Why Some Shop Rentals, Houses at the Same Time

June 5, 2026

The leasing-versus-buying decision is increasingly complicated.

A small percentage of people shopping for houses on the popular Zillow listing site also shop for rentals at the same time.

Zillow calls them “dual shoppers” and reports that 8 percent of those who visit the site, which hosts both for-sale and rental listings, simultaneously explore both options before making a decision.

“Many are straddling the fence between renting and buying, deciding which option best fits their budget and long-term goals,” the company reports.

Measuring the rent-versus-buy decision is an inherently challenging proposition. Traditional approaches rely on assumptions about how to match homes across the two markets, and comparing a typical for-sale house to a typical rental often falls short because the properties are rarely directly comparable.

But by focusing on dual shoppers and letting their own engagement behavior do the matching, Zillow says it is able to achieve a more accurate picture of the trade-offs households actually face. And its findings offer a unique window into how shoppers navigate between the two markets.

Dual shoppers typically explore larger homes when browsing for-sale listings, the listing site discovered. The rentals they consider are, on average, 284 square feet smaller. Even so, based on “Zestimate” comparisons, rental properties often provide higher value per square foot, suggesting they may feature newer finishes, updated amenities or more efficient layouts. A Zestimate is Zillow’s estimate of a house’s market value.

Dual shoppers want three bedrooms but are willing to go smaller for a rental. In in most cases, though, the decision likely comes down to monthly costs. Owning is typically $415 more expensive per month than renting, including mortgage payments, property taxes, insurance and maintenance and assuming a 20% down payment. In high-cost markets like San Jose, that gap exceeds $3,400 per month.

Dual shoppers tend to focus on similar types of homes—most often three-bedroom properties—suggesting their lifestyle needs remain consistent even as they consider different paths, Zillow says.

Dual shopping is more prevalent in markets where affordability constraints create a steep financial divide between owning and leasing. Los Angeles metro leads the nation in dual shopping, with 12 percent of for-sale shoppers also browsing rentals. San Diego is next with 10.8 percent of the shoppers looking at both market, followed by San Francisco at 10.1 percent.

Income-driven

In each of these coastal markets, the median household would need to spend roughly two-thirds of its income on a monthly mortgage payment with a 20 percent down payment, highlighting the affordability pressures driving shoppers to consider both options. Renting, by comparison, cuts that burden roughly in half to about one-third of income.

New York City stands out as a major outlier. According to StreetEasy data, 29.9 percent of the city’s home shoppers are also considering rentals—3.8 times the national share and four times the share for the broader New York metro area. The city’s unusually high share of renter households—about 70 percent—and steep home prices are probable reasons it’s especially common for shoppers there to weigh both options.

At the other end of the spectrum, dual shopping is less common in more affordable markets, where ownership is more feasible. Metros with a higher share of affordable inventory, lower home price-to-income ratios and fewer years for potential buyers to save for a down payment are associated with lower shares of for-sale shoppers also engaging with rentals. Hartford has the lowest share of dual shoppers at 4.2 percent.

But the median monthly payment gap is widest in San Jose, where the difference between renting and buying is a whopping $3,438. Nine percent of the shoppers there consider both options. In LA, its $2,174 and, in San Francisco, it’s $2,212. In a few markets like Detroit and Cincinnati, it’s a few dollars more a month to rent than it is to buy.

The national average is $415.

For its analysis, Zillow identified visitors to its site who actively engaged with listings by saving or sharing a home, grouping activity by month and region. Each user was categorized based on whether they interacted with for-sale listings, rental listings or both. It then analyzed the characteristics of homes these users engaged with, including size, bedrooms, age and estimated value.

For for-sale houses, Zillow estimated monthly ownership costs based on list price, assuming a 20 percent down payment and incorporating mortgage payments, taxes, insurance and maintenance, and compared those costs to rents on rentals viewed by the same people.