The clearest tension in 94602 is between a rent-to-price screening reading and the ZIP resale measures, rather than a demonstrated fact about any property’s economics. Zillow’s June 2026 ZIP ZORI is $2,382 per month; annualizing that index and dividing by Redfin’s $1,199,729 median sold price gives 2.38%. This is only a cross-source screening ratio, not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield. The five-digit label is simultaneously Zillow’s ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match. A ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. Dates, geographic definitions, and what each source observes matter before these otherwise contrasting signals are read together.
Zillow’s index is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, so it is not a survey of occupied renter homes or a measured bedroom-rent series. The ZIP figure sits below the Oakland city context asking-rent value of $2,613.69, the Alameda County context value of $2,895, and the San Francisco-Oakland-Berkeley, CA metro context value of $3,301; every comparator is wider-scope context rather than a ZIP substitute. That gap simply situates the current asking index in those separate geographies. It neither converts the city, county, or metro figures into local listings nor identifies a reason for the difference. The ZIP index provides the current typical asking-rent reading, while the named broader values remain context.
The matched Census ZCTA’s ACS 2024 five-year median gross rent is $1,996. This is a survey measure for occupied renter homes, includes selected utilities, and differs in timing, population, and construct from ZORI; accordingly, it should not be treated as an asking-rent quote. Under a 30% screen, current ZORI implies $95,280 in annual income, while the ZCTA’s survey median household income is $122,263, making the index-equivalent arithmetic 23.4% of that income. This 30% exercise is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. ACS also estimates 50.0% of renter households were rent burdened at 30% or more. That burden statistic describes surveyed households, never proof that a particular available unit is affordable or burdensome.
Bedroom figures require another boundary. The local HUD ladder scales the ZIP ZORI into modelled monthly estimates of $1,642 for a studio, $1,968 for one bedroom, $2,382 for two, $3,043 for three, and $3,154 for four. These are modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents: the two-bedroom anchor is the ZIP index and the other levels follow relative local HUD standards. The relevant HUD two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR is $3,604, putting the ZORI at 66.1% of that standard. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent. The difference is therefore a source-definition result, not evidence that a specific two-bedroom is marketed at either figure.
The historical view uses direct Zillow ZIP ZORI observations through the stated endpoint and is backward-looking, not a forecast or investment recommendation. Exact same-month annualized changes were 6.48% over one year, 2.02% over three years, and 2.40% over five years. The latest pace accelerates above both multi-year paths; it breaks from their slower growth rate rather than confirming a uniform trend. Coverage is 100%, while annualized monthly-return variability is 3.02%, meaning a current index snapshot carries some month-to-month movement rather than point precision. Separately, the maximum peak-to-trough drawdown was 3.38%, a bounded historical decline that does not promise future resilience. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs are 729 for momentum, 1,654 for stability, and 873 for balanced history, with lower ranks higher. These descriptive ranks and the variability support measured confidence in the present reading, not extrapolation.
ACS ZCTA housing data frame the renter base without identifying vacancies at individual buildings. Of 13,192 housing units, 696 were vacant, a 5.3% vacancy rate; these survey counts cover all tenure and vacancy categories rather than a real-time rental-availability measure. Renters occupied 39.8% of occupied homes. Housing stock included 8,771 single-family units, which gives useful composition context but does not determine the rent of a given unit. The vacant-for-rent count should not be inferred from total vacancy or used as proof of marketing conditions for a particular address. Compared with the broader Oakland city context, whose stated vacancy rate is higher in the packet, the ZCTA reading is lower, but the two remain distinct ACS geographies and dates.
Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation provides resale-liquidity indicators in a for-sale market record, not rental transactions. The $1,199,729 median sold price rose 2.32% year over year; the observation logged 67 homes sold with a 14-day median marketing time and 46 homes of inventory. Months of supply stood at 2.1. Average sale-to-list was 127.32%, and 81.62% of sales were above list, signals that must remain in the resale universe rather than be relabeled as rent comparables. In that same limited resale record, the fast marketing and sale-to-list signals sit uneasily beside the 2.38% rent-price screen and the slower three- and five-year rent history. Thus the resale evidence challenges any mechanical reading of that screen, but it does not validate a rental income assumption, explain household burden, or measure a unit’s cash flow.
Several limits prevent a property conclusion. ZORI is a blended ZIP asking index; ACS gross rent is a retrospective five-year survey of occupied renters with selected utilities; HUD supplies a standard; and Redfin tracks ZIP resales over a rolling period. None establishes the asking price, bedroom count, utilities, condition, floor area, lease terms, occupancy, or realized sale terms of a particular home. A property-level file would need the contemporaneous advertised rent for the actual bedroom count, clear utility treatment, current availability, and comparable same-period listings. For a resale comparison, it would also need the individual sale record, list history, marketing time, and terms rather than the ZIP median. The useful unresolved question is whether those unit-specific facts line up with the separate rental, affordability, and resale measures without treating any one as proof of another.
","findings":[{"body":"Zillow’s current ZIP asking index annualizes to a 2.38% ratio against Redfin’s median sold price. Because one input is a blended asking-rent index and the other is a rolling resale median, the result only flags a contrast for screening. It cannot represent operating costs, financing, unit condition, or transaction-level rental economics.","title":"Resale strength does not become rental economics"},{"body":"The exact same-month growth rate reached 6.48% over one year, above the 2.02% and 2.40% annualized rates over the longer windows. That is acceleration in the historical series, not a projection. Monthly-return variability and the stability discovery rank mean the current ZORI level should be read as a measured snapshot with uncertainty around month-to-month movement.","title":"Recent asking-rent growth accelerated"},{"body":"ACS burden and median gross rent describe occupied renter households in the matched ZCTA across a five-year survey, while ZORI describes typical observed asking rents at the ZIP market level. The 30% income calculation is only arithmetic against an index. These measures can illuminate population-level pressure, but none determines an applicant’s eligibility or a particular unit’s cost.","title":"Affordability measures describe different populations"},{"body":"The studio-through-four-bedroom figures are generated by applying the relative local HUD bedroom ladder to the ZIP ZORI. They preserve a consistent scaling rule, but they are modelled estimates rather than observed rents. HUD FMR/SAFMR itself is an administrative standard. A listing with a stated bedroom count can depart from both the modelled ladder and the HUD amount.","title":"Bedroom figures are modelled, not observed"}],"risks":["ZCTA and USPS delivery ZIP boundaries are not identical, so a result linked to the matched ZCTA may not describe every delivery address carrying the 94602 ZIP label. This geographic mismatch cannot be corrected with the supplied aggregates.","Complete historical coverage improves continuity, but the history remains a backward-looking asking-rent index rather than evidence of future rent direction, lease outcomes, or the durability of any recent acceleration.","A vacancy rate, a renter burden share, and a vacant-for-rent count are area-level survey measures. They cannot establish that a particular building, unit, or lease opportunity is vacant, affordable, or representative.","Direct Redfin resale metrics describe a limited rolling ZIP for-sale observation. High sale-to-list signals and shorter marketing times do not measure rental demand, signed rents, operating costs, or individual property cash flow."],"qa":[{"a":"They answer different questions. Zillow 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 its median gross rent includes selected utilities. Timing, geography, population, and inclusion rules differ, so the gap is not a measurement error or a unit-level rent comparison.","q":"Why do the Zillow and ACS rent figures differ?"},{"a":"No. The bedroom values begin with ZIP ZORI and scale it with relative local HUD FMR/SAFMR amounts. The two-bedroom modelled amount equals the index anchor by construction, while other bedroom figures are proportional estimates. They are standardized modelled estimates and cannot establish the advertised rent, size, utilities, or condition of an actual unit.","q":"Are the bedroom amounts direct ZIP rent observations?"},{"a":"At the ZORI, multiplying monthly asking rent by twelve and applying 30% produces the stated annual income equivalent. It simply presents arithmetic against an index and a broad income benchmark. It does not assess a household’s actual income, debt, assets, family composition, or application criteria, and it is neither financial advice nor a qualification rule.","q":"What does the 30% required-income screen mean?"},{"a":"Redfin reports the ZIP’s rolling-three-month resale activity: sold price, price change, homes sold, marketing time, inventory, months of supply, and sale-to-list outcomes. It does not report rental listings, signed leases, or occupancy. Its above-list and marketing-time figures therefore describe the observed for-sale sample and can only sit beside ZORI as a cross-source tension, not as rental comparables or a property-level cash-flow finding.","q":"What does the Redfin record say about the local market?"}],"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":"2020-05-01","rent":2090.91771},{"period":"2020-06-01","rent":2115.716021},{"period":"2020-07-01","rent":2101.698274},{"period":"2020-08-01","rent":2119.487756},{"period":"2020-09-01","rent":2113.611202},{"period":"2020-10-01","rent":2099.931298},{"period":"2020-11-01","rent":2087.418863},{"period":"2020-12-01","rent":2048.09186},{"period":"2021-01-01","rent":2071.204713},{"period":"2021-02-01","rent":2053.137675},{"period":"2021-03-01","rent":2069.11687},{"period":"2021-04-01","rent":2073.942979},{"period":"2021-05-01","rent":2095.965036},{"period":"2021-06-01","rent":2116.018929},{"period":"2021-07-01","rent":2119.929799},{"period":"2021-08-01","rent":2101.669348},{"period":"2021-09-01","rent":2118.367239},{"period":"2021-10-01","rent":2094.276851},{"period":"2021-11-01","rent":2125.060839},{"period":"2021-12-01","rent":2124.048924},{"period":"2022-01-01","rent":2159.856102},{"period":"2022-02-01","rent":2184.009566},{"period":"2022-03-01","rent":2196.917408},{"period":"2022-04-01","rent":2195.378786},{"period":"2022-05-01","rent":2193.597853},{"period":"2022-06-01","rent":2186.091836},{"period":"2022-07-01","rent":2199.726296},{"period":"2022-08-01","rent":2212.444083},{"period":"2022-09-01","rent":2189.080726},{"period":"2022-10-01","rent":2213.408084},{"period":"2022-11-01","rent":2220.202712},{"period":"2022-12-01","rent":2259.302232},{"period":"2023-01-01","rent":2216.85343},{"period":"2023-02-01","rent":2210.183531},{"period":"2023-03-01","rent":2232.162566},{"period":"2023-04-01","rent":2271.461799},{"period":"2023-05-01","rent":2273.777775},{"period":"2023-06-01","rent":2243.401134},{"period":"2023-07-01","rent":2228.330679},{"period":"2023-08-01","rent":2227.560994},{"period":"2023-09-01","rent":2266.956862},{"period":"2023-10-01","rent":2287.719309},{"period":"2023-11-01","rent":2278.639729},{"period":"2023-12-01","rent":2276.301223},{"period":"2024-01-01","rent":2242.843947},{"period":"2024-02-01","rent":2246.291922},{"period":"2024-03-01","rent":2217.384257},{"period":"2024-04-01","rent":2237.270807},{"period":"2024-05-01","rent":2243.705028},{"period":"2024-06-01","rent":2257.644252},{"period":"2024-07-01","rent":2240.13855},{"period":"2024-08-01","rent":2235.029572},{"period":"2024-09-01","rent":2219.751716},{"period":"2024-10-01","rent":2232.631588},{"period":"2024-11-01","rent":2223.75933},{"period":"2024-12-01","rent":2221.193762},{"period":"2025-01-01","rent":2218.765004},{"period":"2025-02-01","rent":2210.507263},{"period":"2025-03-01","rent":2234.431081},{"period":"2025-04-01","rent":2218.122488},{"period":"2025-05-01","rent":2226.115929},{"period":"2025-06-01","rent":2237.238006},{"period":"2025-07-01","rent":2262.108273},{"period":"2025-08-01","rent":2273.013229},{"period":"2025-09-01","rent":2279.467869},{"period":"2025-10-01","rent":2265.840965},{"period":"2025-11-01","rent":2285.613776},{"period":"2025-12-01","rent":2292.784274},{"period":"2026-01-01","rent":2330.205497},{"period":"2026-02-01","rent":2349.35302},{"period":"2026-03-01","rent":2354.687412},{"period":"2026-04-01","rent":2366.156278},{"period":"2026-05-01","rent":2373.531223},{"period":"2026-06-01","rent":2382.222222}],"historySummary":{"pointCount":74,"firstPeriod":"2020-05-01","latestPeriod":"2026-06-01","coverageMonths":74,"coverageRatio":1,"changes":{"1":{"years":1,"startPeriod":"2025-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":2237.238006,"endRent":2382.222222,"change":0.0648050031383205,"cagr":0.0648050031383205},"3":{"years":3,"startPeriod":"2023-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":2243.401134,"endRent":2382.222222,"change":0.061879744061857034,"cagr":0.020215174411704062},"5":{"years":5,"startPeriod":"2021-06-01","endPeriod":"2026-06-01","startRent":2116.018929,"endRent":2382.222222,"change":0.1258038334873517,"cagr":0.023982523761968633}},"maxDrawdown":-0.033750664120482,"annualizedVolatility":0.030183211724492568,"consecutiveReturnCount":73}}