The current tension is a high ZIP asking-rent reading that continues to rise, while the broader affordability screens remain much lower. Zillow’s typical observed asking-rent index, blended across rental types, is $4,717 for this ZIP at the stated endpoint. It is 4.0% higher than the same month a year earlier. That one-year direction confirms the longer upward path: exact same-month annualized changes were 3.6% over three years and 7.8% over five years. The recent gain therefore extends, rather than reverses, the historical direction, although it trails the faster five-year pace. These are backward-looking measurements of an asking-rent index, not forecasts, transaction rents, or investment recommendations.
The five-digit label 10036 is both the Zillow ZIP market identifier and the matched Census ZCTA. A ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. The ACS 2024 five-year survey reports a $2,358 median gross rent for occupied renter homes in the matched ZCTA, including selected utilities; that is 2.00 times lower than the current Zillow asking-rent index. The FY2026 HUD two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR standard is $2,616, and the Zillow index is 80.3% above it. These measures should not be merged into a single rent estimate: ACS is a survey of occupied homes, HUD is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, and Zillow measures typical observed asking rents.
The bedroom view is a modelled ZIP ladder, not measured bedroom rents. It scales the current ZIP Zillow index by the local HUD bedroom ladder, producing modelled monthly estimates of $3,422 for a studio, $3,969 for one bedroom, $4,717 for two bedrooms, $5,778 for three bedrooms, and $6,658 for four bedrooms. The construction is useful for showing the relative spacing implied by local HUD standards, but it cannot establish the rent of any particular unit. Unit condition, lease timing, utilities, concessions, and actual bedroom classification are outside this modelled ladder.
A simple 30% required-income screen translates the current asking-rent index into $188,680 of annual household income. That arithmetic screen sits well above the ZCTA-wide ACS median household income of $95,638; annualized asking rent equals 59.2% of that median income. It is not advice and is not an applicant qualification rule. Separately, the ACS burden measure shows that 48.3% of occupied renter households reported paying 30% or more of income toward gross rent. That survey burden describes resident households across the ZCTA and cannot prove the payment pressure, income, or utility burden of a particular available apartment.
The ZCTA’s housing profile gives context for why survey and asking-rent measures may represent distinct populations. ACS estimates 22,746 housing units, including 17,003 renter-occupied homes, making renters 89.5% of occupied homes. There are 3,755 vacant units, a 16.5% vacancy rate, with 1,581 classified as vacant for rent. Larger multifamily structures account for 19,672 units. Those counts indicate a renter-heavy, multifamily-oriented stock in the statistical area, but vacancy classifications do not establish that a particular unit is available, comparable, habitable, or offered at the ZIP asking-rent index.
Wider-area rents place the ZIP’s asking-rent index between several named context measures rather than defining a separate local trend. The New York city context asking-rent value is $4,133, the New York County context value is $4,833, and the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro context value is $3,573. Thus, the ZIP index is above the city and metro context readings but below the county context reading. These city, county, and metro figures are comparison scopes only; they are not substitutes for direct ZIP rental evidence and should not be treated as neighborhood or property-level comparables.
The historical series is unusually important because one current rent snapshot has limited standalone certainty in a high-variability category. Annualized monthly-return variability measures 3.5%, while the series’ maximum peak-to-trough drawdown reached 18.5%, showing that an upward multi-year path still included a material historical reversal. Coverage is 99.3%, which supports use of the series as a broadly observed record rather than a sparse sequence. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs are 686 for momentum, 2,215 for stability, and 1,292 for the balanced measure, where lower rank is higher. The weaker stability placement reinforces the need to treat the current index as an observed point in a changing series, not a fixed market clearing rent.
Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation describes for-sale activity, not rental transactions. Median sold price was $3,399,232, up 241.6% year over year, with 52 homes sold and a median 41 days on market. Inventory was 146 homes and months of supply stood at 8.5; the average sale-to-list result was 98.9%, while 7.9% of sales closed above list. Those resale liquidity signals challenge a simple reading of rent strength: asking rents and their history point upward, but resale supply and below-list average pricing indicate a different, less uniformly urgent for-sale picture. Annualized ZIP Zillow rent divided by median sold price is 1.67%, a cross-source screening ratio only, not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield. A property-level review would still require the actual asking rent, lease timing, bedroom layout, included utilities, availability, and sale/listing terms; do those specific facts match the ZIP aggregates?
","findings":[{"body":"The current Zillow asking-rent index is materially higher than both the ACS median gross rent and the HUD two-bedroom standard. That gap is mainly a source-universe issue: Zillow captures typical observed asking rents, ACS summarizes occupied renter homes with selected utilities, and HUD provides an administrative standard. None is a direct substitute for another.","title":"Asking rent is far above survey and HUD reference measures"},{"body":"Same-month rent changes are positive across the one-, three-, and five-year windows, so the recent direction continues the historical upward path. However, the recorded drawdown and weaker stability discovery rank show that the series has not moved in a straight line. A current asking-rent observation deserves historical context rather than standalone interpretation.","title":"The longer rent path remains positive but not uniformly stable"},{"body":"The 30% required-income calculation using Zillow’s current asking-rent index is substantially above the ZCTA median household income. ACS also reports a large share of occupied renter households paying at least 30% of income toward gross rent. These are population-level screens, however, and they do not determine affordability, eligibility, or burden for a specific household or unit.","title":"Affordability arithmetic and resident burden both signal pressure"},{"body":"The direct ZIP resale dataset shows a very high median sold price and a large year-over-year price increase, yet months of supply, sale-to-list results, and the limited above-list share describe a for-sale market that should remain analytically separate from rents. The annualized rent-to-price calculation is only a cross-source screen and cannot represent property economics.","title":"Resale evidence creates a separate liquidity tension"}],"risks":["Zillow asking-rent data, ACS gross-rent survey data, and HUD FMR/SAFMR standards cover different populations, timing, utility treatment, and purposes, so apparent gaps should not be interpreted as measurement errors.","The ZCTA match is statistical rather than a USPS delivery boundary, and ACS estimates carry survey uncertainty; ZIP-level conclusions should not be assumed to describe every building, household, or lease.","Historical rent gains are backward-looking and include a meaningful prior drawdown. The current asking-rent index may be less reliable as a standalone snapshot when the underlying series has shown variable movement.","Redfin’s resale metrics concern sold homes and listing conditions in the for-sale market. They do not provide rental comparables, operating expenses, unit-level values, financing information, or evidence about any rental property."],"qa":[{"a":"The two figures answer different questions. Zillow is a ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, while ACS is a five-year survey of occupied renter homes in the matched ZCTA and includes selected utilities. Existing leases, occupied-home composition, survey timing, and utility treatment can all create a substantial difference without either measure being invalid.","q":"Why is Zillow rent much higher than the ACS median gross rent?"},{"a":"No. They are modelled monthly ZIP estimates derived by scaling the current Zillow asking-rent index with the local HUD bedroom ladder. The ladder shows relative bedroom spacing, not observed asking rents or signed leases for each bedroom count. A particular unit can differ because of layout, condition, utility inclusion, lease date, concessions, and availability.","q":"Are the bedroom figures direct market rents for studios through four bedrooms?"},{"a":"It is an arithmetic comparison of annualized Zillow asking rent with household income at a 30% rent-share threshold. It helps frame the size of the current asking-rent index relative to the reported area income benchmark. It is not financial advice, a tenant-screening policy, an affordability determination, or evidence that a specific renter can or cannot pay a specific rent.","q":"What does the 30% required-income calculation establish?"},{"a":"It should be used only as direct ZIP for-sale context. Median sold price, supply, marketing time, and sale-to-list outcomes describe resale liquidity and pricing behavior, not rental transactions or operating performance. Dividing annualized Zillow rent by the median sold price creates a cross-source screening ratio, but it does not measure cap rate, yield, net return, or expected return.","q":"How should the Redfin resale information be used alongside the rent data?"}],"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 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