At June 2026, ZIP 68116’s Zillow ZORI was $1,809 per month. This is a ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, rather than a record of every listing or signed lease. Exact same-month history shows a 0.7% increase over the one-year period, compared with annualized gains of 2.4% over the longer three-year path and 4.7% across five years. The recent direction therefore confirms a still-positive rent path, but its pace has slowed materially from the earlier multi-year measurements. That contrast is more decision-relevant than treating one current asking-rent reading as a trend forecast.
The history series is complete for its available window: 64 observations produced 63 consecutive monthly returns with 100% coverage. Monthly rent movements translate to 1.7% annualized variability, a low level that supports greater confidence that the current ZORI is not an isolated swing. Separately, the worst observed peak-to-trough decline was only 0.6%, indicating limited historical downside within this measured series. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs place stability at 24, balanced performance at 751, and momentum at 1,767, where lower ranks are stronger. These are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
Different rent sources answer different questions. The matched Census ZCTA’s ACS 2024 five-year survey reports a $1,522 median gross rent for occupied renter homes, including selected utilities; it is 18.9% below Zillow’s current asking-rent index. A ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP, even though this five-digit label is both the Zillow ZIP market identifier and the Census match. HUD’s $1,650 two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent, and sits 9.6% below ZORI. Applying the local HUD bedroom ladder to ZIP ZORI produces modelled monthly estimates of $1,436 for a studio, $1,524 for one bedroom, $1,809 for two bedrooms, $2,401 for three bedrooms, and $2,708 for four bedrooms. These are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents.
Income and burden evidence adds an important distributional limit. The ACS ZCTA median household income is $121,165, with a stated margin of error of $7,588. Annualizing the current asking-rent index and applying a 30% screen produces required household income of $72,360; the same arithmetic places annualized asking rent at 17.9% of the reported median household income. This screen is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. Within the ACS renter-household universe, 1,204 of 3,053 renter households, or 39.4%, reported spending at least the threshold share of income on rent. That aggregate burden result cannot establish affordability or payment stress for any particular household or unit.
The matched ACS ZCTA shows 345 vacant housing units, a 2.6% vacancy rate, and 245 vacancies designated for rent. Its renter share is 23.6%, while the physical stock includes 10,359 single-family units and 896 units in large multifamily structures. These figures describe the ZCTA’s surveyed housing stock and vacancy classifications, not current availability at an individual address. In particular, vacant-for-rent counts do not indicate lease terms, asking prices, condition, bedroom mix, concessions, or whether any specific property is market-ready. The stock mix and renter share provide context for interpreting a blended rent index, but they do not convert the index into a unit-level comparable.
Broader-area figures place the ZIP’s asking-rent index above each named context, but those comparisons remain wider-market context rather than ZIP substitutes: Omaha city context rent is $1,453, Douglas County context rent is $1,448, and Omaha-Council Bluffs, NE-IA metro context rent is $1,444. The ZIP’s higher index may reflect the composition of rentals represented in ZORI as well as geographic differences, so it should not be read as a direct price premium for a matching bedroom, building type, or lease structure. City, county, and metro measures have their own geographic scope and should remain separate from ZIP-specific Zillow, ACS ZCTA, HUD, and Redfin evidence.
The direct rolling-three-month Redfin ZIP resale observation presents a notably active for-sale market, not rental transactions. Median sold price was $370,956, up 1.5% from a year earlier; 162 homes sold with a median 18 days on market. Inventory was 31 homes and months of supply stood at 0.6, while the average sale-to-list ratio was 101.3% and 53.9% of sales closed above list price. Those resale liquidity and pricing signals contrast with the subdued recent rent increase, challenging any assumption that steady resale conditions necessarily coincide with fast asking-rent growth. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by median sold price equals a 5.9% cross-source screening ratio only; it is not a measure of property economics or a return outcome.
The main limits are differences in date, geography, population, and purpose across the sources. Zillow measures blended asking rents, ACS describes surveyed occupied renter homes, HUD supplies administrative standards, and Redfin measures ZIP resale activity. Historical stability can increase confidence in the representativeness of a current index snapshot, but it cannot determine the next rent movement. At the property level, the relevant checks are the actual asking rent, bedroom count, utility treatment, lease duration, concessions, structure type, condition, availability date, and comparable resale terms. The central question is whether those unit-specific facts align with the aggregate ZIP signals rather than whether any one aggregate series can stand in for the property.
","findings":[{"body":"ZIP 68116’s current Zillow ZORI is supported by a complete historical series with low measured variability and a limited observed drawdown. However, the latest one-year increase is much slower than the exact same-month annualized changes over the prior three- and five-year periods. The evidence supports a stable-growth characterization, but not an assumption that earlier growth rates continue.","title":"Rent growth remains positive but has slowed"},{"body":"The studio-through-four-bedroom amounts are modelled estimates created by scaling ZIP ZORI with the local HUD bedroom ladder. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than asking-rent evidence. The ladder is useful for maintaining a transparent size relationship, but it does not measure current ZIP listings, lease transactions, unit condition, utilities, or concessions by bedroom count.","title":"Bedroom figures are scaled estimates, not observed rents"},{"body":"The arithmetic required-income screen is below the ACS ZCTA median household income, yet a substantial share of surveyed renter households reported rent burdens at or above the selected threshold. These results can coexist because the income median represents all households in the ZCTA while burden data describe renter households. Neither measure establishes affordability for a specific applicant or property.","title":"Aggregate affordability is stronger than burden evidence alone suggests"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct ZIP resale data show short marketing time, low months of supply, above-list sale activity, and a positive median-price change. Those for-sale signals do not provide rental comparables, but they create a useful tension with the ZIP’s modest latest asking-rent increase. The annualized-rent-to-sale-price calculation is only a cross-source screening ratio, not a property-level outcome measure.","title":"Resale liquidity is stronger than recent rent momentum"}],"risks":["Zillow ZORI is a blended typical observed asking-rent index across rental types, so it may not match the bedroom mix, utilities, lease terms, concessions, condition, or availability of a specific property.","ACS evidence is a five-year survey for a matched statistical ZCTA, not a current USPS delivery ZIP inventory. Its income, rent, burden, population, and renter counts include sampling uncertainty.","Historical rent stability describes the observed Zillow series through its endpoint only. It does not establish future asking rents, future vacancy, tenant demand, resale pricing, or the outcome of a particular lease.","Redfin resale evidence is limited to a rolling ZIP for-sale observation. Sale prices, listing competition, and marketing time should not be treated as rental transactions or proof of a property’s operating economics."],"qa":[{"a":"It measures Zillow’s ZIP-level ZORI, a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. It is useful as a current market index, but it is not a record of every available listing, a lease execution dataset, a utility-inclusive rent measure, or a bedroom-specific rent survey.","q":"What does the current Zillow rent figure measure?"},{"a":"The bedroom amounts are modelled ZIP estimates, calculated by scaling the current ZIP ZORI with the local HUD bedroom ladder. HUD FMR/SAFMR itself is an administrative standard rather than asking rent. The resulting estimates preserve the local size ladder but do not represent measured asking rents for actual studio, one-bedroom, or larger units.","q":"Why are the bedroom estimates different from HUD standards?"},{"a":"Complete coverage, low annualized monthly-return variability, and a small observed peak-to-trough decline indicate that the historical ZORI series was relatively stable over its available period. That supports confidence that the current reading is less likely to be an extreme short-lived move, while the slower recent gain still shows that past growth speed has moderated.","q":"How should the history metrics affect confidence in the current snapshot?"},{"a":"It divides annualized ZIP ZORI by the direct ZIP median sold price to create a simple cross-source screening ratio. It can highlight the relationship between an asking-rent index and resale pricing, but it excludes property expenses, financing, taxes, insurance, repairs, vacancy experience, unit quality, and actual lease terms.","q":"What does the Redfin rent-to-price screen tell a reader?"}],"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":1433.489362},{"period":"2021-04-01","rent":1424.747727},{"period":"2021-05-01","rent":1425.101171},{"period":"2021-06-01","rent":1435.096032},{"period":"2021-07-01","rent":1451.057154},{"period":"2021-08-01","rent":1466.283501},{"period":"2021-09-01","rent":1475.899826},{"period":"2021-10-01","rent":1484.911171},{"period":"2021-11-01","rent":1499.827888},{"period":"2021-12-01","rent":1505.407137},{"period":"2022-01-01","rent":1513.145209},{"period":"2022-02-01","rent":1517.864877},{"period":"2022-03-01","rent":1534.8249},{"period":"2022-04-01","rent":1560.160849},{"period":"2022-05-01","rent":1574.443805},{"period":"2022-06-01","rent":1591.733841},{"period":"2022-07-01","rent":1603.879514},{"period":"2022-08-01","rent":1616.57865},{"period":"2022-09-01","rent":1622.614365},{"period":"2022-10-01","rent":1631.589163},{"period":"2022-11-01","rent":1633.760373},{"period":"2022-12-01","rent":1657.446039},{"period":"2023-01-01","rent":1658.371122},{"period":"2023-02-01","rent":1663.935198},{"period":"2023-03-01","rent":1665.522844},{"period":"2023-04-01","rent":1678.465846},{"period":"2023-05-01","rent":1691.594267},{"period":"2023-06-01","rent":1682.396033},{"period":"2023-07-01","rent":1690.137943},{"period":"2023-08-01","rent":1695.110473},{"period":"2023-09-01","rent":1706.957402},{"period":"2023-10-01","rent":1709.912617},{"period":"2023-11-01","rent":1712.901282},{"period":"2023-12-01","rent":1702.490668},{"period":"2024-01-01","rent":1711.909095},{"period":"2024-02-01","rent":1718.930311},{"period":"2024-03-01","rent":1737.310959},{"period":"2024-04-01","rent":1730.355074},{"period":"2024-05-01","rent":1731.879854},{"period":"2024-06-01","rent":1735.979041},{"period":"2024-07-01","rent":1733.871825},{"period":"2024-08-01","rent":1739.841344},{"period":"2024-09-01","rent":1745.256073},{"period":"2024-10-01","rent":1750.083474},{"period":"2024-11-01","rent":1763.900997},{"period":"2024-12-01","rent":1770.845485},{"period":"2025-01-01","rent":1780.023111},{"period":"2025-02-01","rent":1773.198168},{"period":"2025-03-01","rent":1770.271694},{"period":"2025-04-01","rent":1781.660503},{"period":"2025-05-01","rent":1787.447082},{"period":"2025-06-01","rent":1797.065313},{"period":"2025-07-01","rent":1804.395943},{"period":"2025-08-01","rent":1806.222363},{"period":"2025-09-01","rent":1806.069272},{"period":"2025-10-01","rent":1809.440012},{"period":"2025-11-01","rent":1806.428272},{"period":"2025-12-01","rent":1810.469184},{"period":"2026-01-01","rent":1807.251777},{"period":"2026-02-01","rent":1815.935566},{"period":"2026-03-01","rent":1815.939246},{"period":"2026-04-01","rent":1813.861285},{"period":"2026-05-01","rent":1811.551201},{"period":"2026-06-01","rent":1808.745098}],"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":1797.065313,"endRent":1808.745098,"change":0.006499365891438735,"cagr":0.006499365891438735},"3":{"years":3,"startPeriod":"2023-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1682.396033,"endRent":1808.745098,"change":0.07510066745384436,"cagr":0.024431782608437036},"5":{"years":5,"startPeriod":"2021-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1435.096032,"endRent":1808.745098,"change":0.2603652004244412,"cagr":0.04736795136122551}},"maxDrawdown":-0.006098151288547959,"annualizedVolatility":0.01662254082477752,"consecutiveReturnCount":63}}