ZIP 76116 presents a split screen: its Zillow ZORI is $1,407 per month, down 0.5% from a year earlier, while the direct ZIP resale median sold price was $368,417 and rose 13.0% year over year. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, rather than a record of every signed lease or a bedroom-specific quote. Annualizing that index and dividing it by the resale median produces a 4.6% cross-source screening ratio only; it is not a measure of property-level economics. The immediate tension is therefore clear: the asking-rent measure is cooling modestly even as the reported for-sale price measure increased sharply.
The backward-looking rent path explains why one current ZORI reading deserves measured confidence rather than a directional extrapolation. Exact same-month annualized changes were negative 0.5% over one year, positive 0.3% over three years, and positive 4.1% over five years. Recent direction therefore breaks from the longer positive path, although the three-year result had already become nearly flat. Monthly rent-return variability was 2.7% annualized, which suggests the series has moved enough to make a single current snapshot less definitive than a smooth trend would imply. Its maximum drawdown was 3.0%, a contained historical decline but still evidence that reversals occurred. Coverage reached 99.3%; transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 2,496 for momentum, 1,057 for stability, and 2,204 for the balanced measure. These are historical measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
Source boundaries matter because the current asking-rent index should not be substituted for household-survey rent. The matched Census ZCTA five-year ACS survey reports median gross rent of $1,269 among occupied renter homes, a measure that includes selected utilities and reflects surveyed occupied households rather than current asking rents. That level is 10.9% below the ZIP asking-rent index. For wider context only, the City of Fort Worth context rent was $1,635, the Tarrant County context rent was $1,639, and the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro context rent was $1,673. Those city, county, and metro values describe broader geographies and do not replace evidence for this ZIP market.
The bedroom figures are modelled estimates, not measured bedroom rents. Scaling ZIP ZORI through the local HUD ladder produces monthly estimates of $1,153 for a studio, $1,201 for one bedroom, $1,407 for two bedrooms, $1,771 for three bedrooms, and $2,252 for four bedrooms. The local HUD two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR standard is $1,931, placing the modelled two-bedroom estimate at 72.9% of that administrative benchmark. HUD FMR/SAFMR is a bedroom-specific administrative standard, not asking rent, and it should not be treated as a competing rent observation. The modelled ladder merely carries the local HUD bedroom relationships onto the ZIP-wide ZORI level; actual asking rents can differ by property, condition, lease terms, and included utilities.
The income and burden measures add a second tension. The ZCTA median household income was $56,187, with a $7,275 ACS ninety-percent margin of error. At a 30% rent-to-income screen, $1,407 monthly rent corresponds to $56,280 in annual income, nearly the reported household-income midpoint. This required-income screen is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. In the ACS renter-household universe, 8,511 of 14,341 renter households, or 59.3%, were reported as spending at least 30% of income on rent. That burden measure describes surveyed households and does not establish affordability, payment history, or financial stress for any particular available unit.
Housing composition and vacancy provide useful context without proving availability. The ZCTA had 26,089 housing units, of which 22,668 were occupied, and its vacancy rate was 13.1%. There were 1,892 vacant units identified as for rent. Renters occupied 63.3% of occupied homes, a substantially renter-oriented tenure mix in this statistical area. The stock includes 11,008 single-family units as well as large-multifamily housing. A larger vacancy reading can coexist with rent concessions, unavailable units, units under repair, or differences in bedroom mix; it cannot verify that a particular listing is vacant, rentable, or comparable to the Zillow index.
Redfin's evidence is a direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation, not rental transactions or rental comparables. It recorded 138 homes sold, a median marketing time of 40 days, 324 active listings, reported inventory of 148 homes, and 3.3 months of supply. Sale-to-list performance averaged 98.2%, while 12.0% of sales closed above list and 32.5% went off market within two weeks. These signals describe resale liquidity and pricing behavior only. Alongside the higher ZIP resale median and price change, the sales data challenges any simple reading that soft asking-rent history necessarily coincides with weak for-sale demand. Conversely, near-list sales and a finite supply measure do not resolve whether asking rents can rise, hold, or decline.
The five-digit label is both Zillow's ZIP market identifier and a matched Census ZCTA reference, but a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. Zillow, ACS, HUD, and Redfin each observe different populations, periods, and concepts, so none alone establishes property economics. Historical cooling, burden, vacancy, and resale statistics are aggregate indicators rather than unit-level facts. Concrete property-level checks should confirm the actual asking rent, effective concessions, bedroom count, included utilities, lease length, availability date, condition, and whether sales comparables truly match the property type. The unresolved decision question is whether a specific unit's documented terms align with the ZIP-wide asking-rent signal while remaining distinct from the separate ACS, HUD, and resale universes.
","findings":[{"body":"The ZIP asking-rent index declined modestly over the latest year, while the direct ZIP resale median sold price increased materially. This is a genuine cross-universe tension rather than a contradiction: Zillow measures a blended asking-rent index and Redfin measures for-sale transactions. The evidence supports careful separation of rental pricing signals from resale-market liquidity and price outcomes.","title":"Cooling rent index meets stronger resale pricing"},{"body":"The one-year rent result is negative, the three-year annualized result is close to flat, and the five-year annualized result remains positive. Moderate return variability and a limited historical drawdown support some confidence in the data series, but not certainty about any single current observation. The recent direction breaks from the longer path and should be interpreted as backward-looking.","title":"Longer rent history remains positive but has flattened"},{"body":"Annualizing the ZIP asking-rent index at a thirty-percent rent-to-income screen produces required income almost equal to the ZCTA median household income estimate. Meanwhile, a majority of surveyed renter households reported gross-rent burdens at or above thirty percent of income. These figures describe aggregate arithmetic and survey conditions, not qualification rules or a conclusion about a specific renter.","title":"Household income screen is tight at the ZIP index level"},{"body":"The studio-through-four-bedroom figures are modelled by applying the local HUD bedroom ladder to the ZIP-wide Zillow index. They are useful for organizing a broad bedroom-size screen, but they are not observed bedroom rent medians. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative standard rather than asking rent, so differences between the two measures should not be interpreted as market mispricing.","title":"Bedroom values are scaled estimates, not observed rent comps"}],"risks":["The Zillow asking-rent index blends rental types and is not a substitute for quoted rents on comparable available homes, especially where concessions, lease duration, utilities, and bedroom configuration differ.","ACS gross rent, household income, burden, and vacancy statistics come from a matched ZCTA survey universe with sampling uncertainty, and the ZCTA does not exactly match a USPS delivery ZIP.","The Redfin resale series measures recent for-sale transactions and listing conditions, not rental transactions, property operating costs, lease revenue, or the economics of an individual rental home.","Historical rent changes, variability, and drawdown describe completed observations through the stated endpoint; they cannot establish future rent direction or explain the cause of current market movements."],"qa":[{"a":"They represent different evidence universes. Zillow ZORI is a ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey estimate for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard. Redfin reports for-sale and resale activity, not rental transactions.","q":"Why do the Zillow, ACS, HUD, and Redfin rent-related figures differ?"},{"a":"No. The bedroom values are modelled monthly ZIP estimates created by scaling the ZIP-wide Zillow ZORI with the relative local HUD bedroom ladder. They organize the broad relationship from studio through larger units, but they are not measured asking-rent medians, signed-lease results, or evidence that any specific available unit will rent at that level.","q":"Are the bedroom rent estimates actual measured rents for each bedroom count?"},{"a":"It is a simple arithmetic screen: annualized monthly asking rent divided by thirty percent gives an income amount. It is not a recommendation, affordability determination, underwriting method, or applicant qualification rule. The ACS burden share is also aggregate survey evidence and cannot show whether a particular household can afford a particular property.","q":"What does the thirty-percent income calculation mean?"},{"a":"The resale evidence shows a direct ZIP for-sale market with higher reported median sale pricing, measurable sales volume, listing inventory, marketing time, supply, and sale-to-list outcomes. That challenges a simplistic assumption that softer recent asking-rent history means every housing-market measure is weakening. It does not, however, convert resale information into rent comparables or property-level rental economics.","q":"How should the resale evidence affect interpretation of the cooling rent history?"}],"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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