The clearest measured tension is that the ZIP’s rent screen sits near the reported household-income midpoint while its resale price belongs to a much larger, separate for-sale market. Zillow places the current ZIP ZORI at $2,823, up 2.03% from a year earlier. ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, rather than a lease-level median or a utility-inclusive household cost. A 30% income screen converts that monthly index into $112,920 of annual income, close to the reported $113,269 median household income; the index itself equals 29.9% of that median income. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by the later Redfin sold-price measure produces a 3.69% cross-source screening ratio only, not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield. The required-income screen is arithmetic, not advice or an applicant qualification rule.
The historical path supports continued rent growth but not the faster pace implied by the longer record. The one-year exact same-month change is 2.03%, the three-year exact same-month annualized change is 1.43%, and the five-year exact same-month annualized change is 3.52%. Thus, recent direction confirms the longer upward path, but the current one-year pace exceeds the three-year rate while remaining below the five-year rate. Annualized monthly-return variability is 3.37%, which argues for moderate caution when treating one current index reading as a precise market clearing price. Separately, the maximum drawdown was 4.19%, showing a contained historical pullback rather than an uninterrupted climb. Coverage is complete across 93 observations. Transparent national discovery ranks are 1,639 for momentum, 2,115 for stability, and 2,118 for the balanced measure, where lower ranks are higher; these backward-looking measurements are not forecasts or investment recommendations.
Bedroom estimates should be read as a modelling device, not as measured rents from separate bedroom samples. Scaling ZIP ZORI through the supplied local HUD ladder produces modelled monthly estimates of $1,947 for a studio, $2,151 for a one-bedroom, $2,823 for a two-bedroom, $3,595 for a three-bedroom, and $4,209 for a four-bedroom. The two-bedroom estimate matches the ZIP index because that is the model’s anchor, not because Zillow observed an independent two-bedroom median at that amount. HUD’s local bedroom ladder lists a $3,315 two-bedroom standard and a $4,942 four-bedroom standard. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard used for program purposes, not asking rent, so the ladder supplies relative scaling rather than direct rental comparables.
The five-digit label 94558 is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a matched Census ZCTA; a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. In the ACS 2024 five-year survey, median gross rent was $2,385. That measure concerns occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, making it a different evidence universe from Zillow’s current asking-rent index; the Zillow figure is 18.4% higher, which need not indicate a contradiction. ACS counted 7,979 renter households, of which 4,165, or 52.2%, reported spending at least 30% of income on gross rent. That burden measure describes surveyed renter households, not the affordability, lease terms, or payment burden of a particular available unit. It does, however, put the near-median-income arithmetic screen in a broader occupied-household context.
Housing composition and vacancy add another constraint on how much can be inferred from the index. The matched ZCTA contains 27,493 housing units and has a 10.8% vacancy rate. Of the enumerated vacant units, 614 were classified for rent and 1,551 as seasonal, so the overall vacancy figure should not be treated as a count of immediately competing long-term rentals. The structure inventory includes 20,654 single-family units and 2,157 units in larger multifamily structures. Renters account for 32.5% of occupied homes. These figures describe stock and survey classifications across the ZCTA, not unit condition, turnover timing, landlord pricing, or the availability of a particular property. They therefore temper, rather than validate, conclusions drawn from a single asking-rent snapshot.
Wider-area comparisons place the ZIP reading only modestly above nearby asking-rent context, but they do not replace ZIP evidence. Napa city context has an asking-rent index of about $2,781, Napa County context has an asking-rent index of $2,815, and Napa, CA metro context has an asking-rent index of $2,815; those city, county, and metro values are wider-geography context rather than ZIP estimates. The city figure, county figure, and metro figure may contain different mixes of homes and listings from the ZIP index. Their closeness suggests that the current ZIP index is not isolated from its broader comparison set, yet it does not establish whether an individual home, bedroom type, or lease offering should price at the ZIP-level figure.
Redfin provides a direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation, which belongs strictly to the for-sale market rather than rental transactions. Its median sold price was $918,792, down 0.67% year over year, with 174 homes sold. Marketing time was 57 days on market, a direct measure of observed resale exposure time rather than rental turnover. Inventory stood at 303 homes and months of supply were 5.3. Sale-to-list signals were restrained: the average sale-to-list ratio was 97.25%, while 12.44% of sales closed above list. These resale liquidity measures neither supply rental comps nor establish property economics. Still, the modest sold-price decline and below-list typical transaction challenge any simplistic reading that continued rent-index growth necessarily coincides with uniformly strengthening resale conditions. Redfin resale evidence also cannot validate the ZORI-to-price screening ratio beyond its limited cross-source use.
The evidence supports a bounded reading rather than a single verdict: asking rents have risen over each reported historical horizon, household burden remains substantial in the ACS renter survey, and resale signals are more measured than the rent history alone might imply. Before applying the ZIP-level figures to a property, confirm the address’s actual market and ZCTA match, the offered bedroom count, property type, listed rent, lease duration, included utilities, concessions, availability date, and condition. Compare contemporaneous asking listings only with similar homes, and distinguish them from executed Redfin sales. Review sale records for listing revisions, property characteristics, and transaction timing before treating a median sold price as relevant to a specific home. Finally, use the HUD ladder only as an administrative scaling input and retain the distinction among modelled bedroom estimates, observed asking-rent index data, occupied-household survey data, and resale observations.
","findings":[{"body":"The ZIP’s one-year Zillow rent change is positive and faster than its three-year annualized rate, while the five-year annualized rate remains higher. That pattern supports an upward historical direction but shows that the recent pace is not identical to the longer-run path. Complete historical coverage improves continuity, although monthly variability limits confidence in any one current index value.","title":"Rent growth remains positive but has moderated versus the longest window"},{"body":"The income required for a 30% screen on current Zillow asking rent is close to the ACS median household income for the matched ZCTA. Meanwhile, more than half of surveyed renter households reported gross-rent burdens at or above that threshold. The screen is not an applicant standard, and ACS burden results cannot identify the circumstances of a particular rental unit.","title":"Affordability arithmetic and renter burden point to a narrow margin"},{"body":"The studio-through-four-bedroom figures are modelled ZIP estimates created by scaling the overall Zillow index through the local HUD ladder. They are not separately observed bedroom rents. HUD FMR or SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard and not asking-rent evidence, so its value here is to establish a transparent relative ladder rather than to substitute for market listings.","title":"Bedroom figures are modelled from HUD-relative scaling"},{"body":"Redfin’s direct ZIP resale observation shows a slightly lower median sold price year over year, marketing time measured in weeks rather than days, supply above five months, and a typical sale-to-list result below full list price. Those facts remain for-sale evidence only, but they challenge any assumption that positive rent-index movement automatically signals comparable resale-market strength.","title":"Resale evidence introduces caution to the rent-only reading"}],"risks":["A ZIP-level Zillow asking-rent index blends rental types and does not reveal the condition, concessions, included utilities, availability timing, lease terms, or actual executed rent for a specific property.","The ACS ZCTA survey describes occupied renter households over a five-year collection framework, while the Zillow ZIP index tracks asking rents; geographic and universe differences prevent direct equivalence.","Modelled bedroom estimates inherit both the overall ZIP index and the local HUD ladder, so they can be useful for proportional screening but cannot replace current bedroom-specific listing evidence.","Redfin resale measures describe completed ZIP home sales and listing-market conditions, not rental transactions; the rent-to-price screening ratio excludes expenses, financing, taxes, insurance, maintenance, and property-specific characteristics."],"qa":[{"a":"Zillow ZORI is a current typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, whereas ACS median gross rent is a five-year survey estimate for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. Different timing, household status, rent concepts, and geographic construction mean the values answer different questions rather than competing for the same measurement.","q":"Why can Zillow ZORI be higher than ACS median gross rent without creating a data conflict?"},{"a":"It is a simple arithmetic conversion of monthly Zillow asking rent into an annual income level using a 30% share of income. It is not affordability advice, a lender standard, a landlord policy, or an applicant qualification rule. Actual household affordability depends on income, expenses, utilities, lease terms, and other facts not contained here.","q":"What does the required-income screen mean in this report?"},{"a":"No. They are modelled monthly ZIP estimates that scale the overall Zillow ZORI through the supplied local HUD bedroom ladder. The model provides a transparent relative relationship among bedroom counts, but it does not measure separate studio, one-bedroom, two-bedroom, three-bedroom, or four-bedroom asking-rent samples in the ZIP.","q":"Are the bedroom rent figures observed market rents?"},{"a":"Use them only as direct ZIP for-sale context. Median sold price, marketing time, inventory, supply, and sale-to-list outcomes describe resale transactions and listing-market conditions, not rental activity. The annualized ZORI-to-price figure is a cross-source screening ratio, not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield.","q":"How should the Redfin resale metrics 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 fallback","release":"ZIP-CBSA 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