Rental Search Patterns Take a Peek at Where Relocation Demand May Be Heading

A new Zillow report shows that prospective renters are looking beyond their own backyards.

Where are they looking? Zillow said an analysis of rental listing page views found that out-of-town interest is growing fastest in Buffalo, Chicago and Houston.

It said the share of searches coming from renters outside these markets has surged during the past year and is an early signal of where relocation demand may be heading next.

Rental search patterns are an early signal of migration trends — when outside search share grows in a market, it often points to a developing pipeline of incoming renters, according to Zillow.

The year-over-year surge in out-of-town browsing in markets such as Buffalo and Chicago may suggest a wave of newcomers is not far behind, Zillow noted.

Out-of-Town Rental

Buffalo recorded the steepest climb in outside interest over the past year, with its out-of-town rental share growing 4.2 percentage points. Chicago (up 3.7 percentage points), Houston (+3.4), New Orleans (+3.2) and Dallas (+3) netted the next biggest gains, Zillow noted.

Cincinnati led local share growth, up 8.1 percentage points year over year, followed by Jacksonville, Florida (+4.6) and Columbus, Ohio (+3.2), a likely sign that homegrown demand is driving these rental markets.

The markets drawing the most out-of-town rental interest are concentrated in the Sun Belt and Mid-Atlantic, Zillow said. Those markets have absorbed years of relocation demand from higher-cost coastal metros.

Raleigh tops the list with 59% of page views on rental listings coming from outside the metro area. Hartford (55.1%), New Orleans (53.7%), Salt Lake City (51.9%) and Nashville (51.7%) round out the top five, Zillow noted.

Providence, Rhode Island, named Zillow’s hottest rental market of 2026, is next with 51.5% of rental page views coming from out-of-towners.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, New York (76.3% of page views on rental listings coming from locals), Los Angeles (72.9%), and Chicago (69.1%) are the most locally driven markets, Zillow noted.

Population Size

As the three biggest markets in the U.S., their population sizes are a primary reason the most local rental traffic is seen in these areas because there are simply more potential rental shoppers.

Zillow said that metros that outperform their population include St. Louis, which ranks No. 4 among major markets with 67.2% of rental page views coming from within the metro; Kansas City, which ranks No. 10 at 63.3%; and Las Vegas, which ranks No. 13 at 62.1%.

Most cross-market rental searches happen between neighboring metros, Zillow noted.

Washington, D.C. rental searchers account for 23.9% of all rental page views on Baltimore listings, for example. Similar short-distance flows dominate the top of the list, with Los Angeles renters browsing Riverside (21.3%), San Francisco renters browsing San Jose (17.6%) and Boston renters browsing Providence (16.1%).

When looking only at long-distance searches — between markets in different states and at least 100 miles apart — Zillow noted the most common flow is renters in the New York area browsing listings in Hartford, accounting for 6% of all Hartford rental page views on Zillow.

Other common flows include Los Angeles renters browsing Las Vegas listings (5.5% of all Las Vegas rental page views), Houston renters browsing Oklahoma City (5.2%), and Boston renters browsing Buffalo (5%).

Among the 20 most common long-distance searches, Zillow noted that most occur within neighboring states. The notable exception is New Yorkers looking south.

Neighboring States

Zillow said that rental shoppers in the New York metro area make up 2.8% of all page views in Raleigh, about 425 miles and several states away. They also account for large shares of views in Miami (4.8%), Orlando (2.7%) and Tampa (2.4%).

Outside interest is growing fastest in Buffalo, Chicago and Houston, where out-of-town rental search shares grew the most year over year, Zillow reported.
In established hotspots — Raleigh (59%), Hartford (55%), New Orleans (54%) and Nashville (52%) — outside rental searchers outnumber local rental searchers on Zillow.

The largest shares of long-distance rental searches typically come from neighboring states. The notable exception, Zillow noted, is New Yorkers looking south, especially in Florida.