The central measured tension in 02140 is that the June 2026 Zillow ZORI is $3,485 per month while a 30% arithmetic screen translates that asking-rent index into $139,400 of annual income, slightly above the matched area’s $135,286 median household income. The index rose 3.4% from a year earlier, so the immediate asking-rent direction is upward. This required-income calculation is arithmetic rather than advice, an applicant qualification rule, or a statement about what any household can pay. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, which makes it useful for a ZIP-level current benchmark but not a rent quote for a specified home.
The rent path contains both persistence and reason for restraint about a single current snapshot. The one-year exact same-month annualized change was 3.4%, the three-year measure was 2.7%, and the five-year measure was 5.1%. Thus, the recent increase confirms the longer direction of rising asking rents, but its pace is above the three-year rate and below the faster five-year path. Annualized monthly-return variability of 3.6% means the series has not moved in a perfectly smooth pattern; separately, its historical maximum drawdown reached 13.5%, showing that material retreats occurred within the observed record. Complete history coverage spans 105 observations. Transparent discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 976 for momentum, 2,297 for stability, and 1,656 for the balanced measure. These are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations, and the high-variability classification argues for moderate confidence rather than overconfidence in one month’s ZORI reading.
The bedroom view is a model, not a set of measured bedroom rents. It scales the ZIP ZORI through the supplied local HUD ladder to produce modelled monthly estimates of $2,460 for a studio, $2,656 for one bedroom, $3,485 for two bedrooms, $4,357 for three bedrooms, and $4,614 for four bedrooms. The local FY2026 HUD FMR/SAFMR ladder itself runs from $1,631 for a studio to $3,060 for four bedrooms. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than asking rent; the Zillow-based bedroom figures therefore should not be substituted for unit-level listings, signed leases, or rental comparables. Their value is consistency: the two-bedroom model equals the ZIP-wide ZORI because the ladder is used to allocate that index across bedroom sizes.
The ACS comparison highlights why source universe matters. The matched Census ZCTA’s ACS 2024 five-year median gross rent was $2,615, with a $123 margin of error, making the current Zillow asking-rent index 33.3% higher. ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey measure for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, whereas ZORI reflects a current typical observed asking-rent index. A ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP, even though this five-digit label is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match. Within the surveyed renter population, 39.4% of households had rent burdens at or above the threshold. That burden measure describes surveyed occupied renter households; it cannot establish the affordability or burden of a particular available unit.
Housing counts provide scale but not proof of immediate rental availability. The ZCTA recorded 11,066 housing units and 9,944 occupied units, alongside a 10.1% vacancy rate. Of the vacant units, 599 were classified as for rent, a category that is broader than confirmed, ready-to-lease listings at a particular price or bedroom count. The stock includes 4,282 units in larger multifamily structures compared with 2,016 single-family units, consistent with a renter-heavy housing base but not evidence about the condition, concession terms, or turnover of any building. These ACS figures are survey-based stock and occupancy data, so they should remain separate from Zillow’s asking-rent index and Redfin’s direct resale measures.
Broader comparison puts the ZIP’s current index between several different geographies, but none replaces ZIP evidence. Cambridge city context has a rent figure of $3,598, Middlesex County context has a rent figure of $3,260, and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro context has a rent figure of $3,210. The ZIP’s ZORI is therefore below the named city context while above both the named county and metro contexts. Those city, county, and metro values are wider-area context only, not readings for 02140, and they may reflect different housing mixes and source aggregation. The relevant decision tension remains local: a rising asking-rent index sits beside an income screen just above the area median and a substantial surveyed burden share.
Redfin supplies a separate for-sale signal that is stronger in price movement than the recent rent series, while remaining wholly outside the rental-transaction universe. Its direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation reports a $1,474,667 median sold price, up 15.3% year over year, with 49 homes sold and a median 21 days on market. Inventory was 34 homes and months of supply were 2.1. Sale-to-list indicators were also elevated: the average sale-to-list ratio was 103.99%, and 54.2% of sales closed above list price. This resale evidence challenges any reading that the 3.4% ZORI increase alone captures the entire housing-market signal, because the resale price change was markedly larger; it does not establish a causal link between the two. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by median sold price is a 2.84% cross-source screening ratio only, not a cap rate, net return, expected return, property yield, or estimate of property economics.
Decision use is constrained by the mismatch among current asking-rent observations, occupied-home survey medians, HUD administrative standards, and rolling resale transactions. The data do not identify actual achieved rent, listing concessions, utility treatment in an individual lease, unit condition, bedroom functionality, or a property’s specific vacancy status. A concrete property-level review should check the listed asking rent against the applicable bedroom model, identify which utilities and lease terms apply, confirm whether the unit is genuinely available, and compare its own list and sale history with direct ZIP resale evidence. It should also distinguish a particular home’s physical characteristics from ZIP averages. The key unresolved question is whether a specific unit’s terms align with the current asking-rent benchmark without assuming that survey burden, vacant-unit counts, or resale strength describe that unit.
","findings":[{"body":"The Zillow asking-rent index implies $139,400 of annual income under the 30% arithmetic screen, compared with $135,286 median household income in the matched ZCTA. This does not determine affordability for an individual household, but it places the current ZIP benchmark slightly above the area median-income reference. The ACS burden share adds a separate occupied-renter perspective rather than a unit-level conclusion.","title":"Affordability screen is narrowly tighter than area median income"},{"body":"Exact same-month changes show positive one-year, three-year, and five-year rent growth, with the latest annual pace above the three-year measure but below the five-year pace. High variability and a meaningful historical drawdown reduce the certainty that should be assigned to one current ZORI value. The history record is complete across the supplied observations, but remains backward-looking only.","title":"Rent growth remains positive but the history is not smooth"},{"body":"Studio through four-bedroom values are modelled by scaling ZIP ZORI with the supplied HUD bedroom ladder. They offer a consistent internal sizing framework, including a two-bedroom estimate equal to the ZIP index, but they are not measured asking rents for individual bedroom categories. HUD standards are administrative FMR/SAFMR benchmarks, so neither source replaces active listings or signed-lease evidence.","title":"Bedroom figures are ladder-based estimates, not rental comps"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct ZIP resale observation shows a sizable sold-price increase, short marketing time, limited months of supply, and above-list sale signals. Those metrics concern for-sale transactions rather than rentals, but they challenge an interpretation based solely on the more moderate recent ZORI increase. The annualized-rent-to-sold-price figure remains only a cross-source screening ratio and cannot measure property-level economics.","title":"Resale evidence is notably stronger than the latest rent change"}],"risks":["Zillow ZORI is a blended typical asking-rent index across rental types, so it may not match the asking rent, achieved rent, bedroom count, lease terms, utilities, condition, or concessions of a particular unit.","ACS gross rent and burden figures are five-year survey measures for occupied renter homes in a matched ZCTA, include selected utilities in gross rent, and do not prove conditions for current listings.","The bedroom estimates are modelled from ZORI using a HUD administrative ladder; they are not observed bedroom rents and should not be treated as substitutes for unit-specific rental comparables.","Redfin measures direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale activity, not rental transactions. Its sold-price trends and the rent-price screening ratio cannot establish cap rates, yields, net returns, or expected outcomes."],"qa":[{"a":"The measures come from different evidence universes. Zillow ZORI is a current typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, while ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey result for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. The geographic match is also a Census ZCTA, which is statistical and not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP.","q":"Why is the Zillow asking-rent figure higher than the ACS median gross rent?"},{"a":"No. The bedroom values are modelled monthly estimates created by scaling the ZIP-wide Zillow ZORI using the supplied local HUD FMR/SAFMR ladder. They are useful as a consistent allocation of the index across bedroom sizes, but they do not measure active listings, signed leases, concessions, utilities, or actual rents for individual units.","q":"Are the bedroom estimates observed asking rents for studios through four-bedroom homes?"},{"a":"Redfin adds direct rolling-three-month ZIP for-sale evidence: sold price, price change, homes sold, marketing time, inventory, months of supply, and sale-to-list behavior. It helps show that the resale market’s recent signals differ from the rent index’s growth rate. It is not rental evidence and cannot be used to infer a property’s income, expenses, or return.","q":"What does the Redfin resale evidence add to the rent analysis?"},{"a":"Check the unit’s actual asking rent, bedroom configuration, lease term, included utilities, concessions, availability, condition, and listing history. For a resale comparison, review that property’s own list and sale information rather than relying on ZIP medians. These checks are necessary because ZIP averages, ACS burden, vacant-unit counts, and resale indicators do not describe a particular home.","q":"What property-level facts should be checked before applying these ZIP measures?"}],"sources":[{"key":"apartment_list_time_on_market","name":"Apartment List Time on Market — listing liquidity","release":"Apartment List 2026-07","pulledAt":"2026-08-08","url":"https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/category/data-rent-estimates"},{"key":"apartment_list_vacancy","name":"Apartment List Vacancy Index — rental vacancy","release":"Apartment List 2026-07","pulledAt":"2026-08-08","url":"https://www.apartmentlist.com/research/apartment-list-vacancy-index-methodology"},{"key":"census_zcta_facts","name":"Census ACS five-year — ZCTA housing and income","release":"ACS 2024 5-year ZCTA","pulledAt":"2026-08-08","url":"https://api.census.gov/data/2024/acs/acs5.html"},{"key":"hud_zip","name":"HUD USPS crosswalk and Small Area FMRs — ZIP rent 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