Rent and resale signals diverge at the stated endpoints. At Zillow's June 2026 endpoint, ZIP ZORI is $1,990 per month, after a 0.23% year-over-year rise. ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, rather than a transaction rent for a uniform unit. The direct Redfin rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation is strictly for-sale evidence, not rental transactions. Its median sold price is $595,460, down 3.53% year over year. It reports 136 homes sold, 31 median days on market, 395 active listings, 216 homes in inventory, 125 pending sales, and 4.8 months of supply. Sellers averaged 98.93% of list; 11.37% of sales were above list and 42.2% went off market within two weeks. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by that median sold price equals 4.01%, only a cross-source screening ratio rather than a property-level performance measure.
Same-month history gives this slight uptick a longer frame. Direct Zillow ZIP ZORI changes were +0.23% annualized over one year, -0.83% annualized over three years, and +1.97% annualized over five years. Thus, the latest annual increase contrasts with the negative medium-term comparison: recent direction breaks from the longer three-year path, while the five-year comparison still records net growth from its earlier base. Those are exact same-month backward-looking measurements, not a prediction or investment recommendation. The one-year result is especially important here because it establishes stabilization only over the most recent interval; it does not erase the broader negative three-year result.
History coverage is 100%, indicating full recorded coverage in this series. Its monthly return series has 2.58% annualized variability, showing that month-to-month rent-index movement was not fixed even when longer endpoints appear calm. Separately, the largest peak-to-trough decline was 3.46%, defining the deepest observed retreat in the recorded path. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs put stability at 847, momentum at 2,439, and the balanced measure at 2,021; a lower rank is higher. The stability placement is stronger than the momentum placement, but these remain discovery tools based on recorded history. Full coverage supports confidence in the record's completeness, while variability still limits the confidence appropriate for one current asking-rent snapshot.
Source definitions prevent false comparisons. The five-digit 80204 label is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match. A ZCTA is a statistical area; it is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. In the matched ACS 2024 five-year survey, median gross rent is $1,811 for occupied renter homes; this survey measure includes selected utilities and describes accumulated survey responses rather than current advertisements. It is 9.9% below the ZIP asking-rent index, a difference that is informative but not an apples-to-apples gap. The same ZCTA survey reports median household income of $84,829, a household measure with survey uncertainty, not a renter applicant's verified income.
Bedroom detail comes from a model rather than observed bedroom rents. Scaling ZIP ZORI with the supplied local HUD ladder produces modelled monthly ZIP estimates of $1,565 for a studio, $1,990 for two bedrooms, and $2,905 for four bedrooms; intervening bedroom estimates follow that same local scaling. HUD's two-bedroom standard is $2,089, leaving the modelled two-bedroom figure 4.7% lower. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent, and the estimates inherit both ZORI and that standard's relative ladder. Accordingly, this calculation should not be substituted for a unit-level rent comp or treated as a measured bedroom price.
An affordability arithmetic screen is also mixed. Applying a 30% rent-to-income share to the current monthly ZORI requires $79,600 in annual income; against the ZCTA median household income, the same ratio is 28.2%. This is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. In ACS burden data, 5,102 of 10,853 renter households, or 47.0%, report spending at least that share of income on rent. This survey aggregate cannot prove burden for any particular lease. For wider context only, the city of Denver asking-rent context is about $1,877, the Denver County asking-rent context is $1,889, and the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO metro asking-rent context is $1,930; all are below the ZIP index.
Tenure and vacancy set a separate structural context. Of the housing stock, 7,931 units are single-family and 8,135 are in large multifamily structures, indicating a mixed inventory by these broad structural categories. The ZCTA vacancy rate is 9.1%. This is a survey-category rate, not evidence that a particular building has an available apartment, a particular condition, or a concession. Renting is the majority tenure: renters account for 62.8% of occupied homes. That renter orientation, together with the burden result, describes area-level composition and reported household experience, not the price or availability of a specific unit.
Neither series identifies a specific home, landlord, lease, or sale comp. A property-level review would need the unit's advertised rent by bedroom, included utilities, lease start and term, concessions, actual availability, condition, and occupancy status; those details determine whether an advertised unit resembles the blended ZORI. For a resale comparison, the relevant checks are property type, condition, sale date, list-price history, and whether nearby closed sales match the subject rather than the broad ZIP median. The central tension remains clear: recent asking-rent stabilization and area-level income arithmetic coexist with a lower ZIP resale price and sub-list average sales signal. That resale evidence challenges any attempt to read rent history and the affordability screen as a single market condition.
","findings":[{"body":"ZIP ZORI's small latest-year increase contrasts with the negative three-year annualized change and with Redfin's lower median sold price. The evidence does not establish a link between rental and resale activity: the former is a blended asking-rent index, while the latter is a rolling resale observation. It shows why a rent-only reading would be incomplete.","title":"Rent stabilization conflicts with resale softness"},{"body":"Bedroom figures are generated by scaling the ZIP rent index with HUD's local bedroom ladder. That makes the schedule useful for consistently framing size differences, but it does not observe leases or advertisements for a studio, one-bedroom, or larger unit. HUD standards are administrative and cannot substitute for subject-property rental evidence.","title":"The bedroom schedule is a model, not a comp"},{"body":"Area-level arithmetic and reported burden answer different questions. The income screen compares the ZIP asking-rent index with a ZCTA median household-income statistic; it does not identify a household's income or qualifications. The burden share instead summarizes surveyed renter households reporting a threshold rent share. Neither measure establishes affordability, payment stress, or lease terms for a particular available unit.","title":"Area arithmetic masks heterogeneous burden"},{"body":"Complete historical coverage means the past ZORI series has no reported missing portion, which supports interpretation of its stated history measures. Yet its variability and peak-to-trough decline show that asking-rent snapshots moved over time. The discovery ranks are relative among eligible ZIPs, have no supplied percentile denominator, and remain descriptive rather than predictive.","title":"History is complete but one-point precision remains limited"}],"risks":["The ZIP market label and matched ZCTA do not share the same operational definition as a USPS delivery ZIP, creating geographic-boundary risk when matching a subject address to these area statistics.","ZORI is blended across rental types, while bedroom figures are modelled from an administrative HUD ladder; unusual unit size, utilities, concessions, condition, or lease timing can make a property materially unlike either measure.","ACS vacancy, tenure, income, and burden measures are multi-year survey aggregates with sampling uncertainty. They cannot establish current availability, rent burden, household income, or lease outcomes for a particular apartment.","Redfin resale figures use a rolling ZIP for-sale window. Sale price, marketing time, supply, and sale-to-list outcomes may not match the subject property type, condition, transaction timing, or rental market."],"qa":[{"a":"ZORI is a current ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. ACS is a matched ZCTA five-year survey of occupied renter homes, and median gross rent includes selected utilities. Their time frames, geographies, populations, and rent definitions differ, so the comparison is contextual rather than a unit-for-unit measure.","q":"Why should Zillow ZORI not be treated as the ACS median gross rent?"},{"a":"The positive one-year same-month change contrasts with the negative three-year annualized measure, while the five-year measure remains positive. This records a recent directional break from the medium-term endpoint path, not a prediction. Full historical coverage improves confidence that the series is complete, but monthly variability means one current index level remains only one observation.","q":"What does the history say about the most recent rent direction?"},{"a":"No. They are modelled monthly ZIP estimates produced by scaling the blended ZIP ZORI with the supplied local HUD bedroom ladder. They are neither observed listings nor signed leases. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, so this combined calculation cannot replace subject-property rent evidence, including utilities, concessions, and lease terms.","q":"Are the bedroom figures observed rents for available units?"},{"a":"It should remain a direct rolling ZIP for-sale observation. Its price, activity, marketing, inventory, supply, and sale-to-list signals inform the resale universe, not rental transactions. Dividing annualized ZORI by median sold price creates only a cross-source screen. It does not establish property-level rental economics or demonstrate that sales conditions caused rent movement.","q":"How should Redfin's resale data be used alongside 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 fallback","release":"ZIP-CBSA 2025Q4 + SAFMR 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