Philadelphia ZIP 19139 presents a split screen between a current asking-rent index and household benchmarks. In June 2026, Zillow ZORI stood at $1,456 per month, 3.21% above its same-month reading a year earlier. ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types; it is neither a signed-rent series nor a bedroom-specific quotation. That label is both Zillow’s ZIP market identifier and the match for the Census ZCTA used here. A ZCTA is a statistical area, however, and it is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. That distinction matters when ZIP rental evidence is compared with survey housing data.
That rent reading meets a less firm liquidity picture in Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation, which describes for-sale transactions rather than rentals. Median sold price was $169,962, 0.02% lower than a year earlier. 85 homes sold, and median marketing time was 65 days. Inventory totalled 199 homes, 22.78% above its prior-year level, alongside 7.1 months of supply. The average sale closed at 94.6% of list price; 16.9% sold above list. Annualizing ZIP ZORI and dividing by the median sold price produces a 10.28% cross-source screening ratio only. Near-flat resale pricing and larger inventory challenge a simple translation of positive rent and history signals into equally tight resale conditions; this is for-sale evidence, not rental transaction evidence.
The backward-looking Zillow history provides a coherent but slowing growth record. Exact same-month annualized changes were 3.21% for 1-year, 3.76% for 3-year, and 4.65% for 5-year comparisons. The latest direction therefore confirms the longer positive path rather than breaking it, although its pace trails both longer windows. The series has 100% coverage. Its transparent national discovery ranks are 777 for momentum, 506 for stability, and 282 for the balanced measure, with a lower rank stronger among history-eligible ZIPs. Those ranks and rates are historical discovery measurements, not forecasts, investment recommendations, or probabilities of a future rent outcome.
Variation tempers the confidence attached to one current rent snapshot. Monthly ZORI return variability annualizes to 2.38%, a restrained figure within this ZIP’s own history that still shows movement was not perfectly smooth. Separately, maximum drawdown reached 1.44%, meaning the largest historical peak-to-trough reversal was limited relative to the cumulative upward record. That combination supports using current ZORI as a consistent time-series reference, while still leaving uncertainty across rental types, condition, lease terms, and individual asking prices. It provides historical context only and cannot establish a rent for a particular home.
Bedroom figures translate that blended index through the local HUD ladder rather than report observed unit rents. Using the FY2026 ladder’s relative steps, the modelled monthly estimates are $1,126 for a studio, $1,223 for one bedroom, $1,456 for two bedrooms, $1,747 for three bedrooms, and $1,951 for four bedrooms. The ladder anchors the two-bedroom estimate against a supplied HUD standard of $1,500. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent, and the packet describes the local ladder as ZIP SAFMR or county-derived. These are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents; their use is to show a scaled size pattern, not to replace unit-level rental evidence.
Affordability uses a separate household survey universe. In the matched Census ZCTA, the ACS 2024 five-year survey of occupied renter homes reports median gross rent of $1,187; gross rent includes selected utilities. It is lower than ZORI, but the measures are not interchangeable because one is a survey median for occupied homes and the other is an asking-rent index. Median household income is $40,947. Applying the stated 30% screen to current ZORI gives required income of $58,240 and an asking-rent-to-income arithmetic result of 42.7%. This required-income screen is arithmetic, not advice or an applicant qualification rule. The survey also estimates 52.9% of renter households bear rent burdens at or above that threshold, an aggregate condition that does not prove the burden of any household or unit.
Housing composition provides another aggregate boundary. The ACS ZCTA contains 23,639 housing units, including 4,733 classified vacant, a 20.0% vacancy rate. Renters represent 61.2% of occupied households; the stock includes 14,962 single-family units and 2,732 units in large multifamily structures. Vacancy and burden are area-level summaries, not proof that a particular unit is available, affordable, or rented at a given price. For wider context only, the Philadelphia city scope reports an asking-rent value of $1,813.93, the Philadelphia County scope reports $1,814, and the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD metro scope reports $1,928. Each wider-scope value sits above the ZIP index, but city, county, and metro measures are context rather than ZIP rental comparables.
Several limits remain material. ZORI blends rental types, ACS is a sampled five-year estimate with margins of error, HUD is an administrative benchmark, and Redfin is a resale window; their dates, populations, and methods do not line up as interchangeable comparables. Property-level review would need to verify the address geography, property type, bedroom count, current asking price, utility inclusions, lease term, concessions, condition, marketing status, and actual availability. A resale comparison also needs the specific sale date, list history, and transaction status. These checks determine whether a real unit resembles any aggregate measure, while the supplied data cannot answer that question itself. Which unit-specific facts would materially change the comparison?
","findings":[{"body":"Exact same-month Zillow history shows 3.21% growth over 1 year, compared with annualized 3.76% over 3 years and 4.65% over 5 years. The direction remains positive, so the recent period does not break the longer path. Its lower rate nevertheless shows that the latest year moved more slowly than the longer backward-looking averages. This is historical measurement, not a forecast.","title":"Rent trend remains positive but slower than its longer record"},{"body":"The ACS median gross rent describes occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, while ZORI is a blended asking-rent index. Median household income and the required-income calculation are also aggregate screens, not evidence about a particular applicant. The reported burden share signals that many surveyed renter households crossed the stated threshold, but it does not reveal who lives in, qualifies for, or can rent a specific property.","title":"The affordability screen uses a different evidence universe"},{"body":"Redfin’s ZIP resale record shows near-flat year-over-year median price alongside higher inventory, extended marketing time, and sale-to-list results below full list on average. That evidence is a liquidity and pricing read for homes marketed or sold for sale. It creates tension with the positive rent index direction, but does not explain why the signals differ or predict future resale or rental outcomes.","title":"Resale liquidity is looser than the rent-direction signal alone suggests"},{"body":"All bedroom values are scaled model outputs derived from the ZIP index and HUD ladder. A concrete comparison requires the individual address, correct bedroom count, property type, active asking terms, utility treatment, condition, concessions, and availability. The ZCTA survey geography, the administrative HUD benchmark, and the resale sample cannot substitute for those unit-level facts.","title":"Bedroom values are model outputs, not observed market quotes"}],"risks":["The blended ZORI index can diverge from any individual listing because rental type, bedroom count, condition, lease term, concessions, and utility treatment are not standardized at the property level.","The matched ZCTA ACS estimates describe surveyed occupied renter homes over five years and carry sampling uncertainty; they cannot identify a current applicant, currently available unit, or the terms of a new lease.","Redfin’s rolling resale observation reflects homes that sold or were marketed for sale, not rental transactions; inventories, marketing time, and sale-to-list metrics cannot serve as rental comparables.","The cross-source annualized-rent-to-price screen uses only the supplied index and median price, omitting property-specific income, expense, financing, condition, timing, and transaction-term data; it is not a property-level economic result."],"qa":[{"a":"ZORI is a ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index across rental types. The ACS value is a five-year survey median for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. They refer to different populations, timing, and rent concepts. The ZCTA match is statistical rather than a USPS delivery ZIP, so neither series is a unit-by-unit substitute for the other.","q":"Why do ZORI and ACS gross rent differ?"},{"a":"No. It takes the ZIP ZORI and applies the relative steps in the local HUD bedroom standard. The resulting studio through four-bedroom figures are modelled estimates, not observed rents. HUD FMR/SAFMR exists as an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not a measure of current asking rents, signed leases, unit condition, or utility terms.","q":"Does the bedroom ladder report measured rents?"},{"a":"Redfin provides a direct rolling-three-month observation of ZIP for-sale activity, including sold prices, sales volume, days on market, inventory, supply, and sale-to-list outcomes. It says nothing directly about rental transactions, lease terms, asking-rent composition, or a given property’s expenses. Its tension with ZORI is descriptive only, without assigning a cause or projecting a later period.","q":"What does the Redfin resale evidence add?"},{"a":"For a specific address, confirm it is mapped to the intended ZIP label, then record its property type, bedrooms, current advertised rent, included utilities, lease length, concessions, condition, and active status. If using sale evidence as context, separately verify sale date, list price history, and transaction status. These facts determine comparability more directly than any aggregate data series.","q":"What needs checking for a specific property?"}],"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 fallback","release":"ZIP-CBSA 2025Q4 + SAFMR 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