At June 2026, ZIP 85716’s Zillow Observed Rent Index is $1,299 per month, down 1.55% from the same month a year earlier. The category is cooling: the one-year decline breaks from its longer path of 1.01% annualized growth over three years and 5.22% over five years. These are direct Zillow ZIP observations through the stated endpoint, backward-looking measurements rather than predictions. Annualized monthly-return variability was 3.27%, and the historical maximum drawdown was -2.83%; together they mean a single current asking-rent snapshot requires the historical path for interpretation, not certainty about later movement. The series has complete coverage. Momentum, stability, and balanced national discovery ranks are 2,517, 2,004, and 2,662; these are transparent, lower-is-higher placements among history-eligible ZIPs, not predictive ratings or investment signals.
The five-digit label 85716 is both a Zillow ZIP market identifier and a Census ZCTA match; a ZCTA is a statistical area and is not identical to a USPS delivery ZIP. Zillow ZORI is a typical observed asking-rent index blended across rental types. The matched ACS 2024 five-year survey instead describes occupied renter homes: its median gross rent is $1,080 with a ±$30 90% margin of error and includes selected utilities. The current Zillow index is 20.3% above that ACS median, but the distinction in geography, population, timing, utility treatment, and rent concept prevents either series from serving as a substitute for the other.
Redfin supplies the sharper resale side of the tension. In its direct rolling-three-month ZIP resale observation for the stated endpoint, the median sold price was $341,423, down 7.72% year over year. The for-sale record logged 97 homes sold and a median 54 days on market. Reported inventory was 134 homes, with 4.2 months of supply. Sale-to-list signals were 98.49% on average, 15.97% sold above list, and 30.72% off market within two weeks. All are ZIP resale indicators, not rental transactions. Annualized ZIP ZORI divided by the median sold price equals 4.57%, a cross-source screening ratio only, not a measure of a particular property’s economics. The price decline confirms the current rent-cooling direction, yet its greater magnitude challenges any simple extension of the positive five-year rent path.
The income and burden screens add a separate tension. The ZIP asking-rent-to-income calculation is 31.8%; applying the 30% screen to the current asking index produces required annual income of $51,960, above the ZCTA median household income of $49,061. This required-income screen is arithmetic, not advice or an applicant qualification rule. Separately, ACS reports 5,245 of 10,325 renter households as spending 30% or more of income on rent, a 50.8% burden share. The burden statistic and the asking-rent screen should not be merged: one is a five-year survey measure of occupied renters and the other uses the current asking-rent index and area median household income. Neither establishes affordability for a particular available home.
ACS ZCTA housing data record 19,141 housing units, including 2,380 vacant units, for a 12.4% vacancy rate. Renters occupy 61.6% of occupied homes, making the ZCTA renter-heavy in its reported tenure mix. The stock spans both single-family units and large-multifamily buildings, so a ZIP-wide asking-rent index should not be read as one building type’s rent schedule. Of the vacant units, 948 are classified as vacant for rent. That aggregate is not proof that an individual listing is available, appropriately priced, habitable, or offered on a particular lease structure; it only describes the survey-area vacancy categories.
The bedroom figures are modelled monthly ZIP estimates, not measured bedroom rents. They scale ZIP ZORI using the local HUD ladder: $895 for a studio, $1,001 for one bedroom, $1,299 for two bedrooms, $1,809 for three bedrooms, and $2,078 for four bedrooms. HUD FMR/SAFMR is an administrative bedroom-specific standard, not asking rent, and the ladder is used here as a proportional calibration device rather than a record of completed leases or advertised bedroom-specific listings. The resulting two-bedroom estimate matches the ZIP-wide ZORI by construction, while the other bedroom values should be treated as model outputs with the same source and definition limits as the underlying index.
For wider context only, the City of Tucson at city scope has a contextual asking-rent measure of about $1,425; Pima County at county scope has $1,483; and the Tucson, AZ metro at metro scope has $1,483. The ZIP ZORI sits below all three broader contextual measures. Within their separate broader scopes, the City of Tucson and Pima County contexts also have lower renter shares and lower vacancy rates than this matched ZCTA, while the Tucson, AZ metro context has a lower rent-to-income screen. These comparisons provide scale, not substitutes for ZIP evidence: city, county, and metro figures cover wider populations and cannot describe the rent, vacancy, resale liquidity, or resident mix of a specific 85716 property.
The combined evidence describes current ZIP aggregates with several non-interchangeable definitions, not a forecast. Concrete property-level checks should confirm the actual advertised monthly rent, bedroom classification, whether quoted rent includes utilities, recurring fees, lease term, listing date, and availability. If a resale reference matters, verify the address-level sale date, list history, condition, and whether it belongs to the same property type as the rental under review. Those checks are especially important because ACS burden and vacancy measures cannot verify any single unit, while Redfin’s sold-price evidence is not rental evidence. The unresolved property-level question is whether a specific listing’s terms actually align with the broad ZIP indicators presented here.