In June 2026, ZIP 49504’s Zillow ZORI stood at $1,473 per month, a 3.1% year-over-year increase. Zillow ZORI is a ZIP-level, typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types; it is neither a lease median nor a quote for one available home. The five-digit label is both Zillow’s ZIP market identifier and the matched Census ZCTA. A ZCTA is a statistical area, not an area identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. The immediate tension is a current asking-rent reading below wider geographic benchmarks alongside meaningful renter burden and a growth rate that has cooled from the longer record. This snapshot does not establish a particular unit’s rent, availability, lease terms, or condition.
Viewed backward, direct Zillow ZIP ZORI observations show exact same-month annualized gains of 3.11% over one year, 4.14% over three years, and 6.18% over five years. The newest one-year direction therefore moderates rather than reverses the earlier upward path; this backward-looking measurement is neither a forecast nor an investment recommendation. Monthly index returns annualize to 2.44% variability, so a single current reading has some movement around it even within this generally measured history. At its deepest point, the index fell 1.50% from a prior peak. Coverage is 100% across 138 observations. Taken together, contained variability and complete coverage support confidence in historical context, but not precision for a one-unit quote. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs are 737 for momentum, 571 for stability, and 283 for the balanced score.
ZIP ZORI sits below broader asking-rent context: the Grand Rapids city context is $1,627, the Kent County context is $1,630, and the Grand Rapids-Kentwood, MI metro context is $1,645. Those city, county, and metro figures are wider-context comparisons, not substitutes for ZIP evidence. In the matched ACS 2024 five-year ZCTA survey, median gross rent for occupied renter homes is $1,231, with an $82 margin of error. That survey measure includes selected utilities and reflects occupied renter homes, whereas ZORI tracks asking rents; the current asking-rent index is 19.7% higher, so the two figures should not be treated as competing measures of the same transaction.
Bedroom figures provide a useful scale but not observed bedroom rents. The local HUD FMR/SAFMR two-bedroom standard is $1,334, an administrative bedroom-specific standard rather than asking rent. Scaling ZIP ZORI by the local HUD ladder produces modelled monthly estimates of $1,115 for a studio, $1,123 for one bedroom, $1,473 for two bedrooms, $1,916 for three bedrooms, and $2,223 for four bedrooms. These are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents: they preserve the HUD ladder’s relative spacing while anchoring its level to the ZIP asking-rent index. Neither the HUD standard nor this calculation reports a unit’s advertised rent or included services.
The income screen points in a different direction from a unit-level affordability finding. Annualizing the current ZORI, the 30% required-income screen equals $58,920; compared with the ZCTA median household income of $70,119, that arithmetic ratio is 25.2%. This calculation is arithmetic only, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. Separately, ACS reports 50.3% of renter households paying 30% or more of income toward rent. Burden is survey-based household evidence, not proof that any particular available unit is affordable or unaffordable, and it cannot identify the utilities, household size, or lease terms that create an individual household’s result.
Underlying ZCTA housing counts help frame, but do not resolve, the burden evidence. There are 18,769 housing units, with a 7.6% vacancy rate and a 43.1% renter share. The stock includes 11,457 single-family units and 2,739 units in large multifamily structures, while 508 vacant units are classified for rent. These counts show composition and a census vacancy category, not confirmed market availability, lease quality, or the price of any listed home. In particular, vacant-for-rent inventory cannot prove that a given household can obtain a specific unit at the index or modelled estimate.
Resale evidence presents the counterweight. Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP for-sale observation reports a $299,932 median sold price, up 1.7% year over year, with 120 homes sold and a median 9 days on market. Inventory is 59 homes and months of supply is 1.5. Sale-to-list signals show an average sale at 101.48% of list price and 45.3% of sales above list price. These direct ZIP resale-liquidity indicators concern resale transactions and marketing conditions, not rental transactions or rental comparables. Short marketing time, limited supply, and above-list sales sit alongside rent growth that is slower than the three- and five-year history; that tension challenges any attempt to read the rent series alone as a complete market account.
One cross-source calculation puts annualized ZIP ZORI divided by the Redfin median sold price at 5.89%. It is only a screening ratio, not an inference about property economics: the numerator is a blended asking-rent index and the denominator is a resale median. It omits operating costs, financing, taxes, vacancy, and property-specific features, so it cannot quantify unit-level economics or an outcome. Any property-level assessment would need the actual asking rent, bedroom count, lease length, included utilities, availability, condition, and address-level sales and listing details. Those checks are necessary because the ACS survey, HUD standard, Zillow index, history series, and Redfin resale observation answer distinct questions.
","findings":[{"body":"Zillow’s June 2026 ZIP ZORI is $1,473, which sits below the stated Grand Rapids city, Kent County, and Grand Rapids-Kentwood metro asking-rent context values. That relative position does not make ZORI interchangeable with ACS gross rent or HUD standards. The practical reading is a ZIP-wide asking-rent benchmark with broader-geography context, not a rent quote for a specific property.","title":"Asking-rent position"},{"body":"Exact same-month ZORI change was 3.11% at one year versus 4.14% at three years and 6.18% at five years. The shorter-period gain therefore slows from the longer lookbacks without undoing their upward path. Complete coverage, contained variability, and a shallow recorded drawdown make the history useful for interpreting a current index reading, while remaining backward-looking and non-predictive.","title":"Historical slowing within full coverage"},{"body":"ACS’s matched ZCTA five-year survey reports a $1,231 median gross rent, including selected utilities, and a 50.3% share of renter households at or above the burden threshold. The ZORI-based $58,920 income screen is a separate arithmetic comparison with income, not an affordability verdict for an applicant, household, or advertised unit.","title":"Affordability and burden are separate tests"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale data show quick marketing, limited supply, and sale-to-list strength alongside only 1.7% annual median-price growth. These are for-sale observations rather than rental transactions. Their coexistence with moderating ZORI growth is a cross-market tension: it prevents rental history from serving as a complete description of ZIP 49504’s market evidence.","title":"Resale signal does not substitute for rent evidence"}],"risks":["ZORI is a blended ZIP-level asking-rent index. It cannot establish bedroom-specific achieved rent, concessions, utilities, availability, property condition, or lease terms for any individual unit.","The ACS ZCTA result is a five-year survey with margins of error and includes selected utilities. Its statistical geography and occupied-home scope differ from a USPS ZIP and current asking-rent index.","HUD FMR/SAFMR values are administrative bedroom standards, and the displayed bedroom amounts are modelled from the ZORI-to-HUD ladder. They should not be read as measured asking rents or unit quotes.","Redfin’s rolling-three-month ZIP observations concern sales, not rentals. The 5.89% cross-source screening ratio mixes a rent index with a resale median and omits expenses, financing, and address-specific facts."],"qa":[{"a":"49504 is used here as both Zillow’s market identifier and the matching Census geography, but a Census ZCTA is a statistical area constructed for data tabulation. It is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. That distinction matters because ACS household and gross-rent estimates have the ZCTA survey universe, while ZORI has the ZIP asking-rent universe.","q":"Why are ZIP 49504 and its ZCTA described separately?"},{"a":"No. Each bedroom amount is a modelled monthly estimate formed by scaling the ZIP ZORI with the local HUD bedroom ladder. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative standard and ZORI is blended asking-rent evidence. Neither source identifies a particular advertised unit, its utilities, concessions, availability, or final lease rent.","q":"Are the bedroom amounts measured rents?"},{"a":"The one-year exact same-month increase is below the three- and five-year annualized changes, so the recent direction moderates the earlier pace rather than reversing it. Full series coverage and contained historical movement help interpret the current index, but they do not forecast future rents or establish a prospective outcome.","q":"What does slower recent ZORI growth mean?"},{"a":"Redfin supplies a direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale view, including sold-price and marketing signals; it does not report rents. Dividing annualized ZORI by median sold price creates only a cross-source screen. Because it excludes property expenses, financing, taxes, and unit characteristics, it cannot substitute for address-level review.","q":"How should the Redfin and rent-price figures be used together?"}],"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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2026-06","pulledAt":"2026-08-08","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"}],"history":[{"period":"2015-01-01","rent":692.038682},{"period":"2015-02-01","rent":698.737639},{"period":"2015-03-01","rent":694.602242},{"period":"2015-04-01","rent":695.546445},{"period":"2015-05-01","rent":695.436623},{"period":"2015-06-01","rent":698.690215},{"period":"2015-07-01","rent":703.974405},{"period":"2015-08-01","rent":713.799709},{"period":"2015-09-01","rent":721.708629},{"period":"2015-10-01","rent":728.557137},{"period":"2015-11-01","rent":726.035642},{"period":"2015-12-01","rent":736.331653},{"period":"2016-01-01","rent":735.217536},{"period":"2016-02-01","rent":737.228019},{"period":"2016-03-01","rent":743.11566},{"period":"2016-04-01","rent":754.488723},{"period":"2016-05-01","rent":773.362345},{"period":"2016-06-01","rent":794.588257},{"period":"2016-07-01","rent":808.891325},{"period":"2016-08-01","rent":811.327948},{"period":"2016-09-01","rent":805.975486},{"period":"2016-10-01","rent":803.797502},{"period":"2016-11-01","rent":814.026493},{"period":"2016-12-01","rent":819.765604},{"period":"2017-01-01","rent":826.760274},{"period":"2017-02-01","rent":835.341183},{"period":"2017-03-01","rent":843.357009},{"period":"2017-04-01","rent":854.544754},{"period":"2017-05-01","rent":859.879262},{"period":"2017-06-01","rent":857.477351},{"period":"2017-07-01","rent":854.072427},{"period":"2017-08-01","rent":846.992529},{"period":"2017-09-01","rent":854.694372},{"period":"2017-10-01","rent":859.635305},{"period":"2017-11-01","rent":864.214058},{"period":"2017-12-01","rent":863.803153},{"period":"2018-01-01","rent":871.279843},{"period":"2018-02-01","rent":883.356913},{"period":"2018-03-01","rent":893.692114},{"period":"2018-04-01","rent":899.321604},{"period":"2018-05-01","rent":895.558782},{"period":"2018-06-01","rent":893.907061},{"period":"2018-07-01","rent":895.429087},{"period":"2018-08-01","rent":917.457309},{"period":"2018-09-01","rent":920.314694},{"period":"2018-10-01","rent":929.235658},{"period":"2018-11-01","rent":924.261983},{"period":"2018-12-01","rent":940.286541},{"period":"2019-01-01","rent":942.85062},{"period":"2019-02-01","rent":940.785839},{"period":"2019-03-01","rent":939.853365},{"period":"2019-04-01","rent":939.646036},{"period":"2019-05-01","rent":948.2147},{"period":"2019-06-01","rent":958.496454},{"period":"2019-07-01","rent":968.372777},{"period":"2019-08-01","rent":965.995888},{"period":"2019-09-01","rent":972.885076},{"period":"2019-10-01","rent":975.470202},{"period":"2019-11-01","rent":986.486007},{"period":"2019-12-01","rent":984.052898},{"period":"2020-01-01","rent":988.352715},{"period":"2020-02-01","rent":993.467552},{"period":"2020-03-01","rent":1000.943807},{"period":"2020-04-01","rent":1001.701739},{"period":"2020-05-01","rent":997.465772},{"period":"2020-06-01","rent":1005.768347},{"period":"2020-07-01","rent":1009.872539},{"period":"2020-08-01","rent":1006.494804},{"period":"2020-09-01","rent":1011.829151},{"period":"2020-10-01","rent":1023.373758},{"period":"2020-11-01","rent":1045.023474},{"period":"2020-12-01","rent":1059.216475},{"period":"2021-01-01","rent":1059.884183},{"period":"2021-02-01","rent":1059.539063},{"period":"2021-03-01","rent":1070.295864},{"period":"2021-04-01","rent":1078.495639},{"period":"2021-05-01","rent":1088.580154},{"period":"2021-06-01","rent":1091.570159},{"period":"2021-07-01","rent":1110.990189},{"period":"2021-08-01","rent":1134.687741},{"period":"2021-09-01","rent":1148.18208},{"period":"2021-10-01","rent":1143.023984},{"period":"2021-11-01","rent":1136.880676},{"period":"2021-12-01","rent":1148.940522},{"period":"2022-01-01","rent":1169.582151},{"period":"2022-02-01","rent":1189.361129},{"period":"2022-03-01","rent":1189.108401},{"period":"2022-04-01","rent":1206.197547},{"period":"2022-05-01","rent":1208.68612},{"period":"2022-06-01","rent":1226.242498},{"period":"2022-07-01","rent":1227.81802},{"period":"2022-08-01","rent":1243.27031},{"period":"2022-09-01","rent":1244.137483},{"period":"2022-10-01","rent":1251.106551},{"period":"2022-11-01","rent":1254.636181},{"period":"2022-12-01","rent":1253.800566},{"period":"2023-01-01","rent":1266.40552},{"period":"2023-02-01","rent":1264.650147},{"period":"2023-03-01","rent":1280.641204},{"period":"2023-04-01","rent":1281.476431},{"period":"2023-05-01","rent":1302.675935},{"period":"2023-06-01","rent":1304.501381},{"period":"2023-07-01","rent":1316.218183},{"period":"2023-08-01","rent":1316.611388},{"period":"2023-09-01","rent":1329.575021},{"period":"2023-10-01","rent":1340.226224},{"period":"2023-11-01","rent":1347.190486},{"period":"2023-12-01","rent":1348.794374},{"period":"2024-01-01","rent":1343.706534},{"period":"2024-02-01","rent":1352.539146},{"period":"2024-03-01","rent":1363.42849},{"period":"2024-04-01","rent":1371.308594},{"period":"2024-05-01","rent":1373.277623},{"period":"2024-06-01","rent":1378.940754},{"period":"2024-07-01","rent":1379.688695},{"period":"2024-08-01","rent":1379.8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