At $1,597 in June 2026, the ZIP’s current asking-rent signal sits against a materially lower local income reference: annualized Zillow ZORI equals 37.2% of the matched area’s $51,565 median household income, which carries a ±$7,523 ACS margin of error. Applying a 30% rent-to-income screen to that asking-rent index produces $63,880 in required annual income. That screen is arithmetic only; it is neither affordability advice nor an applicant qualification rule. The central tension is therefore not a falling rent series, but a current asking-rent level that is high relative to the available household-income reference.
The backward-looking Zillow rent history shows continued growth with some moderation. The exact same-month one-year change was 4.42%, compared with 4.62% annualized across three years and 6.01% annualized across five years. Thus, the recent direction confirms the longer upward path rather than reversing it, but the latest pace trails both longer-period measures. Coverage was complete across 65 monthly observations. Annualized monthly-return variability of 2.67% supports somewhat more confidence in a single current ZORI snapshot than a highly erratic series would, while the maximum drawdown of 1.33% indicates the observed historical pullback was limited. The transparent national discovery ranks were 449 for momentum, 1,009 for stability, and 289 for the balanced measure among history-eligible ZIPs; lower rank is stronger. These are measurements through the stated endpoint, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
The five-digit 29611 label is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a matched Census ZCTA. A ZCTA is a statistical area, not an area identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, whereas the ACS 2024 five-year median gross rent of $1,154 is a survey measure for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. HUD’s FY2026 Fair Market Rent or Small Area Fair Market Rent ladder is instead an administrative, bedroom-specific standard and is not asking rent. Scaling ZIP ZORI with that local HUD ladder produces modelled monthly estimates of $1,391 for a studio, $1,434 for one bedroom, $1,597 for two bedrooms, $1,991 for three bedrooms, and $2,411 for four bedrooms. They are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents.
ACS describes a renter population where the burden indicator is substantial but should not be read as proof about any particular unit or household. Of 5,929 occupied renter homes in the matched ZCTA, 3,685 were estimated to have housing costs at or above the 30% threshold, a 62.2% share. The same statistical area contained 14,432 housing units, including 1,747 vacant units, for a 12.1% vacancy rate. Its stock was predominantly 9,975 single-family units, while 742 units were in larger multifamily structures. These counts provide housing composition and occupancy context, not evidence that a vacant home is rentable, competitively priced, or available under a particular lease.
Wider benchmarks reinforce the income-and-burden tension without replacing ZIP evidence. In City of Greenville context, the asking-rent benchmark was $1,561 and the renter burden share was 50.2%; both are city-wide context rather than ZIP-level observations. In Greenville County context, the asking-rent benchmark was $1,603 and the renter burden share was 50.9%, which are county-wide context values. In Greenville-Anderson, SC metro context, the asking-rent benchmark was $1,570 and the rent-to-income screen was 26.4%; these are metro-wide context values. The ZIP’s current index is close to all three rent benchmarks, yet its local income screen and renter-burden reading are less favorable than the broader context measures.
Redfin supplies a separate direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation, describing for-sale transactions rather than rental transactions. Its median sold price was $294,368, up 5.51% year over year, with 130 homes sold and 69 median days on market. Inventory stood at 167 homes and months of supply was 3.9. The average sale-to-list result was 98.47%, while 16.68% of sales closed above list price; those are resale negotiation signals, not rental-market evidence. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by Redfin’s median sold price equals a 6.51% cross-source screening ratio only, not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield. Rising resale prices and positive rent history point in the same directional sense, but the marketing time, supply, and below-list average challenge any simple reading of uniformly intense resale conditions.
Read together, the evidence distinguishes a stable-growth asking-rent history from a more difficult current income comparison. The Zillow index gives a broad typical asking-rent snapshot, the ACS figure describes occupied renter homes with utility-inclusive elements, HUD supplies an administrative bedroom ladder, and Redfin measures completed resale activity. None substitutes for another. The modest history variability makes the current rent index more informative than a highly volatile index would be, yet it cannot establish the asking rent, lease terms, condition, or utility treatment of a specific home. Likewise, resale liquidity data cannot be converted into rental comps or property economics.
Decision-useful follow-up should remain property-specific: verify the actual advertised rent, bedroom count, lease term, included utilities, availability status, and whether the home’s condition matches the broad rental index. For a sale listing, confirm the property’s listing history, final sale terms when available, and whether the relevant transaction is comparable in type and condition to the property being evaluated. Recheck the distinction between the ZCTA survey area and the USPS delivery address before attaching ACS results to an individual property. The 30% screen, history measures, HUD ladder, and resale screening ratio are structured comparison tools, not forecasts, recommendations, or determinations about a household or unit.
","findings":[{"body":"ZIP Zillow ZORI was $1,597 in June 2026, while the matched ZCTA’s ACS median household income was $51,565. The resulting 37.2% asking-rent-to-income screen exceeds the stated 30% arithmetic benchmark, and annual income of $63,880 is required by that calculation. This compares a current asking-rent index with a five-year household-income survey, not a household-specific payment record.","title":"Current rent is the main affordability tension"},{"body":"Exact same-month Zillow rent growth measured 4.42% over one year, 4.62% annualized over three years, and 6.01% annualized over five years. The path remains positive, although the latest annual pace is below the longer-run rates. Complete monthly coverage, modest variability, and a limited maximum drawdown support historical continuity, but these backward-looking results do not forecast future rents.","title":"Growth persisted but the latest pace moderated"},{"body":"The bedroom ladder starts with a $1,391 studio estimate and rises to $2,411 for four bedrooms. These figures scale the ZIP Zillow ZORI by the local HUD bedroom relationship. HUD Fair Market Rent or Small Area Fair Market Rent is an administrative standard, while Zillow ZORI is a blended asking-rent index; neither series measures the achieved rent for a specific bedroom count or property.","title":"Bedroom figures are a HUD-scaled model, not rent comps"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct ZIP resale observation recorded a $294,368 median sold price, annual price growth, and 130 completed sales. At the same time, 69 days on market, 3.9 months of supply, and an average sale below list indicate that price growth alone does not describe all resale conditions. This is for-sale evidence only and cannot be used as rental transaction evidence.","title":"Resale evidence is constructive but not uniformly tight"}],"risks":["The current Zillow figure is a blended asking-rent index across rental types, so it may not match the rent, utility package, condition, bedroom count, or lease concession attached to a particular available property.","ACS income, gross-rent, renter-burden, and vacancy data are ZCTA five-year survey estimates with sampling uncertainty. They describe area-level occupied households and units, not the financial position or availability of a specific rental.","The Redfin resale block observes completed ZIP for-sale activity over a rolling period. It cannot establish rental demand, lease-up conditions, investor operating expenses, or the economics of an individual property.","Historical rent growth, variability, drawdown, and discovery ranks are backward-looking measurements. Even with complete observed coverage, they do not determine future asking rents, resale prices, tenant outcomes, or future market liquidity."],"qa":[{"a":"The measures represent different evidence universes. Zillow ZORI is a current typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey measure of occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. The ACS result may therefore reflect older leases, different unit mixes, and utility treatment rather than current advertised rents.","q":"Why is the current asking-rent index higher than ACS median gross rent?"},{"a":"No. The studio through four-bedroom figures are modelled monthly estimates created by scaling ZIP ZORI with the local HUD bedroom ladder. HUD bedroom standards are administrative benchmarks, and the resulting estimates are not observed asking-rent samples, signed leases, or achieved rents for particular bedroom types.","q":"Are the bedroom rent estimates measured rents for 29611?"},{"a":"It is annualized ZIP Zillow ZORI divided by Redfin’s ZIP median sold price. The ratio is useful only as a cross-source screening comparison between a broad asking-rent index and a resale-price observation. It is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, property yield, or a measure of property operating expenses.","q":"What does the 6.51% rent-price screening ratio mean?"},{"a":"Confirm the actual advertised rent, bedroom count, square footage where relevant, lease duration, included utilities, concessions, availability, and property condition. For sale information, verify listing history and applicable sale terms. Also confirm whether the specific delivery address aligns with the statistical ZCTA used for ACS context before applying area-level figures.","q":"What property-level checks remain necessary after using this report?"}],"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 FY2026","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/usps_crosswalk.html"},{"key":"realtor_county","name":"Realtor.com Economic Research — county listing inventory","release":"county inventory 2026-06","pulledAt":"2026-07-28","url":"https://www.realtor.com/research/data/"},{"key":"redfin","name":"Redfin Data Center — inventory, days on market, and price cuts","release":"metro tracker through 2026-05-01","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/"},{"key":"redfin_zip","name":"Redfin Data Center — ZIP resale activity and supply","release":"ZIP rolling 3 months through 2026-06-30; updated 2026-07-03","pulledAt":"2026-08-12","url":"https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/"},{"key":"zillow_county","name":"Zillow ZHVI and ZORI — county values and rents","release":"county ZHVI/ZORI 2026-06","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"},{"key":"zillow_zori","name":"Zillow ZORI — metro market rents","release":"Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_sa_month.csv","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"},{"key":"zillow_zori_city","name":"Zillow ZORI — city market rents","release":"zillow_zori_city.csv","pulledAt":"2026-07-29","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"},{"key":"zillow_zori_zip","name":"Zillow ZORI — ZIP market rents","release":"ZORI ZIP 2026-06","pulledAt":"2026-08-08","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"}],"history":[{"period":"2021-02-01","rent":1142.130517},{"period":"2021-03-01","rent":1143.474206},{"period":"2021-04-01","rent":1153.468112},{"period":"2021-05-01","rent":1183.898185},{"period":"2021-06-01","rent":1192.723994},{"period":"2021-07-01","rent":1192.417162},{"period":"2021-08-01","rent":1183.533388},{"period":"2021-09-01","rent":1210.67974},{"period":"2021-10-01","rent":1228.311404},{"period":"2021-11-01","rent":1229.381779},{"period":"2021-12-01","rent":1234.861276},{"period":"2022-01-01","rent":1238.192275},{"period":"2022-02-01","rent":1257.682057},{"period":"2022-03-01","rent":1270.379107},{"period":"2022-04-01","rent":1276.696923},{"period":"2022-05-01","rent":1286.711601},{"period":"2022-06-01","rent":1305.617743},{"period":"2022-07-01","rent":1347.133316},{"period":"2022-08-01","rent":1357.766354},{"period":"2022-09-01","rent":1359.709625},{"period":"2022-10-01","rent":1341.565836},{"period":"2022-11-01","rent":1349.089927},{"period":"2022-12-01","rent":1344.684876},{"period":"2023-01-01","rent":1358.839592},{"period":"2023-02-01","rent":1375.627852},{"period":"2023-03-01","rent":1383.331498},{"period":"2023-04-01","rent":1395.508815},{"period":"2023-05-01","rent":1387.732012},{"period":"2023-06-01","rent":1394.587123},{"period":"2023-07-01","rent":1390.598507},{"period":"2023-08-01","rent":1391.013104},{"period":"2023-09-01","rent":1399.938953},{"period":"2023-10-01","rent":1405.553657},{"period":"2023-11-01","rent":1418.479691},{"period":"2023-12-01","rent":1423.703573},{"period":"2024-01-01","rent":1431.320378},{"period":"2024-02-01","rent":1435.046865},{"period":"2024-03-01","rent":1438.503352},{"period":"2024-04-01","rent":1446.301197},{"period":"2024-05-01","rent":1437.13816},{"period":"2024-06-01","rent":1436.284129},{"period":"2024-07-01","rent":1439.549093},{"period":"2024-08-01","rent":1472.813},{"period":"2024-09-01","rent":1472.215525},{"period":"2024-10-01","rent":1486.650546},{"period":"2024-11-01","rent":1485.644276},{"period":"2024-12-01","rent":1495.152206},{"period":"2025-01-01","rent":1503.642301},{"period":"2025-02-01","rent":1510.008836},{"period":"2025-03-01","rent":1518.713799},{"period":"2025-04-01","rent":1520.622011},{"period":"2025-05-01","rent":1523.659409},{"period":"2025-06-01","rent":1529.079741},{"period":"2025-07-01","rent":1533.005699},{"period":"2025-08-01","rent":1518.184794},{"period":"2025-09-01","rent":1526.952092},{"period":"2025-10-01","rent":1530.632857},{"period":"2025-11-01","rent":1537.968342},{"period":"2025-12-01","rent":1543.802957},{"period":"2026-01-01","rent":1545.566203},{"period":"2026-02-01","rent":1550.22836},{"period":"2026-03-01","rent":1555.814728},{"period":"2026-04-01","rent":1564.144262},{"period":"2026-05-01","rent":1584.778357},{"period":"2026-06-01","rent":1596.729266}],"historySummary":{"pointCount":65,"firstPeriod":"2021-02-01","latestPeriod":"2026-06-01","coverageMonths":65,"coverageRatio":1,"changes":{"1":{"years":1,"startPeriod":"2025-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1529.079741,"endRent":1596.729266,"change":0.04424198633078347,"cagr":0.04424198633078347},"3":{"years":3,"startPeriod":"2023-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1394.587123,"endRent":1596.729266,"change":0.14494766204721365,"cagr":0.04615301624647583},"5":{"years":5,"startPeriod":"2021-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1192.723994,"endRent":1596.729266,"change":0.33872486344900365,"cagr":0.06007908442989285}},"maxDrawdown":-0.013343870387032108,"annualizedVolatility":0.02674739859894713,"consecutiveReturnCount":64}}