The central measured tension in 11216 is that the June 2026 Zillow ZORI asking-rent index stands at $3,584 while the matched ACS median gross rent is $2,271, a gap of 58%. The ZIP’s ACS median household income is $101,277, yet an arithmetic screen using $3,584 at 30% of gross income produces required income of $143,360. That places the current asking-rent-to-income screen at 42.5%. This is a comparison of current asking conditions with survey household measures, not evidence that a particular tenant pays that amount or can qualify for a lease. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, so it supplies a current market signal rather than a census of signed rents.
History shows continuing rent growth, though the recent pace is less forceful than the longer path. The exact same-month one-year change was 4.4%, the three-year annualized change was 4.2%, and the five-year annualized change was 7.7%. Thus, the latest direction confirms the positive longer-run path rather than reversing it, but it also indicates that growth has cooled from the stronger five-year rate. Annualized monthly-return variability was 2.9%, which supports moderate confidence in the present index as a relatively orderly snapshot. The maximum drawdown, considered separately, was an 8.7% retreat from a prior peak and shows that past rent levels were not uninterrupted. Coverage was 100% across 138 observations. Transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 512 for momentum, 1,445 for stability, and 539 for the balanced measure; these backward-looking measurements are neither forecasts nor investment recommendations.
Source boundaries are especially important here. The five-digit label is both Zillow’s 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 five-year median gross rent covers occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, unlike ZORI’s asking-rent index. HUD FMR/SAFMR is instead an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than asking rent. Scaling the ZIP ZORI by the local HUD ladder produces modelled monthly estimates of $2,600 for a studio, $3,016 for one bedroom, $3,584 for two bedrooms, $4,390 for three bedrooms, and $5,059 for four bedrooms. These are modelled estimates, not measured bedroom rents, and the two-bedroom result matching the ZIP index reflects the ladder’s scaling method rather than an observed two-bedroom median.
The matched ACS ZCTA also depicts a renter-dominant housing base with a limited but nonzero vacancy stock. Of 28,995 housing units, 27,134 were occupied and 1,861 were vacant, producing a 6.4% vacancy rate. Renter households numbered 21,352, or 78.7% of occupied homes, while large multifamily structures accounted for 6,228 units. Among renter households, 8,852—or 41.5%—were rent burdened at 30% or more of income. That burden measure describes survey households, not the terms of a current listing, and it cannot prove that any individual unit is unaffordable. Likewise, the overall vacancy measure includes vacant homes in multiple statuses and does not establish immediate availability, condition, or lease price for a particular rental.
Wider asking-rent context places the ZIP below New York city context at $4,133 and Kings County context at $3,808, while remaining essentially level with the New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA metro context at $3,573. Those city, county, and metro figures are wider-geography context rather than substitutes for ZIP-level rental evidence. The comparison makes the ZIP’s current index look less elevated against the metro asking-rent backdrop than against its own ACS gross-rent benchmark. It also means the sharp difference between the ZIP’s asking-rent index and its survey median should not be explained away by citing a citywide, countywide, or metrowide value from a different universe.
Redfin supplies a separate direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation, not rental transactions. The median sold price was $1,774,099, up 16.7% year over year. ZIP resale liquidity was represented by 31 homes sold and a median 60 days on market. Inventory was 82 homes, up 25.7%, alongside 8 months of supply. Sale-to-list signals remained within the for-sale universe: average sale-to-list was 99.2%, and 26.7% of sales closed above list. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by the Redfin median sold price equals a 2.42% cross-source screening ratio only. It is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, property yield, or property-level economics. The resale price increase materially outpaced the one-year rent change, challenging any simple rent-growth reading, while rising inventory and extended supply add a separate resale-market tension.
Neither the rental index nor the resale median can be transferred directly to a property. A property-level review would need to establish actual contemporaneous asking rent, bedroom count, utility responsibility, concessions, lease duration, condition, and whether the unit resembles the blended rental types represented in ZORI. It would also need to distinguish a vacant unit from an available, suitable rental. On the resale side, property-specific sold comparables, list-price history, sale condition, closing timing, and current competing inventory are necessary because Redfin’s ZIP medians summarize completed for-sale transactions rather than a particular building or apartment. The ACS income and burden statistics describe households in a survey universe, not applicants or expected tenant outcomes.
Read together, the evidence supports a careful distinction between a current asking-rent snapshot, a slower-moving survey of occupied renters, a modelled bedroom ladder, and a resale market with its own price and supply signals. The history record lends some confidence to the current rent reading because variability was modest, but the past drawdown and the gap between current asking rent and survey gross rent limit certainty. The most important unresolved issue is not whether one headline is “right,” but whether a specific unit’s current terms and physical characteristics align with the relevant rental and resale evidence.