At $1,579 per month in June 2026, Zillow ZORI for ZIP 70808 is the current typical observed asking-rent index. It blends rental types, so it describes a market index rather than a quote for a specified home. The Baton Rouge city context is $1,383, the East Baton Rouge Parish county context is $1,386, and the Baton Rouge, LA metro context is $1,403; those are city, county, and metro measures, respectively, not ZIP values. The ZIP reading is above each wider-context figure, a useful location-level contrast but not evidence about any particular property’s rent, quality, availability, or terms.
Source scope creates an important gap. The matched Census ZCTA’s ACS 2024 five-year survey reports median gross rent of $1,352, 16.8% below the asking-rent index; it measures occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, not current advertised supply. A ZCTA is a Census statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP; here it is the Census match for the Zillow ZIP market identifier. The local FY2026 two-bedroom HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent; the Zillow index is 31.1% above it. Thus, the three measures appropriately provide different benchmarks rather than competing readings of the same lease market.
To create a bedroom view without claiming measurements that do not exist, the analysis scales ZIP ZORI by the local HUD ladder. The resulting monthly modelled estimates are $1,353 for a studio, $1,395 for one bedroom, $1,579 for two bedrooms, $1,982 for three bedrooms, and $2,548 for four bedrooms. They are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents, and they preserve the index’s blended-rental limitation. Annualizing the current index and applying the 30% screen yields $63,160 of required annual income. This required-income screen is arithmetic, not advice or an applicant qualification rule; it does not establish what a household can pay.
Burden data deepen the affordability tension but remain in the ACS universe. Of 7,092 occupied renter households in the matched ZCTA survey, 3,823 were recorded at or above the burden threshold, a 53.9% share. That statistic describes a survey population of occupied renters, not live listings, and neither confirms a particular tenant’s finances nor proves a particular unit is unaffordable. The ACS margins of error supplied with these estimates also warrant caution when interpreting narrow differences. Burden is best read alongside the asking index and income screen as a distinct distributional measure, not as a lease-level test.
Supply should likewise be read as a survey snapshot rather than a property roster. The matched ZCTA has 18,606 housing units, including 10,979 single-family units. It records 2,675 vacant units, a 14.4% all-housing vacancy rate, with 1,131 classified as vacant for rent. These stock and vacancy counts do not tell whether a particular dwelling is available now, in rentable condition, competitively priced, or offered with concessions. They also cannot be equated to the metro apartment-vacancy concept. Confirmation requires a current listing and its actual terms, rather than an inference from an area-level vacancy category.
The history tempers confidence in a current reading. Direct Zillow ZIP observations through the stated endpoint have 100% coverage. Exact same-month change was 3.1% over 1 year, 2.7% annualized over 3 years, and 4.2% annualized over 5 years. Recent direction therefore confirms the longer positive path, although its latest pace is below the five-year rate. The supplied category is high variability: annualized monthly-return variability was 3.4% and maximum drawdown was a 6.6% decline. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 1,056 for momentum, 2,181 for stability, and 1,648 for balanced; lower is higher. These are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations, and the variability argues for modest confidence in any single current snapshot.
For a property-level decision, first verify the exact address and whether the listing falls within the Zillow market identifier rather than assuming the ZCTA and delivery geography coincide. Then check listing date and availability, actual asking price, bedroom count, lease length, included utilities, mandatory recurring fees, concessions, and whether the rental type is comparable with the blended index. The current index, modelled bedroom ladder, ACS survey, HUD standard, and broader city/county/metro contexts should each remain in their own scope. Given sampling uncertainty and index variability, the decisive question is whether the specific offering’s all-in recurring monthly charge and terms match the timing and rental concept of the reference used.
","findings":[{"body":"The ZIP asking-rent index exceeds each named city, county, and metro rent context. That is a location-level comparison only: the ZIP index blends rental types and the surrounding figures have wider geographic scopes. It neither identifies a premium for an individual property nor supplies a reason for the difference. Match the property’s category, date, utilities, fees, and terms before relying on the contrast.","title":"Asking index carries a wider-context premium"},{"body":"Median gross rent, the asking-rent index, and the HUD standard are all relevant but answer different questions. The ACS figure concerns surveyed occupied renter homes and selected utilities; Zillow concerns blended asking rents; HUD defines an administrative bedroom benchmark. Comparing them can frame the size and direction of a gap, but it cannot establish a market-clearing rent or a unit’s all-in cost.","title":"Survey rent and asking rent answer different questions"},{"body":"The bedroom ladder is intentionally a model, not an observation. It preserves the ZIP index as its anchor while using relative HUD bedroom standards to distribute that amount across unit sizes. It is useful for a first-pass category comparison, provided the reader verifies the listing’s bedroom count, rental type, included utilities, recurring charges, term, and date.","title":"Bedroom ladder is scaled rather than observed"},{"body":"All available history supports a continuous backward-looking index series, yet the supplied variability classification and recorded drawdown make a single monthly reading less definitive than a stable series would be. The recent positive change aligns with the longer positive path but does not turn historical movement into a forecast. National discovery ranks are transparent comparisons, not investment ratings.","title":"History supports continuity, not certainty"}],"risks":["The blended ZIP asking-rent index is not a property inventory, so differences in bedroom count, rental type, lease duration, utilities, fees, concessions, and listing timing can make a specific comparison misleading.","The ACS evidence applies to a matched Census statistical area and surveyed occupied renter homes. Its margins of error, selected-utility treatment, and geographic mismatch with delivery ZIPs limit lease-level conclusions.","HUD standards are administrative bedroom benchmarks rather than observed asking rents. Scaling the index by that ladder produces useful modelled anchors, but it cannot measure bedroom rents at a given building.","Area-level vacancy and burden data describe classifications and household distributions, not current condition, availability, landlord behavior, applicant finances, or negotiation outcome for any particular dwelling."],"qa":[{"a":"Zillow ZORI tracks typical observed asking rents in the ZIP and blends rental types. ACS reports a multi-year survey median for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. HUD supplies an administrative bedroom standard. Different populations, timing, and construction mean divergence is expected; none of the measures replaces a signed lease quote.","q":"Why does the asking-rent index differ from ACS median gross rent and the HUD standard?"},{"a":"No. The bedroom figures are modelled estimates created by applying the local HUD bedroom ladder to the ZIP asking-rent index. They help place a listing’s stated bedroom count in a consistent framework, but they do not observe rents, amenities, fees, utility treatment, or availability for any specific unit.","q":"Are the bedroom figures observed rents for local apartments?"},{"a":"No. Burden summarizes the surveyed share of occupied renter households reaching the defined rent-to-income threshold, while vacancy summarizes survey classifications of housing units. Neither source describes a particular apartment’s condition, current availability, or tenant circumstances. Use property-level listing and lease details to establish those facts.","q":"Do burden and vacancy figures determine whether a listing is affordable or available?"},{"a":"History establishes that the asking-rent index has moved through both gains and drawdowns and that the packet classifies its return pattern as highly variable. Complete coverage supports continuity of the series, but variability limits confidence in treating the latest index observation as a durable property-specific quote. It is backward-looking, not predictive.","q":"How should the historical series influence interpretation of the current asking-rent index?"}],"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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