ZIP 78257’s June 2026 Zillow Observed Rent Index is $1,353 per month, down 1.1% from the same month a year earlier. This is a ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, rather than a quote for a particular available home. The five-digit label is both Zillow’s ZIP market identifier and the corresponding Census ZCTA match; a ZCTA is a statistical area, not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. That matching convention supports comparison, but it does not make the various rent sources interchangeable. The immediate signal is a modest decline in the current asking-rent index, so interpretation of the level should begin with its rental-mix scope and its difference from household-survey and administrative standards.
The decline is consistent with the longer backward-looking ZORI path rather than a break from it. Exact same-month changes were negative by 1.1% over one year, 2.3% annually over three years, and 0.4% annually over five years. Monthly rent movements showed 3.2% annualized variability, which means one current index reading should be treated as a useful benchmark but not as an unusually precise fixed price. Separately, the history’s largest peak-to-trough drawdown was 11.1%, showing that the observed index has experienced a more meaningful retreat than the latest year alone conveys. Coverage was 100%. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 2,724 for momentum, 1,928 for stability, and 2,726 for the balanced measure, where a lower rank is higher. These are descriptive discovery measures, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
The matched Census ZCTA’s ACS five-year survey reports median gross rent of $1,689, with a $95 margin of error. ACS median gross rent describes occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, so it is neither a current asking-rent series nor a direct substitute for ZORI. HUD’s local two-bedroom fair-market-rent standard is $1,840; it is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent. Scaling ZIP ZORI through the local HUD bedroom ladder produces modelled monthly estimates of $1,022 for a studio, $1,118 for one bedroom, $1,353 for two bedrooms, $1,735 for three bedrooms, and $2,022 for four bedrooms. Those are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents, and should not be read as listings or lease transactions.
The income and burden screen presents a separate tension. Median household income in the ZCTA is $81,301, while annualizing the current index at the 30% screen produces required income of $54,120 and an asking-rent-to-income ratio of 20.0%. That screen is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. In the ACS renter-home universe, 3,637 renter-occupied households are counted, with 1,356 reporting gross-rent burdens at or above 30%, or 37.3%. Housing inventory in the ZCTA totals 6,867 units, including 1,151 vacant units, for a 16.8% vacancy rate; renters represent 63.6% of occupied homes, and 3,469 units are in large multifamily structures. Neither the burden measure nor vacancy establishes the affordability, availability, or terms of any particular unit.
Wider-context figures point in a different direction from the ZCTA’s relatively high income and lower burden share. For wider context only, the City of San Antonio context rent is $1,382, Bexar County context rent is $1,389, and the San Antonio-New Braunfels, TX metro context rent is $1,416. Each exceeds the ZIP asking-rent index, though these city, county, and metro figures are not ZIP rental comps. The ZIP’s renter share and vacancy rate also exceed the reported city and county context rates, while its rent-burden share is below both wider geographies. The comparison helps frame the ZIP’s current rental snapshot, but it cannot explain an individual building’s leasing conditions because the geographic scopes and underlying rental mixes differ.
Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation describes a for-sale market, not rental transactions. Median sold price was $884,800, up 2.0% year over year, with 50 homes sold and a median 74 days on market. Reported resale inventory was 111 homes and months of supply stood at 6.7. Sale-to-list evidence was below list on average at 97.5%, while 4.1% of sales closed above list and 41.1% went off market within two weeks. Taken together, the resale data show a higher-priced ownership market with measured marketing time and supply, even as the median sold price was above its prior-year level. These signals must remain in the resale universe and cannot be used as rental comparables or evidence of a unit’s lease economics.
Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by the ZIP median sold price equals a 1.83% cross-source screening ratio. It is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield. The core tension is that asking rent has cooled across the reported historical intervals while the direct resale median price increased, yet resale supply and sale-to-list signals do not show uniformly tight buyer conditions. The low screening ratio reinforces the scale difference between current rent and sold-price benchmarks, while the ZCTA income screen and lower burden share give a different household-level view. None of these cross-source comparisons resolves operating costs, financing, taxes, condition, concessions, or the rent achievable by a specific property.
Important limits remain: ZORI is a blended asking-rent index, ACS is a lagged survey of occupied renter homes, HUD is an administrative standard, and Redfin reports rolling ZIP resale observations. Their reporting periods, populations, and definitions differ. Concrete property-level checks should therefore separate current address-level asking rents from signed-lease terms, verify bedroom count and included utilities, identify concessions and lease duration, and distinguish active availability from vacant units in the survey. For resale comparison, review recent closed sales, listing histories, property condition, and sale terms for genuinely comparable homes. Does the specific property’s current rent, unit configuration, and recent transaction evidence support the broad ZIP signals without assuming that any one metric applies directly to it?
","findings":[{"body":"The current ZIP ZORI declined year over year, and the one-, three-, and five-year same-month history measures are all negative. That makes the latest decline consistent with the observed longer path rather than an isolated reversal. Full history coverage improves confidence in the measurement record, although variability and the prior drawdown mean the present index should not be treated as a fixed lease quote.","title":"Cooling rent history is the primary ZIP signal"},{"body":"ZORI measures a typical observed asking-rent index across rental types. ACS median gross rent instead summarizes occupied renter homes over a five-year survey period and includes selected utilities. HUD fair market rent is a bedroom-specific administrative standard. The bedroom figures derived from ZORI and HUD are modelled estimates, so they clarify relative scaling but do not measure actual ZIP bedroom rents.","title":"Rent benchmarks differ because their universes differ"},{"body":"The ZIP’s median-income comparison produces a lower arithmetic asking-rent screen than the reported household income, while more than one-third of ACS renter households report gross-rent burden of at least 30%. The ZCTA also has a meaningful reported vacancy rate and a renter-heavy, large-multifamily housing mix. These aggregates do not identify available units, concessions, resident turnover, or any household’s actual financial position.","title":"Household screen and vacancy data require restraint"},{"body":"The direct ZIP resale record shows a high median sold price that rose from the prior year, even as rent history cooled. At the same time, marketing time, months of supply, and average sale-to-list performance do not indicate uniformly aggressive resale conditions. The annualized-rent-to-price figure is only a cross-source screen; it cannot represent property income, costs, leverage, or an expected return.","title":"Resale evidence challenges a simple rent-to-price reading"}],"risks":["The ZORI figure is a blended asking-rent index, so it can differ materially from a specific unit’s advertised rent because of bedroom mix, housing type, lease terms, concessions, and the changing composition of observed listings.","ACS estimates describe occupied renter homes over a five-year survey period and include selected utilities. The reported margins of error and timing differences limit direct comparison with a current ZIP asking-rent index.","Vacancy, renter burden, and housing-stock counts are area-level measures rather than property evidence. They cannot prove that a particular home is vacant, affordable, leased quickly, or subject to a certain concession.","The Redfin sale record is a for-sale observation, while the annualized ZORI-to-price calculation combines separate sources. It omits expenses, taxes, insurance, financing, maintenance, and property-specific physical differences."],"qa":[{"a":"The measures describe different universes. Zillow ZORI is a current typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey measure for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. A difference between them does not establish that one source is wrong or that a particular available unit should rent at either figure.","q":"Why is ACS median gross rent higher than the Zillow asking-rent index?"},{"a":"No. The studio through four-bedroom values are modelled estimates created by scaling the ZIP ZORI through the local HUD bedroom ladder. HUD fair market rent is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than asking rent. The resulting figures are useful for a consistent size-based screen, but they are not measured listings, leases, or transaction-level bedroom rents.","q":"Are the bedroom rent figures actual rents observed in ZIP 78257?"},{"a":"It is an arithmetic screen that annualizes the current monthly ZORI and divides it by 30%. It is not affordability advice, a household budget finding, an applicant qualification standard, or evidence that any renter can obtain a lease. Actual affordability depends on income timing, household composition, debt, utilities, deposits, concessions, and the specific lease terms.","q":"What does the 30% required-income figure mean?"},{"a":"Use Redfin only to describe the ZIP’s direct rolling resale observation: sold-price level and change, sales pace, marketing time, supply, inventory, and sale-to-list patterns. It is not a rental transaction dataset. Dividing annualized ZORI by median sold price creates only a cross-source screening ratio and cannot measure a property’s income, expenses, cap rate, or return.","q":"How should the resale data be used alongside the rent data?"}],"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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