At $1,662 in the stated June 2026 period, the Zillow Observed Rent Index is a typical observed asking-rent index, blended across rental types rather than a record of executed leases. It increased 10.9% from the same month a year earlier. Translating that monthly asking-rent index into a 30% income screen produces $66,480 of annual income; the matched area’s median household income is $54,644. This is arithmetic only—not affordability advice, a tenant-screening standard, or an applicant qualification rule—but it frames the central tension: annual income under the screen exceeds the reported median-income benchmark.
The prior rent path supports that tension, but it does not make a projection. Direct Zillow ZIP history recorded exact same-month annualized changes of 10.9% over one year, 9.9% over three years, and 9.1% over five years. The latest direction therefore confirms the longer upward path and is modestly faster rather than reversing it. Classified as high variability, annualized monthly-return variability of 3.7% means a single current index reading deserves bounded confidence even with 98.3% historical coverage. Its maximum drawdown was 2.3%, demonstrating a past decline within the rise. The transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 28 for momentum, 2,431 for stability, and 629 for the balanced score, with lower rank higher; these are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
The 60628 label serves as both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a matched Census ZCTA. A ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. The ACS 2024 five-year median gross rent is $1,193, and the current asking-rent index is 39.3% above that figure. ACS is a five-year survey of occupied renter homes, and its gross-rent measure includes selected utilities, so it should not be read as an older version of Zillow’s advertised-rent signal. The survey reports 5,435 renter households paying 30% or more of income toward rent, a 59.1% burden share. That burden statistic describes surveyed households, not any specific unit or future tenant, and it does not determine whether a listed rent will be paid.
Bedroom detail is modelled rather than observed. HUD’s FY2026 FMR/SAFMR ladder is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard—not asking rent—and the provided two-bedroom benchmark is $1,490. Scaling the ZIP ZORI by that local HUD ladder produces monthly modelled estimates of $1,383 for a studio, $1,472 for one bedroom, $1,662 for two bedrooms, $2,142 for three bedrooms, and $2,476 for four bedrooms. These are not measured bedroom rents, lease comparables, or promises of availability. The modelled two-bedroom estimate is 11.5% above the HUD standard. The ladder provides a standardized bedroom lens on the ZIP index, but it cannot resolve a particular building’s layout, utilities, condition, lease terms, or concessions.
Survey housing-stock evidence points to a sizeable stock but not to unit-level supply. The ZCTA has 28,615 housing units and a 19.5% vacancy rate. ACS categories include vacant units classified as for rent, but they are not a current availability feed and do not establish vacancy for a particular address. They also cannot identify the condition, asking rent, bedroom count, lease status, or timing of a given listing. The stock and vacancy measures nevertheless add context to the asking-rent and household-burden tension: area-level housing counts can coexist with a current rent-income screen that is more demanding than the reported median-income benchmark.
Broader benchmarks underline that the ZIP’s lower index does not automatically make its income screen easy. For wider context only, Chicago city’s rent context is $2,409, Cook County’s county-level rent context is $2,336, and the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI metro rent context is $2,275; each lies above the ZIP index. These city, county, and metro figures have their stated wider scope and are context rather than ZIP rental comparables, property economics, or substitutes for the ACS survey and HUD administrative measures.
Resale data pull in another direction. Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP for-sale observation—not rental transactions—puts median sold price at $164,963, down 8.4% year over year. It recorded 179 homes sold and 69 median days on market, with inventory of 289 homes and 4.9 months of supply. Sales averaged 97.4% of list price, and 29.3% sold above list. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by that median price equals a 12.1% cross-source screening ratio only; it is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield. The price decline and below-list average challenge a simple reading that rent-history momentum and the income screen alone describe current conditions, while the sales, marketing-time, inventory, and supply figures document resale liquidity rather than tenant demand.
Several limits matter before applying these area measures to a property. Zillow is an asking-rent index across rental types; ACS is a surveyed occupied-household measure with margins of error; HUD is an administrative standard; and Redfin is an observed resale series. None verifies effective rent, tenant turnover, sale proceeds, operating costs, or the outcome for an individual address. Concrete checks should match the unit’s bedroom count and condition to current advertised rents, document utilities, concessions, and lease length, distinguish asking rents from signed rents, and review nearby closed sales alongside active listings and list-price changes. The useful question is whether property-specific evidence matches these distinct ZIP, ZCTA, HUD, and resale measures rather than whether any one benchmark can answer it alone.
","findings":[{"body":"Zillow’s current ZIP asking-rent index is $1,662 after a 10.9% same-month increase. A simple 30% screen converts that monthly figure to $66,480 of annual income, above the matched area’s $54,644 median household income. The calculation is a comparability screen, not affordability advice or an applicant qualification test; it highlights a level mismatch between the current index and the income benchmark.","title":"The core rent-income mismatch"},{"body":"History supports an upward rent path but demands restraint in treating one observation as definitive. The one-, three-, and five-year same-month annualized changes are all positive, with the latest strongest. Yet the series carries a high-variability designation, a past drawdown, and a weak stability discovery rank. Its strong coverage improves continuity, not certainty about any unit, future change, or lease outcome.","title":"Long climb, limited snapshot certainty"},{"body":"ACS and HUD answer different questions from ZORI. The matched ZCTA ACS survey covers occupied renter homes and selected utilities, whereas HUD establishes an administrative bedroom standard. Applying the HUD ladder to ZIP ZORI creates modelled bedroom estimates, not measured rents. Consequently, the ACS median, HUD two-bedroom benchmark, and current asking-rent index should inform distinct comparisons rather than be treated as interchangeable rental quotes.","title":"Survey, standard, and ask are distinct"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct ZIP resale observation presents a mixed cross-market check. Median sale price declined year over year while the rent index rose, and sales, days on market, inventory, supply, and sale-to-list data describe only for-sale activity. The annualized-rent-to-price percentage is useful solely as a cross-source screening ratio; it does not calculate property income, expenses, or return.","title":"Resale keeps the signal mixed"}],"risks":["The asking-rent index is above the five-year ACS gross-rent measure and the income screen exceeds median household income, but neither statistic determines affordability, qualification, or effective rent for a particular unit.","High historical variability and a documented maximum drawdown mean that an otherwise well-covered ZIP index can move enough that a single current observation should not carry standalone weight.","The 60628 ZCTA is a statistical Census geography rather than the same thing as a USPS delivery ZIP, so geographic matching does not convert survey statistics into address-level facts.","Redfin resale data show for-sale conditions, not rental transactions; a price decline and sale-to-list indicators cannot establish a landlord’s expenses, a unit’s rent, or an investment return."],"qa":[{"a":"The June 2026 $1,662 figure is Zillow ZORI for the ZIP market identifier: a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. It is not a signed-lease average, a bedroom-specific measurement, a utility-inclusive gross-rent survey result, or evidence that every listed unit asks that amount.","q":"What does the current Zillow figure represent?"},{"a":"The $1,193 ACS median gross rent comes from a matched ZCTA’s 2024 five-year survey of occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. A ZCTA is a Census statistical area, not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. That universe differs from Zillow’s current blended asking-rent index, so the gap is descriptive rather than a conflict requiring reconciliation.","q":"Why does the ACS rent figure differ from Zillow’s index?"},{"a":"The studio-through-four-bedroom values are modelled monthly estimates produced by scaling the ZIP ZORI with the local HUD ladder. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent. The estimates therefore offer a standardized bedroom lens, but they do not measure lease rents, availability, utilities, condition, concessions, or terms for specific apartments.","q":"Should the bedroom estimates be treated as observed rents?"},{"a":"Redfin’s rolling-three-month ZIP data are direct resale observations. Their median sold price, price movement, sales volume, marketing time, inventory, supply, and sale-to-list indicators describe for-sale liquidity only. Dividing annualized ZORI by median sold price creates a cross-source screen, not a measure of operating income, expenses, financing, property value, or investment return.","q":"How should the resale information 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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