WHAT THE STATE DISTRIBUTION SAYSWithin the current published direct-evidence Texas ZIP reports, Zillow’s ZORI observed asking-rent index ranges from $1,051 to $2,545, a $1,494 spread around a $1,580 median. The practical question is therefore not whether the state has a single rent level, but how a household’s budget fits the markedly uneven set of published reports. This statewide distribution contains 35 current published direct-evidence ZIP reports, rather than every ZIP, neighborhood, or rental property in Texas. It describes asking-rent index observations and should not be read as a measure of signed leases, the full stock of units, or a statewide average. It instead supplies a comparative starting point for examining reported differences within the available evidence.
At the median report, the current asking-rent-to-median-income comparison is 22.3%, with a range from 14.8% to 42.7%. That comparison places a current Zillow asking-rent index beside ACS ZCTA median household income, a five-year survey estimate; it screens the relationship between area income and the index, not the share of individual renters facing high gross-rent burdens. Separately, the ACS renter-household share spending at least 30% of income on gross rent has a 49.2% median and ranges from 35.6% to 62.2%. Gross rent and the observed asking-rent index are also not interchangeable. A favorable-looking area income ratio can coexist with a substantial renter burden, so the measures should remain distinct in household budgeting or area comparisons.
Momentum also needs separate treatment from rent variability. Direct monthly Zillow history produces a median annual growth rate of -0.7%, but the published-report range runs from -7.6% to +6.6%. The distribution has 22 cooling reports and 11 accelerating reports, a counter-signal to any single statewide direction. Its annualized volatility has a 2.8% median, from 1.9% to 3.4%, indicating meaningful variation in the size of month-to-month index changes even when annual movement is modest. Growth measures direction over the stated window; volatility measures dispersion in the monthly series. Neither metric is a forecast, and a positive or negative annual change alone does not establish whether future asking rents will be steady.
HUD offers a different reference point: its two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom standard rather than an observed asking rent. Across the published reports, direct asking rent is 86.2% of that HUD two-bedroom benchmark at the median, ranging from 57.7% to 136.8%. This ratio can position a ZIP report relative to a standardized program benchmark, but it cannot establish what any available apartment should cost. ZORI is not matched to a particular property’s bedroom count, size, condition, lease term, utility treatment, or concessions. ACS measures are likewise ZCTA-level estimates, and ZCTAs are statistical areas rather than identical USPS delivery ZIPs; those geographic and measurement limits rule out property-level conclusions.
