ZIP Lookup.
Enter a ZIP code; get a structured profile — median sale price, median rent, effective property-tax rate, typical insurance, recent appreciation, and risk flags. The local context that national averages flatten away.
What it does.
ZIP Lookup is the foundation of the local-intelligence layer. Today, every OwningCost calculator uses defaults: a 1.5% national tax rate, a $142 monthly insurance estimate, a 3% appreciation assumption. Those defaults are reasonable for the U.S. as a whole. They're often wrong for any specific ZIP.
The ZIP Lookup pulls together the per-ZIP data we have, surfaces it in a structured form, and feeds it as defaults into the calculators when you click through. The same calculators you use today, but with starting numbers that match your market.
· Median single-family sale price: $612,000
· Median rent (3-bed): $2,650
· Effective property tax rate: ~2.07%
· Typical homeowners insurance: $1,840/yr ($153/mo)
· 5-year price appreciation: +38%
· Risk flags: hail-prone (Texas), high effective tax rate
Coverage at launch.
The ZIP Lookup launches with full coverage of the top 200 U.S. metros — roughly 8,000 ZIPs covering 75% of housing transactions. Coverage extends to all ~30,000 U.S. ZIPs over the following six months. National defaults remain available wherever per-ZIP data isn't yet present.
The math runs in every calculator on the site (as ZIP-aware defaults).
This AI tool sits on top of a real calculator. The numbers it shows you come from deterministic math, not from a language model's pattern matching. While the AI version is in development, the underlying calculator is fully live — you can run the same math today by clicking through.
The calculator layer is live and complete.
Every AI tool layers on top of an existing calculator. The fastest path to an answer today is to use the calculator directly.