The central measured tension in 11201 is that the Zillow ZIP asking-rent index reached $4,702 in June 2026 while the matched ACS median household income was $173,136. A 30% required-income screen converts that asking-rent figure into $188,080 of annual income, placing the screen above the area’s reported median income. The current asking-rent-to-income comparison is 32.6%, and 38.4% of ACS renter households reported paying at least 30% of income toward gross rent. This arithmetic is not advice or an applicant qualification rule; it frames the gap between a typical asking-rent index and area-level income and burden measures.
Rent history remains upward sloping, but its pace has moderated. Exact same-month Zillow ZORI change was 3.95% over one-year, 4.17% annualized over three-year, and 6.82% annualized over five-year periods. Thus, the recent direction confirms the longer growth path rather than reversing it, yet the latest year does not match the stronger five-year pace. History had 100% coverage. Annualized monthly-return variability was 2.48%, which supports somewhat more confidence in a current index reading than a highly erratic series would, but it does not eliminate uncertainty. Separately, the largest historical decline from a prior peak was 11.42%, a reminder that a stable-growth label does not mean rents moved only upward. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 592 for momentum, 666 for stability, and 230 for the combined balance measure; these are descriptive discovery rankings, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
The sources answer different questions. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, whereas the ACS 2024 five-year median gross rent of $3,358 is a survey measure for occupied renter homes that includes selected utilities. The Zillow index is 40.0% higher, a difference that should not be treated as a discrepancy requiring either series to be wrong. The five-digit label 11201 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. HUD’s two-bedroom standard is $2,616, but HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent. Scaling ZIP ZORI through the local HUD ladder produces modelled, not measured, estimates of $3,411 for a studio, $3,956 for one bedroom, $4,702 for two bedrooms, $5,760 for three bedrooms, and $6,637 for four bedrooms.
The matched ACS ZCTA evidence shows a renter-oriented housing base: renter households represent 64.1% of occupied homes. The structure mix is dominated by 26,505 units in large multifamily buildings, with a much smaller single-family component. There were 3,301 vacant housing units, including 998 classified as vacant for rent, and the overall vacancy rate was 8.8%. Those figures describe the survey-area housing stock and vacancy classifications, not the availability, condition, price, or lease terms of a particular apartment. Likewise, the burden share establishes that many renter households face substantial reported gross-rent pressure, but it cannot show whether any specific currently listed unit is affordable to a given household.
Wider benchmarks reinforce the ZIP’s elevated current asking-rent position, while remaining context rather than substitutes for ZIP evidence. The $4,702 ZIP index is 13.8% above the $4,133 New York city context, 23.5% above the $3,808 Kings County context, and 31.6% above the $3,573 New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro context. City, county, and metro figures have their respective wider geographic scopes and do not convert into local rental comparables. The ZIP’s income screen is also less stretched than the metro’s reported asking-rent-to-income context, but that relative comparison does not overcome the local fact that the current screen exceeds matched-ZCTA median household income.
Redfin provides a separate, direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation, not rental transactions or rental comps. Its median sold price was $1,734,608, up 15.64% from a year earlier. Resale liquidity was represented by 126 homes sold and a median 53 days on market. Inventory stood at 258 homes and months of supply was 6.2. Sale-to-list evidence was mixed rather than uniformly aggressive: the average sale-to-list ratio was 99.63%, while 23.6% of sales closed above list. These are ZIP for-sale market signals and should remain separate from Zillow asking rents, ACS occupied-renter measures, HUD administrative standards, and broader-area context figures.
Cross-source screening produces another tension. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by Redfin’s median sold price equals a 3.25% screening ratio. It is only a cross-source comparison between an annualized asking-rent index and a resale median; it is not a cap rate, property yield, net return, expected return, or forecast. The resale price increase was much faster than the latest one-year asking-rent change, which challenges any simple reading that rent growth alone supports the resale-price movement. At the same time, the rent history remains positive and the income screen is elevated, so the available measures show both persistent asking-rent strength and meaningful affordability pressure rather than a single, unambiguous signal.
Several limits matter before applying this ZIP-level evidence to a property. ZORI is an index rather than a unit quote; ACS is a five-year survey with sampling uncertainty; HUD standards are administrative; and Redfin summarizes completed resale activity. Concrete property-level checks include the unit’s actual asking rent, bedroom count, lease term, included utilities, concessions, condition, availability date, and whether it is truly comparable with the rental types blended into the index. A review should also distinguish any property’s sale price and operating details from the ZIP resale median. The unresolved question is whether a particular unit’s current terms align with the modelled bedroom estimate and the household-specific income screen, rather than with a broad ZIP average alone.
","findings":[{"body":"The current Zillow asking-rent index produces an annual income screen above the matched ACS ZCTA median household income. That is an arithmetic comparison, not a leasing rule, but it is consistent with the sizable share of renter households reporting gross-rent burdens at or above the standard threshold.","title":"Income screen exceeds the local median"},{"body":"Same-month rent history is positive across one-, three-, and five-year windows. The latest annual result trails the longer annualized path, so recent movement preserves the direction of growth without sustaining the stronger multi-year pace. Low measured variability improves snapshot interpretability, although the recorded drawdown still matters.","title":"Growth persists but has cooled from its longer run"},{"body":"Zillow ZORI represents typical observed asking rents across blended rental types. ACS median gross rent captures occupied renter homes and selected utilities, while HUD bedroom standards are administrative. The HUD-scaled bedroom figures are useful modelled estimates, but they are not measured bedroom rents or direct unit quotations.","title":"Rental measures are not interchangeable"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct ZIP resale data show a high median sold price and stronger annual price change than the latest asking-rent increase. The annualized-rent-to-price figure is therefore only a cross-source screening ratio. It cannot establish property income, operating costs, investment performance, or an expected resale outcome.","title":"Resale evidence complicates the rental screen"}],"risks":["A ZIP asking-rent index blends rental types and does not identify a unit’s condition, utilities, concessions, bedroom classification, lease duration, availability, or the terms a household would actually receive.","ACS ZCTA figures are five-year survey estimates for a statistical area, include sampling uncertainty, and cannot be assumed to match a USPS delivery ZIP, a currently marketed apartment, or an individual renter.","The vacancy count includes multiple vacancy classifications and does not demonstrate that any specific apartment is rentable, suitably priced, physically available, comparable, or available under acceptable lease terms.","Redfin resale measures describe completed for-sale transactions over a rolling period; applying their median price or sale-to-list statistics to rental economics would mix separate evidence universes and omit property operating details."],"qa":[{"a":"The measures cover different populations and concepts. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index across blended rental types, while ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey statistic for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. Different timing, unit mix, occupancy status, and utility treatment can all create a gap.","q":"Why is the Zillow asking-rent index higher than the ACS median gross rent?"},{"a":"No. The studio through four-bedroom figures are modelled estimates created by scaling the ZIP-level Zillow asking-rent index using the local HUD bedroom ladder. HUD FMR or SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than market asking rent, so the resulting estimates should not be represented as measured bedroom rents.","q":"Are the bedroom figures direct observed rents for each bedroom count?"},{"a":"It divides annualized asking rent by the stated 30% income share to create a simple arithmetic benchmark. It helps compare the current asking-rent index with area-level household income, but it is not financial advice, a tenant-screening standard, an affordability determination, or a rule that predicts any household’s qualification.","q":"What does the required-income screen show?"},{"a":"It should be used only as a cross-source screen formed by dividing annualized ZIP ZORI by the direct ZIP median sold price. Because it combines an asking-rent index with resale transactions and excludes expenses, financing, taxes, maintenance, and unit specifics, it is not a cap rate, yield, return, or forecast.","q":"How should the Redfin screening ratio be used?"}],"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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