The June 2026 Zillow ZORI reading for 80526 was $2,007 per month, a 0.6% year-over-year increase. This label is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match; a ZCTA is a statistical area, not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, making it a current market-level asking-rent anchor rather than a quoted lease or a bedroom-specific observation. The immediate question is not whether the index rose—it did—but whether its recently muted pace fits the ZIP’s established path and the distinct resale and household measures available here.
The answer from the backward-looking exact same-month series is mixed in speed, not direction: the one-year change was 0.6%, versus annualized gains of 2.2% over three years and 4.6% over five years. Thus the latest reading continues a positive longer path but slows sharply relative to those earlier compounded windows; it neither supplies a forecast nor an investment conclusion. Coverage is 100%, so the full available history supports the calculation. Monthly movements annualize to 2.4% variability, which allows somewhat more confidence in one current snapshot than a highly erratic series would. The historical peak-to-trough decline reached 2.2%, an additional reminder that gradual growth still had setbacks. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 591 for stability, 1,831 for momentum, and 1,278 for the balanced measure; lower ranks are higher in those screens, not ratings of future performance.
The ZORI-to-ACS gap should not be read as a contradiction. In the matched Census ZCTA, the ACS five-year survey of occupied renter homes reported median gross rent of $1,667, with a $67 margin of error. Gross rent includes selected utilities and reflects survey-defined occupied renter homes, whereas ZORI tracks typical observed asks; the current ask index was 20.4% higher. The same ACS universe gives median household income of $88,686, with a $5,446 margin of error. Applying the current asking index to a 30% income screen produces $80,280 required annual income and a 27.2% asking-rent-to-median-income ratio. That is arithmetic, not affordability advice or an applicant qualification rule, and a median household is not interchangeable with an individual renter household.
HUD supplies a different tool. Its local FMR/SAFMR ladder is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than asking rent: $1,509 for a studio, $1,732 for two bedrooms, and $2,540 for four bedrooms. Scaling the ZIP ZORI by that local HUD ladder creates modelled monthly ZIP estimates—not measured bedroom rents—of $1,749 for a studio, $1,781 for one bedroom, $2,007 for two bedrooms, $2,764 for three bedrooms, and $2,943 for four bedrooms. The two-bedroom estimate equals the overall index because that rung is the scaling base, not because every two-bedroom asking rent was observed at that amount. These outputs are useful for size-normalized screening only; HUD FMR/SAFMR itself neither reports a current advertised price nor substitutes for a property’s rent comparable.
Household and stock measurements add a distributional caution. The matched ZCTA had 19,769 housing units in ACS, with a 3.1% vacancy rate; these are survey stock conditions, not Redfin listings or evidence of vacancy at a particular rental. Renters represented 43.0% of occupied homes. Within the ACS renter-home burden universe, 54.9% reported gross-rent burden at or above 30%. That statistic describes surveyed renter households, including the survey’s gross-rent definition, and cannot establish what any available unit costs or whether a particular renter would be burdened. It does, however, keep the median-income screen from standing alone: a ZIP-wide arithmetic ratio and a household burden distribution answer different questions.
Broader values are context rather than replacements for this ZIP’s data: the City of Fort Collins context asking-rent index was about $1,938, while the Larimer County and Fort Collins, CO metro context values were each $1,950. Each is below the ZIP ZORI, yet none is a ZIP rent comparable or a property-level observation. The city, county, and metro measures cover wider geographies with their own mixes of homes and listings. They help position the current index as relatively higher than these named benchmarks, but they do not reconcile the ACS gross-rent result with ZORI or establish a bedroom-specific market price. Scope, period, and construction of each series must remain visible in any comparison.
Resale evidence introduces the strongest cross-market tension. Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP for-sale observation reported a $534,379 median sold price, only 0.45% above a year earlier, alongside 175 homes sold and 45 median days on market. Reported inventory was 180 homes, up 34.0% year over year, with 3.1 months of supply. Sale-to-list signals were an average 99.89% sale-to-list ratio and a 28.85% share sold above list. These are for-sale transactions and marketing conditions, never rental transactions or rental comparables. Relative to the ZIP’s still-positive but decelerating asking-rent history, limited sale-price movement and a larger resale inventory challenge an automatic reading of the rent series as a broad property-market signal. They do not identify a direction for either market.
Finally, annualizing ZIP ZORI and dividing it by the Redfin median sold price produces a 4.5% cross-source screening ratio. It links unlike sources and excludes property expenses, financing, utility responsibility, condition, lease concessions, and actual operating income, so it is not a property-level return measure. No historical, ACS, HUD, or Redfin field here forecasts a rent, sale price, vacancy, or household outcome. Before applying these ZIP signals to a specific address, verify bedroom count and layout, current advertised comparables and included utilities, lease terms, unit condition, actual vacancy or occupancy, and directly comparable recent sales with list and marketing details. Those checks determine whether the separate market-level measurements are relevant to the property under review.
","findings":[{"body":"June Zillow ZORI of $2,007 was higher than the named city, county, and metro context values, while its year-over-year movement was only 0.6%. The longer historical record remains positive, but deceleration is the operative tension. ZORI is an asking-rent index blended across rental types, so this finding concerns market-level advertised-rent behavior rather than the achieved rent of a given home.","title":"Current rent is elevated relative to wider contexts, but slowing"},{"body":"The ACS ZCTA median gross rent of $1,667 captures occupied renter homes in a five-year survey and includes selected utilities. HUD’s bedroom standards are administrative FMR/SAFMR values, while the ZIP bedroom estimates are modelled by scaling ZORI to the HUD ladder. These measures provide context and size normalization, but none constitutes observed bedroom-specific asking rent.","title":"ACS and HUD answer different rental questions"},{"body":"The 30% screen converts the ZIP asking index into an $80,280 required-income calculation; it is neither advice nor a qualification rule. Median income is a household-wide ZCTA survey statistic, while the 54.9% burden figure is a survey distribution among renter homes. The two figures cannot reveal affordability, income, or burden for a named applicant or available property.","title":"Burden keeps median-income arithmetic in context"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale data show slow annual median price movement alongside larger inventory and measurable sales activity. Because the evidence is limited to for-sale observations, it cannot be used as rental comp evidence. The annualized ZORI-to-sale-price calculation is simply a cross-source screen; expenses, financing, and property condition are outside it.","title":"Resale conditions challenge a simple rent-to-price narrative"}],"risks":["ZORI measures typical observed asking rent across rental types, not a signed lease, and its ZIP market identifier does not turn the ZCTA’s survey households into USPS delivery-ZIP records.","ACS five-year rent, income, vacancy, and burden figures have survey scope and stated margins of error; they cannot prove utilities, vacancy, rent, or burden for a specific address.","HUD FMR/SAFMR standards and scaled bedroom outputs should not be treated as observed current bedroom rents; individual layout, utilities, condition, and lease terms remain unmeasured.","Redfin resale observations cover for-sale activity only. The rent-to-price screen leaves out property-level expenses, condition, concessions, and actual operating income, so it cannot establish property economics or forecast resale or rent outcomes."],"qa":[{"a":"ZORI is the current ZIP-level typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. The ACS five-year estimate is a matched ZCTA survey of occupied renter homes, and its gross-rent concept includes selected utilities. Therefore the $2,007 and $1,667 figures use different populations, timing, and rent definitions; the difference does not measure lease growth or error in either source.","q":"Why do ZORI and ACS gross rent differ?"},{"a":"No. The studio through four-bedroom figures were modelled by rescaling the overall ZIP ZORI according to the local HUD FMR/SAFMR ladder. HUD supplies administrative bedroom-specific standards, not listing observations. Thus $2,764 for a modelled three-bedroom is a size-normalized estimate, not evidence that a current three-bedroom home was advertised or leased at that amount.","q":"Are the bedroom estimates actual measured rents?"},{"a":"Multiplying $2,007 by twelve and applying the 30% threshold yields $80,280 required annual income. It is transparent arithmetic against the ZCTA median household income of $88,686, but does not assess a tenant’s income, debts, household size, utilities, eligibility, or actual unit. The ACS burden share remains a population survey statistic rather than applicant-level evidence.","q":"What does the required-income screen show?"},{"a":"It is annualized ZIP ZORI divided by the direct ZIP Redfin median sold price, linking an asking-rent index to rolling-three-month resale data. It is solely a cross-source screen. It contains no property operating income, expenses, financing, condition, concessions, or transaction-specific rent; it cannot represent property economics or predict sale-price and asking-rent changes.","q":"How should the 4.5% rent-to-price screen be used?"}],"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 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