The central tension in this ZIP is not a single quoted rent but the gap between a current asking-rent signal and an occupied-home survey. In June 2026, Zillow’s ZIP-level ZORI is $1,439 per month. ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, so it identifies the current ZIP asking-rent level rather than the price of a specified vacant unit. That distinction matters because a prospective lease may differ in bedroom count, utility treatment, condition, or concessions. The comparisons below keep the evidence systems separate instead of treating any one figure as a universal market rent.
The matched Census ZCTA’s ACS 2024 five-year median gross rent is $1,176, placing the current ZORI 22.4% higher. ACS is a survey of occupied renter homes, and its median gross rent includes selected utilities; it is not a current asking-rent series. The five-digit label 83401 is both Zillow’s ZIP market identifier and the match used for the Census ZCTA. A ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. In a third universe, the FY2026 HUD FMR/SAFMR two-bedroom standard is $1,305. HUD’s bedroom-specific standard is administrative, not asking rent, so these comparisons cannot establish that an individual listing is mispriced.
To translate the ZIP-wide index into a unit-size frame, the local HUD ladder scales ZORI by each bedroom standard relative to the HUD two-bedroom point. The resulting modelled monthly estimates are $1,140 for a studio, $1,207 for one bedroom, $1,439 for two bedrooms, $2,001 for three bedrooms, and $2,414 for four bedrooms. They are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents: the method preserves local HUD bedroom relationships while anchoring them to the blended ZIP ZORI. A precise listing can land elsewhere because actual utilities, furnishings, lease length, and incentives are not inputs to this calculation. Use the ladder as a consistent comparison tool, not as a substitute for listing-specific terms.
An arithmetic affordability screen converts the monthly index to $57,560 of annual income at a 30% rent share. This is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule; it omits taxes, debts, household composition, deposits, and utility details. The ZCTA’s median household income is $78,497, useful only as a broad benchmark rather than a tenant-income reading. Separately, ACS records 1,322 of 3,875 renter households, or 34.1%, with gross-rent burdens at or above that threshold. That survey burden does not establish the costs, income, availability, or affordability of a particular unit today.
The ACS ZCTA housing stock contains 16,447 units, including 733 vacant units, for a 4.5% vacancy rate. Renter households make up 24.7% of occupied units. The structure count includes 12,477 single-family units and 347 units in larger multifamily buildings, a composition relevant to interpreting a blended rent index but not a count of rental listings. Among vacancies, 147 units are classified for rent. That category does not prove a current unit is available, comparable, priced at ZORI, or suitable for a given household; neither does the overall vacancy measure.
For wider context only, the Idaho Falls city-context rent value is $1,382.64, the Bonneville County-context rent value is $1,415, and the Idaho Falls, ID metro-context rent value is $1,414. Each is below this ZIP’s index, but the city, county, and metro values have wider geographic scopes and cannot redefine the ZIP observation. Their roles are comparative rather than evidentiary for a property. Keeping the scope in view is particularly important where a city or metro summary may contain locations and rental mixes not represented by the ZIP index.
The Zillow history is complete for 67 observations and 66 consecutive monthly returns through the stated endpoint. Exact same-month ZORI changes annualize to 1.5% over one year, 1.8% over three years, and 4.2% over five years. The latest one-year direction remains positive, but its slower pace breaks from the longer path’s faster annualized growth. Annualized monthly-return variability was 3.2%, and maximum drawdown was 2.3%, which quantifies past movement around an index snapshot. Together with complete coverage, those measurements provide a bounded historical basis for confidence in one current snapshot, while leaving listing-specific uncertainty unresolved. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 1,707 for momentum, 1,964 for stability, and 2,091 for balanced history; lower ranks are higher. These are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations. Before relying on the index, check the property’s live advertised and concession-adjusted rent, bedroom count, lease term, included utilities, recurring fees, deposit, availability date, and address. Does that all-in property-level evidence fit the relevant modelled comparison?
","findings":[{"body":"June 2026 Zillow ZORI for ZIP 83401 is $1,439. It is a blended typical observed asking-rent index, not a lease quote for a specific bedroom count. The exact same-month annualized one-year change is 1.5%, positive but slower than the three-year and five-year rates. This identifies backward-looking deceleration in the series, not a forecast.","title":"Current asking-rent signal exceeds the survey median"},{"body":"ACS 2024 five-year median gross rent for the matched ZCTA is $1,176, and it includes selected utilities in occupied renter homes. That is a different universe from Zillow asking rents. The ZIP label is a ZCTA match for data purposes, but a ZCTA is a statistical area, not a USPS delivery ZIP, so disagreement is not automatically a pricing error.","title":"The ACS comparison is useful but not interchangeable"},{"body":"Using the local HUD bedroom ladder, the analysis models a two-bedroom ZIP estimate of $1,439 and a three-bedroom estimate of $2,001. HUD FMR/SAFMR is a bedroom-specific administrative standard, not asking rent. These are scaled modelled estimates, not measured rents, and actual listings may differ because lease terms, utilities, incentives, and condition are not represented.","title":"Bedroom figures are scaled model outputs"},{"body":"ACS reports 34.1% of renter households at a gross-rent burden of at least 30%, while the vacancy rate is 4.5%. Neither statistic determines a particular unit’s affordability or availability. The arithmetic $57,560 income screen is a comparison convention, not advice or a qualification standard; validate advertised rent, recurring charges, availability, and lease terms at the property.","title":"Burden and vacancy remain household-level context"}],"risks":["ZORI, ACS gross rent, and HUD FMR/SAFMR answer different questions and use different populations or rules. Combining them as though they were identical rents can distort a comparison of a current listing.","Because ZORI blends rental types and bedroom sizes, the proportional HUD ladder can diverge from an individual unit. It is a modelling device based on standards, not direct ZIP bedroom-rent measurement.","ACS estimates describe the matched ZCTA over a five-year survey period and include sampling uncertainty. The ZCTA-to-ZIP match is useful for context, but it does not create identical geography, timing, or population coverage.","History coverage and discovery ranks improve transparency, but they do not remove index revision, rental-mix, or listing-level uncertainty. Past changes, volatility, and drawdown are backward-looking and do not predict future rents or investment outcomes."],"qa":[{"a":"ZORI is a ZIP-level blended asking-rent index; ACS is a five-year ZCTA survey of occupied renter homes whose gross-rent measure includes selected utilities; HUD is an administrative bedroom standard. They can be compared for perspective, but their different timing, populations, and construction mean they should not be substituted for one another.","q":"Why do the Zillow, ACS, and HUD rents differ?"},{"a":"The bedroom figures are not direct observations. They apply the local HUD bedroom ladder proportionally to the ZIP-wide ZORI, generating modelled estimates. This gives a consistent studio-to-four-bedroom scale, but it cannot capture an individual property’s exact unit condition, furnishings, utilities, concessions, or lease length.","q":"Are the bedroom figures observed ZIP rents?"},{"a":"The latest exact same-month one-year annualized change is positive but slower than the three-year and five-year annualized rates. That is a backward-looking deceleration, not a forecast. Annualized volatility and maximum drawdown describe prior movement around monthly index observations; they help frame confidence in a current snapshot but cannot guarantee its future path.","q":"What does the slower one-year rent change mean?"},{"a":"Confirm the live advertised base rent and any concessions, then identify bedroom count, lease term, included utilities, recurring mandatory fees, deposit requirements, available date, and property address. These checks determine whether a specific offering is comparable to the ZIP index or the modelled ladder; vacancy and burden statistics cannot answer that unit-level question.","q":"Which property details should be checked before using these benchmarks?"}],"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 FY2026","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/usps_crosswalk.html"},{"key":"realtor_county","name":"Realtor.com Economic Research — county listing inventory","release":"county inventory 2026-06","pulledAt":"2026-07-28","url":"https://www.realtor.com/research/data/"},{"key":"redfin","name":"Redfin Data Center — inventory, days on market, and price cuts","release":"metro tracker through 2026-05-01","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/"},{"key":"redfin_zip","name":"Redfin Data Center — ZIP resale activity and supply","release":"ZIP rolling 3 months through 2026-06-30; updated 2026-07-03","pulledAt":"2026-08-12","url":"https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/"},{"key":"zillow_county","name":"Zillow ZHVI and ZORI — county values and rents","release":"county ZHVI/ZORI 2026-06","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"},{"key":"zillow_zori","name":"Zillow ZORI — metro market rents","release":"Metro_zori_uc_sfrcondomfr_sm_sa_month.csv","pulledAt":"2026-07-26","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"},{"key":"zillow_zori_city","name":"Zillow ZORI — city market rents","release":"zillow_zori_city.csv","pulledAt":"2026-07-29","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"},{"key":"zillow_zori_zip","name":"Zillow ZORI — ZIP market rents","release":"ZORI ZIP 2026-06","pulledAt":"2026-08-08","url":"https://www.zillow.com/research/data/"}],"history":[{"period":"2020-12-01","rent":1048.120678},{"period":"2021-01-01","rent":1067.975053},{"period":"2021-02-01","rent":1092.410532},{"period":"2021-03-01","rent":1104.376561},{"period":"2021-04-01","rent":1120.98735},{"period":"2021-05-01","rent":1142.21922},{"period":"2021-06-01","rent":1172.961045},{"period":"2021-07-01","rent":1192.347617},{"period":"2021-08-01","rent":1209.01838},{"period":"2021-09-01","rent":1249.21821},{"period":"2021-10-01","rent":1286.007462},{"period":"2021-11-01","rent":1298.444405},{"period":"2021-12-01","rent":1294.564291},{"period":"2022-01-01","rent":1309.27508},{"period":"2022-02-01","rent":1315.716253},{"period":"2022-03-01","rent":1342.769766},{"period":"2022-04-01","rent":1357.596469},{"period":"2022-05-01","rent":1368.951192},{"period":"2022-06-01","rent":1372.089695},{"period":"2022-07-01","rent":1368.609341},{"period":"2022-08-01","rent":1375.473754},{"period":"2022-09-01","rent":1351.238361},{"period":"2022-10-01","rent":1343.220435},{"period":"2022-11-01","rent":1349.607795},{"period":"2022-12-01","rent":1367.427183},{"period":"2023-01-01","rent":1358.591633},{"period":"2023-02-01","rent":1361.627674},{"period":"2023-03-01","rent":1363.33835},{"period":"2023-04-01","rent":1367.827224},{"period":"2023-05-01","rent":1367.59878},{"period":"2023-06-01","rent":1365.349449},{"period":"2023-07-01","rent":1377.843574},{"period":"2023-08-01","rent":1373.301603},{"period":"2023-09-01","rent":1388.349036},{"period":"2023-10-01","rent":1379.067897},{"period":"2023-11-01","rent":1382.154628},{"period":"2023-12-01","rent":1386.576279},{"period":"2024-01-01","rent":1402.439923},{"period":"2024-02-01","rent":1407.982068},{"period":"2024-03-01","rent":1401.233626},{"period":"2024-04-01","rent":1400.764912},{"period":"2024-05-01","rent":1400.79046},{"period":"2024-06-01","rent":1405.31331},{"period":"2024-07-01","rent":1398.758169},{"period":"2024-08-01","rent":1414.98062},{"period":"2024-09-01","rent":1418.504152},{"period":"2024-10-01","rent":1426.581837},{"period":"2024-11-01","rent":1414.062907},{"period":"2024-12-01","rent":1406.850579},{"period":"2025-01-01","rent":1412.778277},{"period":"2025-02-01","rent":1416.345334},{"period":"2025-03-01","rent":1423.581375},{"period":"2025-04-01","rent":1419.507967},{"period":"2025-05-01","rent":1420.029837},{"period":"2025-06-01","rent":1418.145234},{"period":"2025-07-01","rent":1421.927357},{"period":"2025-08-01","rent":1414.574061},{"period":"2025-09-01","rent":1412.640292},{"period":"2025-10-01","rent":1415.807051},{"period":"2025-11-01","rent":1426.224833},{"period":"2025-12-01","rent":1430.320767},{"period":"2026-01-01","rent":1423.906189},{"period":"2026-02-01","rent":1422.242539},{"period":"2026-03-01","rent":1423.37001},{"period":"2026-04-01","rent":1429.979005},{"period":"2026-05-01","rent":1434.15152},{"period":"2026-06-01","rent":1438.890476}],"historySummary":{"pointCount":67,"firstPeriod":"2020-12-01","latestPeriod":"2026-06-01","coverageMonths":67,"coverageRatio":1,"changes":{"1":{"years":1,"startPeriod":"2025-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1418.145234,"endRent":1438.890476,"change":0.014628432619334886,"cagr":0.014628432619334886},"3":{"years":3,"startPeriod":"2023-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1365.349449,"endRent":1438.890476,"change":0.05386242112146622,"cagr":0.017641101878204557},"5":{"years":5,"startPeriod":"2021-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":1172.961045,"endRent":1438.890476,"change":0.22671633651738188,"cagr":0.041714788990240725}},"maxDrawdown":-0.02344887999949441,"annualizedVolatility":0.03240554648703637,"consecutiveReturnCount":66}}