ZIP 77304 is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and the matching Census ZCTA; a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. For June 2026, Zillow’s ZIP-level ZORI was $1,435 per month, down 0.8% from a year earlier. ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, rather than a record of every lease. The direct rolling-three-month Redfin ZIP resale observation, a separate for-sale universe, reported a $357,037 median sold price, 3.7% below its prior-year level. Both measures point to cooling, but they address different markets and should not be treated as rental-sale comparables.
The rent history reinforces the recent cooling signal while preserving a different longer path. Exact same-month ZORI change was negative over one year at 0.8% and over three years at 0.5%, whereas the five-year annualized change remained positive at 1.5%. Thus, the latest direction breaks from the cumulative five-year rise rather than extending it. Monthly ZORI returns annualize to 2.3% variability, which suggests that one current rent reading has some month-to-month movement around it. Separately, the maximum observed drawdown was 3.5%, a contained but real historical decline. Coverage was complete. National discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs were 2,596 for momentum, 358 for stability, and 1,870 for the balanced measure, where lower rank is higher; these are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
The ACS view is close in level but different in meaning. In the matched Census ZCTA’s ACS 2024 five-year survey, median gross rent was $1,426 with a $49 margin of error. That measure describes occupied renter homes over a survey period and includes selected utilities, while ZORI represents current typical observed asking rent. Their narrow numerical difference should therefore not be read as proof that a newly listed home rents for the ACS median, that every renter pays the asking index, or that utility treatment is identical. The comparison is useful mainly as a scope check: current asking-rent conditions and the stock of occupied renter homes appear broadly aligned in level despite their unlike measurement methods.
The bedroom figures are modelled estimates, not measured bedroom rents. They scale the ZIP’s $1,435 ZORI through the local HUD bedroom ladder: the resulting monthly sequence from studio through four bedrooms is $1,170, $1,206, $1,435, $1,929, and $2,404. The underlying HUD FY2026 standard is an administrative bedroom-specific benchmark, not asking rent; its two-bedroom rung is $1,570. The model therefore preserves the HUD ladder’s relative bedroom spacing while anchoring the estimates to ZIP ZORI. A particular listing can depart from these figures because the model does not observe its condition, utility arrangement, lease terms, availability, or specific bedroom configuration beyond the constructed ladder.
On a simple income screen, annualized ZIP ZORI implies $57,400 of household income at the 30% threshold. This is arithmetic, not advice and not an applicant qualification rule. The ZCTA’s median household income was $80,425, with a $5,337 margin of error, making the current asking-rent-to-income screen 21.4% when those two aggregate figures are paired. Yet the occupied-renter survey tells a more constrained distributional story: 4,115 of 8,094 renter households, or 50.8%, reported gross-rent burdens at or above 30%. That burden measure cannot establish the affordability of any individual unit, but it is an important tension against interpreting the aggregate income screen as universally comfortable.
Housing composition and vacancy provide additional context without identifying conditions at a particular address. The matched ZCTA’s overall housing vacancy rate was 4.3%, and renter-occupied homes represented 42.8% of occupied units; the housing stock includes both single-family and large multifamily structures. A vacancy statistic is a broad stock measure, not evidence that a specific rental is available or difficult to lease. In wider context, Conroe city’s asking-rent value was $1,569, Montgomery County’s was $1,733, and the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land, TX metro context was $1,648; the metro’s apartment vacancy rate was 8.4%. These city, county, and metro figures are comparators only, not substitutes for ZIP-level asking-rent evidence.
Resale liquidity looks less brisk than the rent-income arithmetic alone might imply. Redfin recorded 241 homes sold in the direct ZIP rolling resale window, with a median marketing time of 85 days. Inventory stood at 350 homes and months of supply at 4.4, while both active listings and inventory were lower than a year earlier. Sellers received an average 97.8% of list price, and only 6.8% of sales closed above list. These are for-sale market observations, not rental transactions or property operating results. Together with the earlier decline in median sold price, they confirm the broader cooling pattern visible in rent history, while the marketing and sale-to-list signals temper any overly simple reading of current rent relative to household income.
Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by the Redfin median sold price is only a cross-source screening ratio. It is not a cap rate, net return, expected return, or property yield because neither source supplies property-level operating costs, financing, taxes, insurance, maintenance, vacancy experience, or actual lease revenue. ACS burden, HUD standards, Zillow asking-rent indexing, and Redfin resale data each answer a separate question and should remain separate. Concrete property-level checks should verify the current advertised rent, bedroom count, included utilities, lease duration, availability, sale status, listing history, and whether the home resembles the rental types represented by ZORI. The key unresolved question is whether those address-level facts still match the broad ZIP evidence summarized here.