The five-digit label 38117 is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match; a ZCTA is a statistical area, not an area identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. Zillow’s current ZIP-level ZORI is $1,473, a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, and it is down 1.0% from a year earlier. That asking-rent level exceeds the City of Memphis context rent of $1,280, the Shelby County context rent of $1,389, and the Memphis, TN-MS-AR metro context rent of $1,435. The immediate tension is therefore not a low relative rent level but a modest recent decline after a longer period of growth.
Backward-looking Zillow history separates the current dip from the broader path. The exact same-month annualized one-year rent-history measure is -1.0%, while the three-year measure is 2.0% and the five-year measure is 3.7%. Thus, recent direction breaks from, rather than confirms, the positive longer-run pattern. The series has full coverage, with 64 monthly observations and 63 consecutive monthly returns, so the comparison is not based on gaps. Still, annualized variability of 3.9% argues against placing excessive confidence in a single current rent snapshot, and the historical maximum drawdown of 5.6% shows that declines larger than the latest annual move have occurred. Transparent national discovery ranks are 2,248 for momentum, 2,534 for stability, and 2,691 for the balanced measure among history-eligible ZIPs; lower ranks are stronger. These are descriptive history measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
Source differences matter because the rent figures answer different questions. The matched ACS five-year survey reports median gross rent of $1,457, with a $88 margin of error, for occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities. Zillow ZORI instead reflects typical observed asking rents, so its 1.1% premium to ACS gross rent is a close cross-source comparison, not proof that any lease is priced above or below its market. HUD’s FY2026 local two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR standard is $1,470, placing ZIP ZORI 0.2% above that benchmark. HUD is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard rather than asking rent, and neither HUD nor ACS should be substituted for a live advertised unit quote.
The bedroom view is deliberately modelled rather than measured. Scaling ZIP ZORI through the local HUD bedroom ladder produces modelled monthly estimates of $1,222 for a studio, $1,333 for one bedroom, $1,473 for two bedrooms, $1,944 for three bedrooms, and $2,265 for four bedrooms. These estimates preserve the local HUD ladder’s relative bedroom spacing while anchoring it to the ZIP asking-rent index. They are not observed bedroom rents, advertised rent medians, or lease transactions. Their practical use is to make the ZORI benchmark more bedroom-sensitive while retaining clear uncertainty about the actual mix, condition, utilities, and availability of rental units represented in the ZIP.
The arithmetic affordability screen is comparatively favorable at the area-median-income level, but burden data introduce a counterweight. Applying the 30% rent-to-income calculation to the current asking-rent index produces required annual income of $58,920. The ACS ZCTA median household income is $85,633, and annualized ZIP asking rent equals 20.6% of that median income. That comparison is an area-level screen, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. Among the survey’s renter households, 1,438 of 2,821, or 51.0%, report spending at least thirty percent of income on gross rent. This burden measure includes occupied renter homes, not prospective tenants, and cannot establish affordability for a particular household or unit.
Housing composition and vacancy provide useful scale but not unit-level availability evidence. The ACS ZCTA contains 12,235 housing units, with a 5.1% vacancy rate and 175 units classified as vacant for rent. Renters occupy 24.3% of occupied homes, while the structure mix is predominantly single-family rather than large multifamily. Compared with the wider Memphis city and Shelby County context, the ZIP’s lower renter presence and lower vacancy indicate a different housing-use profile, but the contextual values do not replace ZIP evidence. A vacant-for-rent count does not show asking price, condition, concessions, lease timing, or whether a particular home is actually available.
Redfin’s direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation points to softer for-sale conditions, not rental transactions. Median sold price is $280,437, down 10.4% year over year; 154 homes sold with a median 28 days on market. Inventory stands at 206 homes and months of supply is 4.1. Sale-to-list averaged 97.7%, while 13.4% of sales closed above list, signals that belong only to the resale universe. This resale evidence broadly confirms the recent Zillow rent-history slowdown because both the annual rent change and the sold-price change are negative, although the sale-price decline is substantially larger. The annualized ZIP ZORI divided by median sold price is 6.3%, but that is only a cross-source screening ratio, not a property-level income or return measure.
The evidence is strongest as a disciplined ZIP screen and weakest when applied to an individual address. Zillow is an asking-rent index, ACS is a survey with sampling uncertainty, HUD is an administrative standard, and Redfin measures completed resale activity over its stated rolling window. None identifies a property’s rent-ready condition, included utilities, lease term, concessions, tenant income, sale concessions, financing, or operating expenses. Property-level review should verify the address’s market mapping, bedroom count, unit type, current advertised comparables, utility responsibility, lease provisions, vacancy status, recent closed-sale comparables, listing history, and differences between list and recorded sale terms. The historical series and resale screen describe past observations rather than future outcomes.