ZIP 02141’s most consequential tension is a slow current rent move alongside a much faster resale-price move. The five-digit label is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match; a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. Zillow’s June 2026 ZIP-level ZORI, a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, is $3,676 monthly, up 1.5% from a year earlier. In contrast, the direct ZIP for-sale observation records a $929,790 median sold price, up 8.8% year over year. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by that sold price is a 4.7% cross-source screening ratio only, not an estimate of property economics.
The asking-rent history points to a deceleration, not a reversal. Exact same-month annualized ZORI change was 1.5% over one year, 2.7% over three years and 5.4% over five years. Thus the latest positive reading continues the historical upward direction, yet breaks from the faster pace evident in the longer windows. The ZIP is classified high variability: changes across consecutive monthly observations produced 3.7% annualized monthly-return variability, while the separate maximum peak-to-trough drawdown was 13.2%. Coverage was 99.2%, indicating an almost uninterrupted history. This strengthens continuity of the record but does not eliminate movement in its level. These are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations; variability and drawdown mean a single current ZORI snapshot has limited stand-alone precision.
The history discovery outputs reinforce this need for context rather than making a forward claim. Among history-eligible ZIPs, transparent national discovery ranks were 1,473 for momentum, 2,372 for stability and 2,158 for the balanced measure, with lower ranks representing higher placement. The weak stability placement aligns with the high-variability classification and supports less confidence in a one-month rent observation than a smoother series would warrant. These ranks summarize the provided historical mechanics; they neither measure asset quality nor establish a future rent path.
Three rent universes answer different questions. The matched ACS five-year ZCTA survey reports $2,915 median gross rent for occupied renter homes, including selected utilities; that is 26.1% below ZORI and cannot be treated as a current asking-rent comp. The local HUD FMR/SAFMR two-bedroom standard is $2,311, placing ZORI 59.1% above it; this administrative, bedroom-specific standard is not asking rent. Scaling ZIP ZORI by the local HUD ladder creates modelled, never measured, monthly estimates of $2,594 for a studio, $2,801 for one bedroom, $3,676 for two, $4,595 for three and $4,867 for four. They are a consistent estimation device, not observed bedroom-rent measurements.
Income and burden offer a separate affordability lens. The matched ZCTA median household income is $126,522; using a 30% of gross income screen, the arithmetic income associated with the current ZORI is $147,040 annually, and annualized asking rent equals 34.9% of that median. This is an arithmetic screen, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. Separately, 39.7% of surveyed renter households reported gross-rent burdens at or above that threshold. That ACS burden measure describes households in the survey, not what any particular available unit costs, includes, or requires from a renter.
The housing survey establishes a renter-weighted stock backdrop, not a listing inventory. The ZCTA contains 8,266 housing units, including 3,743 units in large multifamily structures; its renter share is 74.5% and vacancy rate is 12.0%. A reported vacancy rate does not prove that a particular unit is rentable, available on a chosen date or offered on comparable terms. For wider context only, the Cambridge city-context Zillow rent is $3,598, the Middlesex County context rent is $3,260, and the Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH metro-context rent is $3,210. Those city, county and metro figures are not substitutes for the ZIP ZORI or evidence about a specific property.
Resale liquidity has to remain in the direct rolling-three-month ZIP for-sale universe. It counted 42 homes sold with a median 44 days on market, 51 homes of inventory and 3.6 months of supply. Average sale to list was 100.7%; 34.2% of sales were above list and 39.0% went off market within two weeks. Inventory rose year over year even as those sale-to-list signals and the price change cited above appeared firm. That combination, together with rent growth lagging the resale-price change, challenges any simple claim that rent and resale conditions move in lockstep. None of these are rental transactions or rental comparables.
Every result here is ZIP or ZCTA level and has a source-specific limit: ZORI blends asking rents across types, ACS is a multiyear survey with sampling uncertainty, HUD is an administrative standard, and Redfin tracks resales rather than leases. A property-level reading needs the advertised rent and date, bedroom count, unit type, lease term, utility treatment, current availability, and, for a sale comparison, property condition and list-versus-sale history. Check those attributes against the intended use before applying any ZIP benchmark. The unresolved decision question is whether a specific home’s terms actually resemble the datasets used here, rather than whether a broad ZIP statistic can stand in for it.
","findings":[{"body":"The provided same-month history remains positive at the latest one-year measure but is materially slower than its three- and five-year counterparts. This deceleration is the key rent trend, not evidence that rents have begun falling. High measured monthly variability and a meaningful historical drawdown make the June ZORI useful as a current benchmark, but less definitive as a stable stand-alone reference.","title":"Rent growth slowed, but the series remains uneven"},{"body":"ZORI, ACS gross rent, and HUD FMR/SAFMR should not be collapsed into one rent figure. ZORI is a ZIP asking-rent index across rental types; ACS is a five-year survey of occupied renter homes with selected utilities; HUD is an administrative bedroom standard. The studio-through-four-bedroom figures are modelled from ZORI using the HUD ladder and are not observed bedroom-rent measurements.","title":"The rent benchmarks are deliberately non-interchangeable"},{"body":"The ZIP’s asking-rent-to-income arithmetic exceeds the stated 30% screen at the ZCTA median household income, while a substantial survey share reports gross-rent burdens at or above that threshold. These are population-level affordability indicators, not underwriting, eligibility, or evidence about the rent burden associated with an individual unit. Sampling-based ACS figures also need their reported uncertainty considered.","title":"Affordability screens show population-level pressure"},{"body":"Direct ZIP resale data show a higher year-over-year median sale price, inventory expansion, and sale-to-list outcomes above 100% on average. The rent-to-price figure is simply annualized ZORI divided by median sold price across sources. It cannot describe operating costs, financing, taxes, maintenance, or a property-level economic outcome, and resale transactions are not rental comparisons.","title":"Resale and rent signals are moving at different speeds"}],"risks":["The current ZORI is a blended asking-rent index, so it may diverge from an advertised unit because bedroom mix, unit type, utility treatment, lease structure, and availability are not standardized by the ZIP statistic.","ACS estimates describe a matched statistical ZCTA over five years and carry survey uncertainty; the ZCTA is not a USPS delivery ZIP, so boundary and period differences limit direct property comparisons.","HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard rather than market asking rent, and the bedroom ladder converts ZORI through a model; it should not be read as measured rent by bedroom.","Redfin's rolling three-month resale measures can change with the mix of homes sold and are separate from leasing; median sale price and sale-to-list signals do not establish rental operating results."],"qa":[{"a":"The figures come from different evidence universes. ZORI is a current ZIP asking-rent index blended across rental types. ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey of occupied renter homes that includes selected utilities. Their gap is informative context, but it is neither a contradiction nor a measured premium for an individual listing.","q":"Why is the ZIP asking-rent benchmark above ACS median gross rent?"},{"a":"No. The studio-through-four-bedroom amounts are modelled monthly estimates. They take the ZIP ZORI as the anchor and apply relative steps from the local HUD bedroom ladder. HUD supplies an administrative standard, not observed asking-rent transactions, so the resulting figures cannot establish what a particular bedroom size is currently listed for.","q":"Are the bedroom estimates observed ZIP rents?"},{"a":"It annualizes the displayed ZORI and divides by the stated 30% share of gross income, producing the income arithmetic shown in the report. It is not an affordability recommendation, a lending calculation, or an applicant qualification criterion. The ACS burden percentage remains a separate survey result about households, not an individual unit.","q":"What does the required-income screen mean?"},{"a":"No. Redfin’s figures are direct ZIP resale observations over a rolling three-month window, while ZORI tracks asking rents. Sale price, inventory, marketing time, and sale-to-list outcomes can frame a for-sale comparison, but they do not substitute for lease listings, rental transactions, or property operating information.","q":"Does resale activity validate rental comparisons?"}],"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 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