A split signal defines ZIP 80206: Zillow’s current typical asking-rent index is $1,835 per month, down 2.8% from a year earlier, while Redfin’s direct ZIP resale observation reports a $1,037,765 median sold price, up 14.3% year over year. Those movements describe different markets and should not be blended into one conclusion. The rent reading is an asking-rent index, whereas the sale figure comes from completed for-sale transactions. Still, the contrast is decision-relevant: the latest rent snapshot is softer than last year, even as the reported resale-price measure is higher.
The backward-looking Zillow rent history supports the cooling designation. The exact same-month one-year change is negative 2.8%, the three-year annualized change is negative 0.5%, and the five-year annualized change remains positive 2.2%. Thus, recent direction breaks from the longer five-year path rather than confirming it. Annualized variability of monthly ZORI returns is 2.5%, indicating a relatively contained historical range around the trend, but the maximum drawdown was 3.7%, showing that declines have occurred. History coverage is 100%. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs place momentum at 2,797, stability at 648, and the balanced measure at 2,255; these are sorting tools, not forecasts or investment recommendations. The cooling path means one current rent reading deserves moderate rather than absolute confidence.
Zillow ZORI is a ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, not a survey median of occupied homes. The matched ACS five-year ZCTA survey reports median gross rent of $1,764, which is 4.0% below ZORI and includes selected utilities for occupied renter homes. The ZIP label is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match; a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. For wider context, the Denver city-scope asking-rent measure is $1,877, the Denver County county-scope measure is $1,889, and the Denver-Aurora-Lakewood, CO metro-scope measure is $1,930. Those wider geographies are context only, not substitutes for ZIP evidence.
The bedroom figures are modelled estimates, not measured bedroom rents. They scale the ZIP ZORI through the local HUD bedroom ladder: $1,443 for a studio, $1,541 for one bedroom, $1,835 for two bedrooms, $2,402 for three bedrooms, and $2,678 for four bedrooms. The local HUD two-bedroom standard is $2,089, placing the modelled two-bedroom estimate below that benchmark. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than asking rent, so its role here is to provide the scaling structure and a separate benchmark. Neither the ladder nor the HUD standard establishes the actual rent, utilities, condition, or availability of a specific listing.
A broad income and burden screen gives the rent figures a second tension. Applying a 30% rent-to-income arithmetic screen to current ZORI produces required annual income of $73,400, while the ZCTA’s median household income is $101,594 and the monthly asking-rent index equals 21.7% of that income when annualized. This is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. Meanwhile, 3,034 of 7,501 renter households, or 40.4%, reported spending at least 30% of income on rent in the ACS survey. That household burden measure does not contradict the broad income screen; it instead reflects a different occupied-renter survey universe, income distribution, and gross-rent measure.
The housing base provides context without proving current availability. The ZCTA reports 15,314 housing units and 1,250 vacant units, for an 8.2% vacancy rate. Its stock includes 5,546 single-family units and 5,666 units in large multifamily structures, while renter households form a meaningful portion of occupied housing. Vacancy is an area-level status measure, not evidence that a particular rental is open, competitively priced, or suitable for a prospective household. Likewise, the composition counts describe the reported housing stock rather than a current listing inventory or a direct measure of lease-up conditions.
Redfin’s rolling-three-month observation is direct ZIP resale evidence, not rental transactions. It records 121 homes sold with a median marketing time of 21 days, inventory of 156 homes after a 6.8% annual increase, and 3.9 months of supply. Sale-to-list results averaged 98.6%; 17.0% of sales closed above list, while 41.9% went off market within two weeks. These measures describe resale liquidity and seller-buyer outcomes, not rental demand. The resale evidence challenges a simple reading of the rent, history, and affordability screens: cooling asking-rent history and a broad income screen do not move in step with the reported resale-price increase. Neither series establishes why the other moved.
The annualized ZIP ZORI divided by Redfin’s median sold price produces a 2.12% cross-source screening ratio only. It is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield because it omits operating costs, financing, taxes, insurance, vacancy experience, lease terms, and property-specific rent. The most useful property-level checks are the actual asking rents for comparable bedroom counts, utility responsibility, lease concessions and duration, condition, marketing status, and the relevant sale record. Readers should also verify whether the property’s location and type match the ZIP-level index and ZCTA survey coverage. The unresolved question is whether a specific property’s observed terms resemble these broad, deliberately separate evidence universes?
","findings":[{"body":"The latest Zillow asking-rent index is lower than a year earlier, and the one-year and three-year rent-history measures are negative. Redfin’s direct ZIP resale series, however, reports a higher median sold price than a year earlier. These are separate evidence universes, but their divergence is the central measured tension in this ZIP.","title":"Cooling rent signal versus firmer resale price signal"},{"body":"Studio through four-bedroom figures are modelled from ZIP ZORI using the local HUD bedroom ladder. They offer a consistent way to scale the ZIP asking-rent index across bedroom counts, but they do not measure achieved rents, listing rents, utilities, concessions, unit quality, or the availability of a particular home.","title":"Bedroom ladder is a model, not a rent survey"},{"body":"The required-income calculation applies a fixed rent-to-income formula to current asking rent. ACS burden, in contrast, measures occupied renter households reporting a specified share of income devoted to gross rent. The broad screen can appear less restrictive than the burden share because the source population, rent definition, time basis, and income distribution differ.","title":"Income screen and renter burden answer different questions"},{"body":"Redfin’s homes sold, days on market, supply, inventory, sale-to-list, above-list, and off-market measures describe ZIP for-sale activity over a rolling three-month window. They are useful for describing resale liquidity and transaction signals, but they are not rental comparables and cannot establish the economics or terms of a rental property.","title":"Resale liquidity remains a separate check"}],"risks":["The asking-rent index blends rental types and represents a typical ZIP-level observed asking-rent measure, so it may not match a specific building, bedroom count, utility package, lease term, condition level, or currently available unit.","ACS estimates are five-year survey measures for the matched statistical ZCTA and have survey uncertainty. They describe occupied households rather than current listings, and the ZCTA boundary is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP.","The reported vacancy rate and housing-stock counts are area-level measures. They cannot establish that a particular unit is vacant, rentable, competitively priced, appropriately maintained, or available on terms resembling the ZIP index.","The resale-price screening ratio combines annualized asking rent with a median sold price from a separate Redfin transaction universe. It omits property costs and property characteristics, so it should not be interpreted as a property-level performance measure."],"qa":[{"a":"They measure different universes. Zillow ZORI is a current ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey measure for occupied renter homes in the matched ZCTA and includes selected utilities. Timing, occupied-versus-asking status, rental mix, and utility treatment can all produce a difference.","q":"Why do Zillow asking rent and ACS median gross rent differ?"},{"a":"No. The studio through four-bedroom figures are modelled monthly ZIP estimates created by scaling Zillow ZORI with the local HUD bedroom ladder. They should not be treated as measured rents, achieved lease terms, or quotations for available units. Actual listings can differ by utilities, condition, concessions, location, building type, and lease structure.","q":"Are the bedroom estimates observed rents for available units?"},{"a":"The screen simply divides annualized current asking rent by 30% to show the income associated with that arithmetic threshold. It is not affordability advice, a household budget assessment, a lending decision, or an applicant qualification rule. Actual household circumstances depend on income sources, debts, utilities, household size, and the specific lease terms.","q":"What does the required-income screen mean?"},{"a":"Use Redfin to describe the direct ZIP for-sale market: sold price, sales count, marketing time, inventory, supply, and sale-to-list signals. Use Zillow and ACS to describe their respective rent universes. Comparing them can surface tensions, but it cannot establish a causal relationship or translate resale outcomes into rental transactions, expenses, or property-specific economics.","q":"How should the Redfin resale evidence be used alongside rent evidence?"}],"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 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