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Place dossier plate
SheetAZ-LAKE-HAVASU-CITY-AZ · Lake Havasu City, AZ 58,037 pop · income 45th pct · 12 tracts
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Lake Havasu City
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Lake Havasu City on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Midwest City · lowest
57,739
Midwest City · lowest
57,739 median HH income
42.9% of the leader · rank #1
Duluth · near
66,263
Duluth · near
66,263 median HH income
49.2% of the leader · rank #2
Lake Havasu C… · this city
66,264
Lake Havasu C… · this city
66,264 median HH income
49.2% of the leader · rank #3
Camp Pendleto… · near
66,265
Camp Pendleto… · near
66,265 median HH income
49.2% of the leader · rank #4
Ottawa · near
66,268
Ottawa · near
66,268 median HH income
49.2% of the leader · rank #5
Banner Hill · near
66,270
Banner Hill · near
66,270 median HH income
49.2% of the leader · rank #6
Queen Creek · highest
134,719
Queen Creek · highest
134,719 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Lake Havasu City on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 58,037.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Lake Havasu City - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Lake Havasu City lands in the 45th percentile for household income and the 38th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
45th
percentile, household income
78th
percentile, home value
64th
percentile, median rent
38th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Lake Havasu City, AZ
Arizona's Lake Havasu City is a small city, with 58,037 residents per the latest Census Bureau ACS figures. Median household income here is $66,264 per year, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 9.6%. Home values in Lake Havasu City run a median of $411,500, and the median resident age is 55.7 years. Educational attainment runs 18.4% of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Separately, 43.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
In 2024, 201 residential building permits were authorized in Lake Havasu City (Construction Slowdown), down 43% from five years earlier, per Census BPS data. Lake Havasu City reports a comparatively low crime rate: per-100,000 total crime stands at 1749.6 in FBI UCR data, below the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score). NOAA puts Lake Havasu City's yearly average temperature at 74.2°F with 4.2 inches of precipitation per year.
Arizona tracks close to the national cost-of-living baseline: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Arizona at 100.7 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Near Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $1,419 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Arizona run around $215, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. FEMA's National Risk Index rates natural-hazard exposure at 84.5 out of 100 (High).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Lake Havasu City's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from work and mobility to comparison shortlist to climate and hazard context to schools and households to within-city variation to housing and income to population change to reported crime; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Lake Havasu City, city-specific coverage includes matched public-school count, local building permits, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, within-city Census tract profiles, commute-mode shares.
All six city-specific enrichment layers used by this profile are present.
1. Work and mobility
What does the journey to work look like in Lake Havasu City?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 75.7%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
Which cities make useful reference points for Lake Havasu City?
Within Arizona, the closest population matches are Casa Grande (57,590 residents, $66,354 income); Marana (54,487 residents, $108,256 income); Maricopa (62,986 residents, $94,208 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Severn, MD (58,041 residents); Lenexa, KS (57,986 residents); Orland Park, IL (57,961 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
What physical conditions frame life in Lake Havasu City?
NOAA normals put the annual mean temperature at 74.2°F, with 4.2 inches of precipitation. FEMA's state-averaged National Risk Index score for Arizona is 84.5 out of 100. Climate normals describe long-run weather; the FEMA score on PlainCities is a state average of county NRI inputs and combines hazards, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience.
The two sources should not be blended into one comfort or safety score. Use the climate values for baseline conditions and the risk index as a prompt to inspect specific hazards, insurance, and local emergency guidance for a particular address.
What can 12 Census tracts reveal inside Lake Havasu City?
That layer breaks the citywide income, rent, and home-value medians into smaller Census geographies, which can reveal differences that one municipal median necessarily hides. A tract is a statistical area, not a locally defined neighborhood or a promise about conditions on a particular block. Start with the city profile for the broad comparison, then use the tract layer to test whether the same housing and income pattern is consistent across the city. Large within-city spreads are a reason to avoid treating any citywide median as a universal resident experience.
PlainCities matches 12 Census tracts to this city.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Lake Havasu City?
The NCES join finds 13 public schools within the city match. 18.4% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
Matched public schools
13
Bachelor's degree+
18.4%
Poverty estimate
9.6%
NCES Common Core of Data school locations plus Census ACS resident characteristics.
How far does income reach against housing in Lake Havasu City?
The home-value-to-income reference is comparatively stretched: the ACS median home value is 6.2 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 9.6%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median. That flags a question for comparison, not a verdict: tenure, household composition, financing costs, and the age of the ACS estimate can all change what a resident actually pays.
Household income
$66,264
Home value
$411,500
Value / income
6.2×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Is Lake Havasu City growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,985 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +3.5% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 201 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
Period change
+3.5%
2025 estimate
59,358
2020 estimate
57,373
Census Population Estimates Program, 2020–2025; permit context uses Census BPS.
What can the FBI record say about safety in Lake Havasu City?
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1749.6 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 23% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1394.0
Violent rate
355.6
Total reported rate
1749.6
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
Below median income · poverty 9.6% (Above-median poverty)
Cost of Living Index (state)
100.7 (US=100)
Above-average cost · BEA RPP 2024, Arizona average
F
City profile score · Lake Havasu City, AZ
36/100
5 published dimensions · ACS/FBI 2023
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Household income D
$66,264
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Poverty rate D
9.6%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Cost of living F
100.7 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share F
18.4%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
356 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Lake Havasu City profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Household income: 44/100 (D) · $66,264
Poverty rate: 41/100 (D) · 9.6%
Cost of living: 37/100 (F) · 100.7 index
Bachelor's+ share: 30/100 (F) · 18.4%
Violent crime: 25/100 (F) · 356 /100k
Where Lake Havasu City sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Lake Havasu City's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Lake Havasu City highlighted among 11 peers.Read the chart values
Lake Havasu City, AZ (this city): home $411,500, crime 1,750/100k
Lenexa, KS : home $368,800, crime 1,531/100k
Orland Park, IL : home $349,400, crime 1,126/100k
Midwest City, OK : home $158,400, crime 2,428/100k
Royal Oak, MI : home $305,900, crime 926/100k
St. Peters, MO : home $252,800, crime 1,265/100k
Casa Grande, AZ : home $258,200, crime 1,939/100k
Marana, AZ : home $380,100, crime 1,466/100k
Maricopa, AZ : home $338,600, crime 1,094/100k
Queen Creek, AZ : home $576,600, crime 941/100k
Prescott Valley, AZ : home $376,300, crime 994/100k
How does Lake Havasu City compare to other US cities?
Where Lake Havasu City sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income45% higher than other cities
Home value78% pricier than other cities
Median rent64% pricier than other cities
Safety38% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Arizona and the picture shifts: Lake Havasu City ranks #35 of 61 Arizona cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Lake Havasu City against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Arizona only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Arizona-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Lake Havasu City near the bottom of Arizona's cities
Among the 394 Arizona cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Lake Havasu City ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Lake Havasu City only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#118 of 333
65th percentile in Arizona
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 394
0th percentile in Arizona
Median Home Value
#49 of 327
85th percentile in Arizona
Poverty Rate
#190 of 393
52nd percentile in Arizona
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#167 of 394
57th percentile in Arizona
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Arizona only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
45th percentile nationally for median household income · 38th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Lake Havasu City's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Lake Havasu City's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Lake Havasu City's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$411,50022nd percentilemore affordable than 22% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Lake Havasu City's home-value-to-income ratio: 6.2×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
pressured
> 5.0×
National rank
#14,264 of 15,516
More affordable than 8% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#596 of 750
Mid-size cities (50,000–199,999)
At 6.2×, Lake Havasu City sits in the pressured band:
national rank #14,264 of 15,516 and #596 of 750mid-size cities (50,000–199,999).
Housing value is high relative to the citywide income median, a comparison flag, not a verdict on any household.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$66,264Lake Havasu City, AZ median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Lake Havasu City, AZ median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Lake Havasu City, AZ.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)18.4%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)9.6%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)43.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
58,037
Median Income
$66,264
Median Home Value
$411,500
Median Age
55.7
Poverty Rate
9.6%
Labor force participation
43.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
18.4%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1749.6
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
355.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1394.0
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Climate
Avg Temperature
74.2°F
Annual Precipitation
4.2"
Annual Snowfall
0.0"
Schools
Total Schools
13
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Lake Havasu City's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
57,373 residents
2021
58,189 residents
2022
58,811 residents
2023
59,156 residents
2024
59,388 residents
2025
59,358 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
201
housing units authorized
Single-Family
171
detached homes
Multifamily
30
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
3.5
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
353
309
44
$64.1M
2020
420
342
78
$78.5M
2021
464
396
68
$84.1M
2022
426
347
79
$59.8M
2023
243
202
41
$48.3M
2024
201
171
30
$44.3M
Permit volume decreased 43% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
75.7%
Carpool
11.3%
Public Transit
0.2%
Walk
0.8%
Work from Home
8.3%
Other
3.7%
Based on 21,600 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Arizona statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $215
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Arizona at $215 (electricity about $131 , water and sewer about $50 ).
These are Arizona statewide averages, not a meter reading for Lake Havasu City. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Arizona's BEA cost-of-living index is 100.7 (Near Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Lake Havasu City is $1,419/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Arizona statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 84.5 / 100 (High).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Arizona statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Lake Havasu City sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Lake Havasu City compares to similar-size Arizona cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NOAA Climate Normals, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.