ZIP 50265 begins with a divergence rather than a single market verdict. In June 2026, the ZIP-level Zillow Observed Rent Index, or ZORI, was $1,326, a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, and it was 1.35% above its year-earlier level. In the direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation, Redfin recorded a $314,929 median sold price, up 3.85% year over year. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by that sold-price median produces a 5.05% cross-source screening ratio. That arithmetic is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield: it combines an asking-rent index with for-sale transactions and excludes property-specific costs. The immediate tension is faster resale-price change alongside a mild asking-rent change.
Historical ZORI changes put the current pause in context. The one-year exact same-month annualized change was 1.35%, while three-year and five-year changes were 2.16% and 3.82%, both above the latest pace. This means recent direction breaks from the longer growth path by slowing, although it does not establish a future reversal. Annualized variability of monthly rent returns was 3.90%, and maximum historical drawdown was −2.74%. The series has complete coverage, so this is not an assessment based on missing history; nevertheless, the high-variability classification means one current ZORI snapshot deserves limited confidence as a durable trend reading. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 1,647 for momentum, 2,539 for stability, and 2,388 balanced, where a lower rank is higher. These are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
Asking rent, survey rent, and HUD standards answer different questions. In the ACS 2024 five-year matched ZCTA survey, median gross rent was $1,106 with a $25 margin of error, 19.9% below the current ZORI. This is a survey of occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, unlike a typical observed asking-rent index. The five-digit label is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match, but a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. The FY 2026 HUD two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR is $1,270; it is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent. Modelled monthly ZIP estimates scale ZORI with the local HUD ladder: $1,065 studio, $1,117 one-bedroom, $1,326 two-bedroom, $1,806 three-bedroom, and $1,848 four-bedroom. They are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents.
The income and burden evidence should also remain separate. At a 30% income screen, the current ZORI translates arithmetically to $53,040 in required annual income. Compared with the ZCTA median household income of $85,915, that produces an 18.5% asking-rent-to-income screen. That household-income median is broader than renter income, however. Separately, the ACS survey reports that 45.4% of renter households devoted at least the threshold share of income to rent. The screen is arithmetic, not advice or an applicant qualification rule, and the survey burden statistic does not establish the circumstances of any specific renter, listing, or lease.
The ACS ZCTA housing-stock profile gives additional context but not live availability. Of 15,433 housing units, 664 were vacant, producing a 4.3% vacancy rate. Renter-occupied homes represented 33.6% of occupied units. The stock included 10,410 single-family units and 2,252 units in large multifamily structures, indicating that the ZCTA contains housing in more than one broad structural category. These are survey-period counts and categories rather than a current rental inventory. In particular, an area vacancy measure cannot prove that any individual unit is available, rentable at the index level, suitable for a household, or offered on a given lease term.
Broader rent contexts place the ZIP between its surrounding geographies without replacing ZIP evidence: West Des Moines city-wide asking-rent context was $1,368.72, Polk County asking-rent context was $1,259, and the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA metro asking-rent context was $1,310. The ZIP index therefore sits below the city context but above the county and metro contexts. Those city, county, and metro figures are wider-scope comparisons only; they are not ZIP listing data, bedroom-rent measurements, or evidence that a property in 50265 will be priced at any particular local benchmark.
Within the for-sale universe, the Redfin direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation recorded 138 homes sold, a median marketing time of 15 days, reported inventory of 92 homes, and 2.0 months of supply. The average sale-to-list result was 98.51%, while 18.67% of sold homes closed above list price. The sold-price median and price change noted earlier belong solely to this resale dataset. Faster resale-price change confirms the divergence from slowing rent growth, but an average outcome below list price challenges any simple interpretation that all resale activity reflected uniform bidding pressure. These data describe for-sale liquidity and pricing signals, not rental transactions, asking-rent concessions, or lease economics.
Limits are central to reading this ZIP. ZORI is a blended index rather than a property quote; ACS is a ZCTA survey of occupied homes; HUD is an administrative standard; and Redfin measures resale outcomes. Property-level interpretation requires verification of the advertised monthly rent, utility treatment, bedroom count, lease duration, concessions, size, condition, availability, address-to-ZCTA mapping, and any relevant recent sale record. Can a named address’s all-in quoted cost and actual terms support a comparison that these ZIP-wide measures alone cannot?
","findings":[{"body":"ZORI’s current asking-rent growth is materially slower than its longer same-month growth record. Complete history coverage supports reading the deceleration as measured rather than missing-data noise, but the high variability classification and drawdown history mean the latest index is a current snapshot, not a stable trend guarantee. History measurements remain backward-looking only.","title":"Rent growth has slowed against its own history"},{"body":"The ZIP ZORI measures observed asking rent, while the ACS ZCTA figure describes occupied renter homes with selected utilities and HUD supplies a bedroom-specific administrative standard. The gap between these figures is a source-scope difference, not a contradiction. It cannot establish a current asking rent for a specific home, and the bedroom ladder remains modelled rather than measured.","title":"Three rent concepts are not interchangeable"},{"body":"The income screen applies current ZIP asking rent mechanically, whereas the ACS burden statistic summarizes surveyed renter households and the income median covers broader household context. A lower asking-rent-to-income screen does not erase the burden share, and the burden share does not establish a particular applicant’s capacity. Both are population-level context, not a qualification decision or unit-level proof.","title":"Income screen and burden evidence describe different populations"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct ZIP resale record shows transactions, marketing time, inventory, supply, and sale-to-list outcomes for homes sold. It can test whether resale conditions move differently from rent history, as they do here, but it does not provide rental comparables, operating costs, concessions, or property-specific economics. The index-to-price calculation therefore remains a cross-source screening ratio only.","title":"Resale liquidity is active, but it is not rental evidence"}],"risks":["ZORI is an index blended across rental types, so it may not match a particular property’s bedroom count, condition, lease duration, concession package, included utilities, or quoted all-in cost.","ACS values are five-year ZCTA survey estimates with sampling uncertainty, and the statistical ZCTA boundary is not the same as a USPS delivery ZIP; temporal and geographic matching are limited.","Complete rent history reduces missing-data concern, but the high variability classification and historical drawdown mean a current observed index cannot be treated as a stable forward path.","Redfin reports direct for-sale resale activity rather than rental transactions. Its sold prices, inventory, and sale-to-list results cannot establish lease demand, unit availability, expenses, or any property-level return measure."],"qa":[{"a":"They start with the ZIP-wide ZORI and apply the local HUD bedroom ladder. That produces a consistent studio-through-four-bedroom scaling method, but neither ZORI nor the HUD standard is a direct dataset of leases or asking rents for each bedroom count in this ZIP. They should therefore not be read as measured bedroom rents.","q":"Why are the published bedroom figures called modelled estimates rather than observed ZIP rents?"},{"a":"The calculations use different reference groups and rent definitions. The income screen divides current ZIP asking rent by the ZCTA median household income, while burden is a survey result for renter households based on gross rent. The former is arithmetic context, not an affordability decision, and the latter cannot determine any specific tenant’s financial position.","q":"How can asking rent look lower in the income screen while burden still appears material?"},{"a":"Same-month history shows the latest annual pace is below the three-year and five-year rates, so recent direction is a slowdown relative to the longer record. Complete coverage supports the measurement, yet high annualized variability and a prior drawdown reduce confidence that one current index level represents a durable trend. These data do not forecast future rent.","q":"What does the rent history say about confidence in the current ZORI reading?"},{"a":"It divides an asking-rent index annualized for comparison by a median price from resale transactions. It does not match rent and sale of the same property, and the packet contains no property-specific cost or operating data. The calculation is only a cross-source screening ratio, not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield.","q":"Why is the annualized ZORI-to-sale-price figure not a cap rate?"}],"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":"2021-03-01","rent":1068.900419},{"period":"2021-04-01","rent":1069.774285},{"period":"2021-05-01","rent":1095.257374},{"period":"2021-06-01","rent":1099.311805},{"period":"2021-07-01","rent":1093.195983},{"period":"2021-08-01","rent":1098.481726},{"period":"2021-09-01","rent":1099.781528},{"period":"2021-10-01","rent":1115.418585},{"period":"2021-11-01","rent":1116.685773},{"period":"2021-12-01","rent":1149.317311},{"period":"2022-01-01","rent":1122.641463},{"period":"2022-02-01","rent":1134.532999},{"period":"2022-03-01","rent":1130.081619},{"period":"2022-04-01","rent":1151.623013},{"period":"2022-05-01","rent":1137.096152},{"period":"2022-06-01","rent":1141.779895},{"period":"2022-07-01","rent":1178.10854},{"period":"2022-08-01","rent":1199.182487},{"period":"2022-09-01","rent":1205.914033},{"period":"2022-10-01","rent":1209.277783},{"period":"2022-11-01","rent":1202.631562},{"period":"2022-12-01","rent":1180.359904},{"period":"2023-01-01","rent":1195.976729},{"period":"2023-02-01","rent":1217.027416},{"period":"2023-03-01","rent":1241.536235},{"period":"2023-04-01","rent":1222.03437},{"period":"2023-05-01","rent":1234.022054},{"period":"2023-06-01","rent":1243.550609},{"period":"2023-07-01","rent":1270.361058},{"period":"2023-08-01","rent":1274.433703},{"period":"2023-09-01","rent":1287.131994},{"period":"2023-10-01","rent":1268.898716},{"period":"2023-11-01","rent":1270.916433},{"period":"2023-12-01","rent":1287.090203},{"period":"2024-01-01","rent":1299.957257},{"period":"2024-02-01","rent":1304.832208},{"period":"2024-03-01","rent":1286.547215},{"period":"2024-04-01","rent":1302.858863},{"period":"2024-05-01","rent":1304.287431},{"period":"2024-06-01","rent":1309.00137},{"period":"2024-07-01","rent":1286.317792},{"period":"2024-08-01","rent":1273.135601},{"period":"2024-09-01","rent":1274.509722},{"period":"2024-10-01","rent":1289.879305},{"period":"2024-11-01","rent":1310.605523},{"period":"2024-12-01","rent":1307.421583},{"period":"2025-01-01","rent":1308.67436},{"period":"2025-02-01","rent":1300.855878},{"period":"2025-03-01","rent":1316.71174},{"period":"2025-04-01","rent":1316.149337},{"period":"2025-05-01","rent":1317.531915},{"period":"2025-06-01","rent":1308.327766},{"period":"2025-07-01","rent":1311.76445},{"period":"2025-08-01","rent":1322.244201},{"period":"2025-09-01","rent":1320.37628},{"period":"2025-10-01","rent":1322.442327},{"period":"2025-11-01","rent":1313.163122},{"period":"2025-12-01","rent":1317.372672},{"period":"2026-01-01","rent":1313.629394},{"period":"2026-02-01","rent":1318.115736},{"period":"2026-03-01","rent":1315.352577},{"period":"2026-04-01","rent":1316.633651},{"period":"2026-05-01","rent":1318.259547},{"period":"2026-06-01","rent":1325.996296}],"historySummary":{"pointCount":64,"firstPeriod":"2021-03-01","latestPeriod":"2026-06-01","coverageMonths":64,"coverageRatio":1,"changes":{"1":{"years":1,"startPeriod":"2025-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1308.327766,"endRent":1325.996296,"change":0.013504666383423514,"cagr":0.013504666383423514},"3":{"years":3,"startPeriod":"2023-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1243.550609,"endRent":1325.996296,"change":0.06629861816906568,"cagr":0.021628380074623754},"5":{"years":5,"startPeriod":"2021-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1099.311805,"endRent":1325.996296,"change":0.20620581892141154,"cagr":0.03820779154258447}},"maxDrawdown":-0.027399336488089343,"annualizedVolatility":0.03896254003383024,"consecutiveReturnCount":63}}