Rental interest points to Dallas as a housing market to watch

by Emily Marek

Out-of-town rental searches can point to potential relocation hotspots, according to a new Zillow analysis.

Out-of-town rental searches in Dallas point to the metro as future relocation hotspot, a new Zillow analysis shows.

Over the past year, more than 33% of rental listing page views in Dallas came from out-of-towners. That represents a 3% year-over-year surge in the metro — the fifth-highest annual increase of any major city in the country, behind Buffalo, New York (up 4.2%), Chicago (up 3.7%), Houston (up 3.4%) and New Orleans (up 3.2%).

While this trend signals a potential influx in Dallas’ rental market, it could also point toward a future housing market boom, Zillow said.

“Renting is often how people try out a new community before committing. When we see a market with a growing share of rental searches coming from outside the metro, that tips us off to a developing pipeline,” Chief Economist Mischa Fisher said in a press release. “A year-over-year surge in out-of-town browsing in places like [Dallas] tells us a wave of newcomers may not be far behind.”

A majority of Dallas’ out-of-town would-be renters — 1.6% — are in Houston, suggesting a potential in-state transition in the coming months and years.

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