South Valley, New Mexico

Area Profile

37,120 residents. Public schools, jobs, income, housing cost, climate and natural-hazard risk for South Valley, in Bernalillo County.

Area Score unavailable

Missing required signals: opportunity, growth. AreaProfile withholds a score rather than inferring the missing dimensions.

How we calculate this

How this area ranks
Housing affordabilityTop 39% of 4,223 published cities87
ClimateTop 45% of 4,223 published cities71
Physical resilienceTop 38% of 4,182 published cities69
AccessTop 29% of 4,226 published cities97
Economic stability3623rd of 4,226 published cities38
The quick read

Rent takes 20% of median household income here, below the 30% threshold conventionally called cost-burdened, and the median home is 3.9 times that income.

A typical July reaches 91°F and a typical January falls to 26°F, on thirty-year normals.

A major airport is 5 miles away, giving the area unusually direct access to the national air network.

At a glance

Population
37,120
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median household income
$58,224
Bottom 36% nationally
Density
1,280/sq mi
29.0 sq mi of land
Median age
41.7
2024 ACS 5-Year
County
Bernalillo County
New Mexico
Metro area
Albuquerque, NM
Nearest major airport
ABQ
5 mi · Albuquerque Intl Sunport
Median home value
$224,300
2024 ACS 5-Year

Jobs & opportunity

MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Median household income ±$5,334$58,224Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year
Per capita income ±$1,569$29,017Bottom 33%2024 ACS 5-Year
Poverty rate18.5%Top 27%2024 ACS 5-Year
Average commute27.2 minTop 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Bachelor's degree or higher15.1%Bottom 35%2024 ACS 5-Year
Labor force participation54.4%Bottom 31%2024 ACS 5-Year
Mean annual wage$64,480Bottom 29%2025 OEWS
Median annual wage$48,060Bottom 23%2025 OEWS
Median household income, successive ACS releases
202120222023202458k40k
Each point is a separate five-year estimate, most recently $58,224 in the 2024 ACS 5-Year. Consecutive releases share four years of sample, so AreaProfile shows them as a record of successive estimates and does not compute a year-over-year change from them.
Largest occupations — Albuquerque, NM
OccupationPeople employedMedian annual wage
Home Health and Personal Care Aides16,860$30,170
Fast Food and Counter Workers14,510$29,140
Retail Salespersons11,370$34,160
Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive11,020$46,950
Registered Nurses10,290$96,040
Customer Service Representatives10,270$41,790

Occupational employment and wages are published for metropolitan areas rather than for individual cities or ZIP areas, so these describe the wider labor market this location sits in. 2025 OEWS, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There are 11.0 students for every full-time teacher, fewer than in most measured places.

Public schools
23
2024-25 school year
Students per teacher
11.0
across all schools here
Math proficiency
Reading proficiency
SchoolDistrictStudentsPer teacherMathReading
RIO GRANDE HIGHALBUQUERQUE1,47512.8
SOUTH VALLEY ACADEMY · charterALBUQUERQUE60411.8
JOHN ADAMS MIDDLEALBUQUERQUE42010.0
ERNIE PYLE MIDDLEALBUQUERQUE40912.0
KIT CARSON ELEMENTARYALBUQUERQUE39512.0
LAVALAND ELEMENTARYALBUQUERQUE36911.2
NAVAJO ELEMENTARYALBUQUERQUE34413.8
EL CAMINO REAL ACADEMY · charterALBUQUERQUE34213.7
SOLARE COLLEGIATE CHARTER SCHOOL · charterSOLARE COLLEGIATE CHARTER SCHOOL31410.85%50%
ADOBE ACRES ELEMENTARYALBUQUERQUE30314.4
PAJARITO ELEMENTARYALBUQUERQUE3017.9
HARRISON MIDDLEALBUQUERQUE2659.8

98.6% of students here are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch. That describes the circumstances families arrive with rather than how the schools perform, which is why AreaProfile shows it and does not score it.

Public schools only, from the NCES Common Core of Data. Schools are placed by ZIP code, so this is which schools are in this place rather than which one a particular address is zoned for — district boundaries do not follow municipal ones, and enrollment zones change. Fully virtual schools are excluded: they enroll students from across the state while reporting one administrative address, and counting them here would describe a school population this place does not have. The assessment covers grades 3 through 8, so a high school shows no proficiency figure — a dash in those columns means the test was not given at that school, not that it performed badly. Proficiency is measured against New Mexico’s own standard, so it compares cleanly within the state and only broadly against other states; AreaProfile therefore ranks it within state. The directory is current, while the proficiency figures are from the last school year with national coverage before the pandemic interrupted testing.

Housing & affordability

How it’s calculated →

Median rent of $954 takes 20% of median household income, below the 30% threshold at which a household is considered cost-burdened.

A median home costs 3.9 times median household income here, above the historic benchmark of about three times income.

Rent as a share of income
19.7%
Below the 30% cost-burdened threshold
Home price to income
3.9×
median home value ÷ median income
Median gross rent
$954
2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value
$224,300
2024 ACS 5-Year
MetricValueCompared with peersSource period
Home price to income3.85Top 29%2024 ACS 5-Year
Homeownership rate74.4%Bottom 47%2024 ACS 5-Year
Housing units ±62314,132Top 4%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median gross rent ±$67$954Bottom 48%2024 ACS 5-Year
Median home value ±$9,815$224,300Top 41%2024 ACS 5-Year
Rent as a share of income19.7%Top 43%2024 ACS 5-Year
Vacancy rate6.7%Bottom 36%2024 ACS 5-Year

Both affordability measures come from the same ACS release as the income they are compared with, so the comparison is like for like. They describe housing cost against local earnings and are not a cost-of-living index — transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes are not included, and a place can look affordable here and still be expensive to live in for reasons this does not capture.

Growth & development

How it’s calculated →

No building-permit activity is published for this location by the Census Building Permits Survey.

Weather & climate

7 of the twelve months have a normal average temperature between 55°F and 80°F. July averages a high of 91°F and January a low of 26°F.

Normal annual precipitation is 8.8 inches, including 7.9 inches of snow.

Air quality measures a median index of 61, in the Moderate band, and about 30 days a year pass 100, the threshold at which the air is unhealthy for sensitive groups.

20°40°60°80°100°JFMAMJJASOND
Solid line: normal daily high. Dashed line: normal daily low. 1991-2020 normals from NOAA station ALBUQUERQUE INTL AP, 4.4 miles from this location.
Precipitation
JFMAMJJASOND1.6"
Normal monthly precipitation, in inches.
MetricValueSource period
90th percentile air quality index97.02024 calendar year
Annual precipitation8.8"1991-2020 Normals
Annual snowfall7.9"1991-2020 Normals
Average January low26°F1991-2020 Normals
Average July high91°F1991-2020 Normals
Comfortable months71991-2020 Normals
Days above AQI 100302024 calendar year
Median air quality index61.02024 calendar year
Seasonal temperature swing42°F1991-2020 Normals
Air quality
Median air quality index
61
Moderate on a typical day
Worst tenth of days
97
90th percentile index
Days above 100
30
unhealthy for sensitive groups

A comfortable median and a bad tail are different problems. Wildfire smoke and summer ozone show up in the worst tenth of days, not in the middle of the year.

Climate figures are thirty-year normals, not current conditions. They describe what a typical year looks like rather than what the weather is doing today. Air quality is measured rather than modelled, by EPA monitors, and published by county only where a monitor sits — roughly half the counties AreaProfile publishes have one, and the rest show nothing rather than an estimate. Air masses are regional, so a county reading describes the air over a place reasonably well, but it is still the county reading.

Physical risk

69 / 100
Physical resilience

The hazards accounting for most of this area's expected annual loss are earthquake, wildfire and drought.

EarthquakeModerate
WildfireModerate
DroughtModerate
AvalancheModerate

Low or minimal exposure: winter weather, lightning, inland flooding, heat wave, hail, strong wind, ice storm, cold wave, tornado, landslide, volcanic activity.

Hazard ratings are AreaProfile calculations derived from the FEMA National Risk Index v1.20.0 (December 2025). FEMA publishes at county level. City values are the population-weighted mean of the counties the city overlaps, using AreaProfile place-to-county land-area weights. FEMA does not endorse this presentation. Higher physical resilience means lower exposure.

These are deaths, not offences. AreaProfile does not publish reported crime, and this is not a substitute for it — it says nothing about burglary, theft or assault.

Bernalillo County records 11.6 homicide deaths per 100,000 residents a year, higher than most counties measured. The CDC does not publish this below county level.

Firearm deaths of all intents run at 22.5 per 100,000 — more than the homicide rate, because nationally most firearm deaths are suicides.

Drug overdose deaths run at 50.3 per 100,000 residents in Bernalillo County.

Homicide
11.6
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Firearm deaths, all intents
22.5
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Drug overdose
50.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths
Suicide
22.3
per 100,000 residents · under 10 deaths

Firearm deaths count every intent together, and nationally the majority are suicides rather than homicides. The two columns overlap and should not be added.

Age-adjusted rates from provisional death certificate records, published by the CDC for Bernalillo County as a whole — these rates are not published below county level. A county can hold both a dense city centre and a suburb whose experience of it is nothing alike, so this describes the county around South Valley rather than South Valley itself. That is why AreaProfile shows these figures and does not put them in the Area Score. Where fewer than ten deaths were recorded the count is suppressed at source, and a rate built on single figures moves sharply between releases. What this measure has that reported crime does not: a death certificate is filed whether or not the local police agency submitted a return that year, so the figures stay comparable between places and over time.

What this profile does not cover

Three things people look for are missing from every AreaProfile page, and each is missing for a reason rather than by oversight. The Area Score is calculated without them and the weighting is documented on the methodology page.

Reported crime
The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer is the only source for reported offences with national coverage and a published method, and it requires an API key AreaProfile does not hold. Arrest counts, news volume and commercial “safety scores” are not substituted in the meantime. What is published above under Safety is a different measurement — deaths rather than offences, from death certificates rather than police returns — and it covers no property crime at all.
Taxes
No tax dataset has met the source admission test for coverage, transparent methodology and update cadence. Nothing here is individualized tax advice.
Full cost of living
No public source publishes one with national coverage and a documented method. Housing affordability above is computed from published rent, price and income, and excludes transport, groceries, healthcare, insurance and taxes — commuting cost in particular tends to offset suburban housing savings.

Access

3 major airports lie within 100 miles, the nearest 5 miles away.

AirportCodeDistanceLongest runway
Albuquerque Intl SunportABQ5 mi13,793 ft
Santa Fe RgnlSAF54 mi8,366 ft
Las Vegas MuniLVS98 mi8,199 ft

Airport identity, position and runway data come from the FAA. “Major airport” is an AreaProfile classification — a public-use civil airport with a paved runway of at least 8,000 feet — not an FAA hub designation. Distances are straight-line, not driving distance.

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Other cities in Albuquerque, NM

Same metropolitan area, measured the same way
CityCountyPopulationArea ScoreCompare
AlbuquerqueBernalillo County562,21860vs South Valley
Rio RanchoSandoval County108,51563vs South Valley
Los LunasValencia County18,61849vs South Valley
Los AlamosSandoval County13,317vs South Valley
North ValleyBernalillo County10,455vs South Valley

Every city here is measured on the same scale from the same source releases, so the comparison is like for like. A higher Area Score reflects AreaProfile’s standardized weighting rather than a judgment about which is the better place to live.

Data & methodology

Used forSourceSource periodUpdated
AccessFederal Aviation Administration
Airports (NASR) — Aeronautical Data Delivery Service
NASR current cycle28-day NASR cycle
Physical riskFederal Emergency Management Agency
National Risk Index
National Risk Index December 2025 (v1.20.0)Periodic dataset versions (v1.20.0 current)
ClimateNOAA National Centers for Environmental Information
U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (Monthly)
1991-2020 NormalsEvery ten years (next release follows the 2001–2030 period)
JobsU.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics
2025 OEWSAnnual (spring release)
Demographics, Housing, Income, JobsU.S. Census Bureau
American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (Table-Based Summary File)
2024 ACS 5-YearAnnual (5-year estimates released each December)
safetyU.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics
Provisional county-level mortality by intent
April, 2025 to March, 2026Quarterly, with a rolling twelve-month window alongside complete calendar years
schoolsU.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics
Common Core of Data and EDFacts assessments
2024-25 school yearDirectory annually; assessment results as EDFacts releases them
ClimateU.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Quality System
Daily Air Quality Index by county
2024 calendar yearAnnually, once a calendar year is complete

Profile recalculated August 30, 2026. Recalculation is not the same as new source data — each figure above shows the period its source actually covers. Read the full methodology or browse every source.

ZIP codes in South Valley

1 published ZIP profiles
ZIPPopulationMedian household incomeArea Score
8710554,367$55,644