WHAT THE STATE DISTRIBUTION SAYSAcross Oregon’s 24 current published direct-evidence ZIP reports, Zillow’s observed asking-rent index has a wide current range: $1,523 to $2,347 per month, with a $1,801 median. The lower endpoint is Portland’s 97230 and the upper endpoint is Bend’s 97702, a useful reminder that a state-level figure cannot answer a household’s location-specific budget question. The practical screen is sequential: identify the applicable asking-rent level, then test whether household income and historical rent movement fit the renter’s tolerance. This distribution is a reported-evidence set—not a census of every Oregon ZIP, neighborhood, or rental property—and the rent measure is Zillow ZORI, an observed asking-rent index rather than a signed-lease or property-specific quote.
Affordability and renter burden point to related but noninterchangeable pressures. At the report median, the current asking-rent-to-median-household-income ratio is 25.1%, while 49.5% of renter households are estimated by ACS to spend at least 30% of income on gross rent. The former pairs the current ZORI index with an area median household income; the latter describes the distribution of renter households facing a gross-rent threshold. For contrast, 97229 posts a 16.1% asking-rent-to-income ratio whereas 97401 reaches 39.0% on that measure. In the latter area, a $1,690 monthly asking-rent index implies $67,600 in annual income under the conventional threshold, above its $52,022 area median household income. ACS values are five-year ZCTA estimates, and ZCTAs are statistical areas rather than identical to USPS delivery ZIPs.
Momentum has not been uniform, and it should not be read as a volatility ranking. Recent annual Zillow growth spans a 4.2% decline in Hillsboro’s 97124 to a 7.3% increase in Portland’s 97203. Their annualized volatilities, 2.7% and 3.3%, respectively, show that direction and month-to-month variability convey different information. Across the reported set, annualized volatility ranges from 1.8% in 97206 to 3.9% in 97205, while the latter also recorded the deepest maximum drawdown, 11.4%. These are calculations from the direct monthly Zillow series: cooling, accelerating, or high-variability labels summarize observed paths, not predictions about the next rent change.
HUD serves a different decision purpose. The two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR benchmark is an administrative bedroom standard, not an asking-rent estimate; across these reports, direct asking rent is 79.2% to 169.5% of the benchmark. The upper end occurs in 97702, but that comparison should not be used to turn either figure into a price for a particular home. A ZORI index and a HUD bedroom standard do not identify any unit’s bedroom count, lease terms, or actual transaction rent. Use the benchmark for its programmatic two-bedroom context and the direct series for ZIP-level asking-rent movement, keeping neither as a substitute for property-level evidence.
