At the June 2026 endpoint, Zillow’s ZIP-level ZORI for 78757 is $1,851 per month, a 5.1% exact same-month increase from a year earlier. ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types, so it summarizes advertised-market movement rather than the rent of a specified unit. The one-year rise is an acceleration against the 0.4% annualized change over three years and the 3.6% annualized change over five years. In backward-looking terms, recent direction therefore confirms that the longer path remains positive while breaking from its much weaker intermediate pace; it does not establish a future rent path.
The five-digit label is both Zillow’s ZIP market identifier and the matching Census ZCTA for this report. A ZCTA is a statistical area used for tabulation, not an area identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. In the Census ACS 2024 five-year survey, median gross rent is $1,723; it describes occupied renter homes and includes selected utilities, rather than current asking rents. ZORI is 7.4% above that gross-rent median, a gap that can arise from these different populations, timing, and payment definitions. For wider context only, Austin city’s reported rent context is $1,615, Travis County’s is $1,649, and the Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, TX metro context is $1,653; none is a substitute for the ZIP index.
Bedroom sizing requires another universe, not an assumption that Zillow directly measured each unit type. The modelled monthly ZIP estimates are $1,473 for a studio, $1,561 for one bedroom, $1,851 for two bedrooms, $2,346 for three bedrooms, and $2,759 for four bedrooms. They scale the ZIP ZORI with the local HUD ladder; the FY2026 HUD two-bedroom FMR/SAFMR standard is $1,852. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative, bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent. Accordingly, the displayed ladder is a set of modelled estimates, never measured bedroom rents, and its close alignment at two bedrooms is a construction result rather than independent market confirmation.
The affordability screen is similarly arithmetic. Annualizing the current ZORI produces $22,212, and the 30% payment-share calculation produces a $74,040 required income; the matched ACS ZCTA median household income is $103,860. This comparison is neither advice nor an applicant qualification rule. It sits beside, rather than replaces, the ACS burden evidence: 1,902 of 4,544 occupied renter households reported gross-rent burdens at or above that threshold, or 41.9%. Those are survey-based household results, not proof that a particular unit is affordable, unaffordable, or available to any individual.
The ZCTA housing profile adds supply composition without turning vacant counts into a listing feed. ACS reports 11,985 housing units, a 5.4% vacancy rate, and a 40.1% renter share. Its structure counts are led by single-family units, with a smaller large-multifamily segment; that mix is a stock description, not a rent-type breakout for ZORI. The survey also identifies 135 vacant units for rent, but the count does not establish the location, price, condition, lease terms, or current availability of any specific home. This profile remains distinct from the city, county, and metro context figures and from Redfin’s active resale listings.
The historical series contains 125 observations with 100% stated coverage, letting the one-, three-, and five-year comparisons use the exact same calendar month. Its annualized volatility of monthly returns is 3.1%, and its maximum drawdown was -4.8%. The transparent national discovery ranks among history-eligible ZIPs are 1,169 for momentum, 1,825 for stability, and 1,503 for the balanced measure, where lower ranks place higher. These are descriptive discovery tools, not performance judgments. Together with the drawdown, the variability reduces the confidence that a single current rent snapshot alone represents a durable level. All history metrics are backward-looking measurements, not forecasts or investment recommendations.
Resale evidence pulls in a different tension. Redfin’s direct rolling three-month ZIP observation reports a $700,342 median sold price, up 9.9% year over year, alongside 107 homes sold and a median 54 days on market. It also records a separate inventory measure of 159 homes, 134 pending sales, and 4.5 months of supply. The average sale-to-list ratio is 96.97%; 13.5% of sales closed above list, and 31.9% went off market within two weeks. This is for-sale market evidence, not rental transactions, rental comparables, or property economics. Rising resale prices sit beside rents that have accelerated, while below-list average outcomes and the recorded marketing time qualify any simple claim of uniformly urgent resale conditions.
A cross-source screen annualizes ZIP ZORI and divides it by the Redfin median sold price, producing 3.17%. It is only a screening ratio across an asking-rent index and a resale statistic, not a statement about property income, costs, or transaction outcome. The sale-price increase confirms the positive one-year rent direction behind this screen, while the below-list average resale outcome challenges any reading of it as evidence of frictionless transaction conditions; it also does not alter the arithmetic affordability screen. The rent’s muted intermediate history means neither signal stands alone. ACS sampling uncertainty, ZORI’s blended inventory, HUD’s administrative design, and the resale window all limit precision. Property-level comparison would need the quoted rent, utilities and concessions, bedroom count, property type, condition, lease date, sale terms, and list-price history. Which of those unobserved details would most change the comparison for the specific property under review?