Rent and resale point in different directions in 98115. In June 2026, the Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI) is $2,316 per month, a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types rather than a lease comp for one home. The direct Redfin rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation places median sold price at $1,103,801, down 1.4% year over year. Annualizing ZIP ZORI and dividing it by that price produces a 2.5% cross-source screening ratio only; it is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield. That contrast frames the data: relatively steady asking rent can coexist with a softer median resale price without establishing a connection between the two markets.
The current reading needs source discipline. 98115 is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match, but a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. The ACS 2024 five-year survey reports a $2,143 median gross rent for occupied renter homes, 8.1% below the ZORI reading; gross rent includes selected utilities, while ZORI is asking rent. For wider rent context, Seattle city scope is $2,224.13, King County scope is $2,330, and Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA metro scope is $2,269. Those city, county, and metro values are contextual benchmarks, not substitutes for the ZIP index or evidence about an individual address.
History shows positive rent-index growth, but the pace has cooled. Exact same-month ZORI growth annualizes to 0.4% over one year, 1.7% over three years, and 3.8% over five years. Thus, the recent direction confirms a still-positive longer path while breaking from its earlier pace rather than accelerating it. The monthly index-return series has 2.3% annualized variability, so a single current snapshot has strong coverage but limited precision as a description of any listing. Its largest peak-to-trough drawdown was 7.7%, demonstrating that apparent stability did not eliminate declines. Coverage is 100% across 137 observations. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs put stability at 350, ahead of momentum at 2,000 and balanced at 1,253; these are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
The FY2026 local HUD FMR/SAFMR ladder is a bedroom-specific administrative standard, not asking rent, and it supplies the proportional scale for this ZIP's ZORI. The resulting modelled monthly ZIP estimates are $1,921 for a studio, $1,987 for one bedroom, $2,316 for two bedrooms, $3,030 for three bedrooms, and $3,562 for four bedrooms. Each is a modelled estimate, never a measured bedroom rent. The local HUD ladder preserves bedroom relationships around the ZIP index; it does not show rents actually advertised, leased, or paid in those bedroom groups. This distinction matters where an administrative standard, an asking-rent index, and a household survey statistic may appear numerically close while answering different questions.
Applying the 30% gross-income arithmetic to annualized current ZORI gives $92,640 in required household income. That screen is arithmetic, not advice or an applicant qualification rule. The matched ACS ZCTA reports median household income of $156,142, making annualized ZORI 17.8% of that median; this compares an index with a household statistic and should not be read as a household-level rent share. In the ACS five-year survey, 3,900 of 9,613 occupied renter households had gross-rent burdens at or above that threshold, or 40.6%. Because ACS gross rent includes selected utilities and is survey based, burden is evidence about occupied renter homes in aggregate, not proof about affordability, burden, or utility charges in a specific available unit.
The ACS ZCTA housing stock totals 25,486 units. Renters occupy 40.3% of occupied homes, leaving owner occupancy as the larger tenure side without identifying the tenure of any address. The survey counts 1,643 vacant units, a 6.4% overall vacancy rate, including 466 classified as vacant for rent. These figures describe a survey period rather than a real-time availability inventory, and they do not establish vacancy, turnover, or leasing conditions at a particular property. Housing stock and vacancy are therefore separate from both the ZIP asking-rent index and the city, county, and metro rent context above.
In Redfin's direct rolling three-month ZIP resale observation, 206 homes sold and median marketing time was 6 days. Inventory was 156 homes and had increased from the prior year, while months of supply stood at 2.3. The average sale-to-list ratio was 102.3%; 40.0% of sales closed above list, and 65.8% went off market within two weeks. These are for-sale market observations, not rental transactions or rental comparables. Their short marketing time and above-list signals coexist with the annual median-price decline reported earlier. That is a material tension: resale liquidity indicators do not simply confirm the ZIP's slower but positive ZORI history, and the higher inventory reading prevents an uncomplicated reading of either market.
None of these sources measures the same universe or confirms an individual property's economics. ZORI is a blended ZIP asking-rent index; ACS surveys occupied renter homes in the matched ZCTA; HUD supplies an administrative bedroom standard; and Redfin records ZIP resale activity. The historical series is complete and backward-looking, but cannot forecast renewal, listing, or sale outcomes. Property-level verification would need the current advertised rent, exact bedroom configuration, rental type, lease term, included utilities, concessions, occupancy and availability status, plus the applicable sale price, list history, days on market, and sale-to-list result. Those checks can establish whether a subject resembles an aggregate measure while respecting the ZIP/ZCTA boundary and keeping rental evidence separate from resale evidence.
","findings":[{"body":"June 2026 ZORI is $2,316, while Redfin reports a $1,103,801 median ZIP resale price in its direct rolling-three-month observation. Annualizing the asking-rent index and dividing by that price yields 2.5%. The calculation is useful only as a cross-source screen. It cannot identify a cap rate, property yield, net return, or expected investment result because operating costs and property matching are not present.","title":"Cross-source rent and resale screen"},{"body":"Exact same-month ZORI growth remained positive at 0.4% over one year, but trailed the 1.7% three-year and 3.8% five-year annualized rates. Although monthly returns varied at a 2.3% annualized pace, the history still included a 7.7% peak-to-trough decline. Complete coverage supports the series, but the measurements remain historical and do not predict listing-level rents.","title":"Positive history, slower current pace"},{"body":"The $92,640 income screen is the arithmetic result of applying a 30% gross-income threshold to annualized ZORI, not an affordability recommendation or qualification rule. ACS reports a higher median household income, yet 40.6% of surveyed occupied renter households had gross-rent burdens at or above the threshold. That burden evidence is aggregate and includes selected utilities in gross rent.","title":"Income screen and burden describe different populations"},{"body":"ACS counts 25,486 housing units and reports a 6.4% vacancy rate, but that survey measure cannot establish whether a particular rental is currently available. Redfin's direct resale observation shows rapid marketing and sale-to-list strength alongside a year-over-year median-price decline. The mismatch reinforces that ZIP rent, household survey, HUD standards, and resale observations must remain separate evidence universes.","title":"Survey stock and direct resale liquidity stay separate"}],"risks":["The $2,316 ZORI is an index blended across rental types, so it can diverge from the rent, concessions, condition, utilities, or availability of a specific studio, house, or apartment.","The matched Census ZCTA is a statistical area rather than a USPS delivery ZIP, and ACS five-year results describe surveyed occupied renter homes, not a current set of units.","Bedroom amounts inherit relationships from the HUD administrative ladder and ZIP ZORI, so they are modelled estimates rather than measured asking rents, signed leases, or tenant-paid bedroom-specific rents.","Direct resale signals and the annualized rent-to-price screen cannot validate property economics because Redfin covers for-sale transactions while ZORI covers asking rent and neither provides operating expenses."],"qa":[{"a":"The five-digit 98115 label serves two linked but different purposes: it is Zillow's ZIP market identifier and the matched Census ZCTA. A ZCTA is a statistical area used for tabulation and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. The alignment supports broad context, but it does not mean every dataset enumerates the same delivery geography or individual properties.","q":"What geographic area does this report use?"},{"a":"ZORI reports a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. ACS instead provides a five-year survey median for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities in gross rent. HUD FMR/SAFMR supplies administrative, bedroom-specific standards rather than asking rent. The bedroom amounts here scale ZORI using that HUD ladder, making them modelled estimates rather than measured rents for units with those bedroom counts.","q":"Why do ZORI, ACS gross rent, and HUD standards differ?"},{"a":"No. The history reports exact same-month annualized changes through the stated endpoint, along with variability, drawdown, coverage, and discovery ranks. Full coverage improves confidence that the series is observed consistently, while the drawdown shows that prior increases were not uninterrupted. These are backward-looking index measurements and cannot forecast a future listing rent, renewal outcome, or sale result.","q":"Does the rent history provide a forecast?"},{"a":"Redfin provides a direct rolling-three-month observation of ZIP for-sale activity: median sold price, price change, homes sold, marketing time, inventory, months of supply, and sale-to-list signals. It describes resale liquidity and transaction conditions, not rental transactions or rental comparables. Dividing annualized ZORI by median sold price is only a cross-source screening ratio and does not measure property yield or return.","q":"What does the Redfin resale block establish?"}],"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 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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":"2015-02-01","rent":1551.897239},{"period":"2015-03-01","rent":1569.448798},{"period":"2015-04-01","rent":1577.848707},{"period":"2015-05-01","rent":1581.144682},{"period":"2015-06-01","rent":1581.445507},{"period":"2015-07-01","rent":1580.480741},{"period":"2015-08-01","rent":1583.583632},{"period":"2015-09-01","rent":1595.283141},{"period":"2015-10-01","rent":1626.090146},{"period":"2015-11-01","rent":1644.412962},{"period":"2015-12-01","rent":1635.819528},{"period":"2016-01-01","rent":1627.770799},{"period":"2016-02-01","rent":1637.943629},{"period":"2016-03-01","rent":1631.481074},{"period":"2016-04-01","rent":1625.849683},{"period":"2016-05-01","rent":1631.478498},{"period":"2016-06-01","rent":1668.594472},{"period":"2016-07-01","rent":1704.964928},{"period":"2016-08-01","rent":1724.501702},{"period":"2016-09-01","rent":1733.143732},{"period":"2016-10-01","rent":1738.820255},{"period":"2016-11-01","rent":1756.508173},{"period":"2016-12-01","rent":1760.545881},{"period":"2017-01-01","rent":1759.007613},{"period":"2017-02-01","rent":1773.134012},{"period":"2017-03-01","rent":1796.200839},{"period":"2017-04-01","rent":1810.117175},{"period":"2017-05-01","rent":1794.13846},{"period":"2017-06-01","rent":1790.458369},{"period":"2017-07-01","rent":1785.692803},{"period":"2017-08-01","rent":1796.925376},{"period":"2017-09-01","rent":1806.542557},{"period":"2017-10-01","rent":1807.298459},{"period":"2017-11-01","rent":1799.988997},{"period":"2017-12-01","rent":1806.543847},{"period":"2018-01-01","rent":1821.416388},{"period":"2018-02-01","rent":1820.548412},{"period":"2018-03-01","rent":1824.553632},{"period":"2018-04-01","rent":1831.793026},{"period":"2018-05-01","rent":1851.805902},{"period":"2018-06-01","rent":1849.894958},{"period":"2018-07-01","rent":1850.694801},{"period":"2018-08-01","rent":1846.55983},{"period":"2018-09-01","rent":1846.423792},{"period":"2018-10-01","rent":1852.819113},{"period":"2018-11-01","rent":1859.582473},{"period":"2018-12-01","rent":1858.374098},{"period":"2019-01-01","rent":1861.74476},{"period":"2019-02-01","rent":1860.206069},{"period":"2019-03-01","rent":1859.569303},{"period":"2019-04-01","rent":1861.702288},{"period":"2019-05-01","rent":1866.878856},{"period":"2019-06-01","rent":1877.098098},{"period":"2019-07-01","rent":1887.080144},{"period":"2019-08-01","rent":1897.267118},{"period":"2019-09-01","rent":1908.407213},{"period":"2019-10-01","rent":1920.010389},{"period":"2019-11-01","rent":1934.421096},{"period":"2019-12-01","rent":1953.099313},{"period":"2020-01-01","rent":1966.827293},{"period":"2020-02-01","rent":1990.238532},{"period":"2020-03-01","rent":1962.195608},{"period":"2020-04-01","rent":1950.94456},{"period":"2020-05-01","rent":1935.51047},{"period":"2020-06-01","rent":1932.12911},{"period":"2020-07-01","rent":1929.78541},{"period":"2020-08-01","rent":1916.520592},{"period":"2020-09-01","rent":1900.438567},{"period":"2020-10-01","rent":1879.423569},{"period":"2020-11-01","rent":1856.081579},{"period":"2020-12-01","rent":1838.187997},{"period":"2021-01-01","rent":1837.219994},{"period":"2021-02-01","rent":1856.250313},{"period":"2021-03-01","rent":1872.767265},{"period":"2021-04-01","rent":1884.640436},{"period":"2021-05-01","rent":1895.437017},{"period":"2021-06-01","rent":1920.999385},{"period":"2021-07-01","rent":1950.107927},{"period":"2021-08-01","rent":1997.492255},{"period":"2021-09-01","rent":2028.218736},{"period":"2021-10-01","rent":2056.154288},{"period":"2021-11-01","rent":2077.830339},{"period":"2021-12-01","rent":2094.76115},{"period":"2022-01-01","rent":2110.402298},{"period":"2022-02-01","rent":2113.521381},{"period":"2022-03-01","rent":2135.575945},{"period":"2022-04-01","rent":2155.367033},{"period":"2022-05-01","rent":2178.218742},{"period":"2022-06-01","rent":2184.699174},{"period":"2022-07-01","rent":2185.731805},{"period":"2022-08-01","rent":2175.827676},{"period":"2022-09-01","rent":2181.82296},{"period":"2022-10-01","rent":2195.714297},{"period":"2022-11-01","rent":2203.183058},{"period":"2022-12-01","rent":2209.457},{"period":"2023-01-01","rent":2203.315982},{"period":"2023-02-01","rent":2204.391294},{"period":"2023-03-01","rent":2196.07957},{"period":"2023-04-01","rent":2194.526614},{"period":"2023-05-01","rent":2197.484876},{"period":"2023-06-01","rent":2199.540219},{"period":"2023-07-01","rent":2208.620662},{"period":"2023-08-01","rent":2217.369463},{"period":"2023-09-01","rent":2231.857447},{"period":"2023-10-01","rent":2220.314115},{"period":"2023-11-01","rent":2224.926994},{"period":"2023-12-01","rent":2223.037747},{"period":"2024-01-01","rent":2240.596829},{"period":"2024-02-01","rent":2244.882181},{"period":"2024-03-01","rent":2245.122496},{"period":"2024-04-01","rent":2244.394918},{"period":"2024-05-01","rent":2243.834529},{"period":"2024-06-01","rent":2248.817256},{"period":"2024-07-01","rent":2252.722376},{"period":"2024-08-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