile of Waikoloa: 7,407 residents, a median household income of $90,545, 35.7% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 10.1%. 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. 96738 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Waikoloa 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.