When San Jose renters are looking to get out, they turn to San Francisco and the East Bay. And when San Francisco metro dwellers want to flee, they look to San Jose.

An analysis released this month by Apartment List found Bay Area renters looking to move are searching other local cities far more often than out-of-state tech hubs like Seattle, Portland or Austin, Tex.

Apartment List economist Chris Salviati said the analysis, based on more than a million online searches across the country, gives a strong signal about where renters want to move. Bay Area renters, he said, mostly want to stay in the Bay Area.

“There’s certainly turnover, and there’s certainly folks looking to leave,” he said. But, he added, most often high rents are “driving people more to the outer limits of the region.”

The soaring Bay Area economy, with expanding tech businesses adding more and more jobs, has been matched by rising housing prices. Rents in the Bay Area have risen steadily in the last five years. The median rent in May for a two bedroom apartment in San Jose was $2,650, in San Francisco $3,100 and in Oakland $2,200, according to Apartment List.

Just over half of San Jose apartment hunters looked to leave the metro area, according to the survey. But they weren’t looking far — residents were most likely to search for rentals in San Francisco and the East Bay (39.3 percent), Sacramento (6.9 percent) and Los Angeles (6.3 percent).

Across the country, renters looking to move to San Jose were usually searching from San Francisco and Oakland (43.6 percent), Sacramento (7.3 percent), or Stockton (5.0 percent).

About 54 percent of the searches by San Francisco and Oakland residents were for another rental in their cities. Those San Francisco metro residents looking to move farther checked out apartments in San Jose (24.4 percent), Los Angeles (7.6 percent) and Sacramento (6.5 percent).

Across the country, renters looking to move into the San Francisco metro were mostly searching from San Jose (20.9 percent), Sacramento (8.5 percent) and Stockton (7.9 percent) according to Apartment List.

Salviati said searches from people outside the Bay Area looking to move into the region have decreased since 2016. The searches are a strong signal of where people move, he said.

Nationally, the East Bay and San Francisco market is one of the top regions attracting renters from elsewhere, with 44 percent of searches coming from outside the area. But residents in those cities were also among the most active in the nation looking outside their metro.

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Big credit union plans new downtown San Jose branch Tampa and Denver were the most popular cities in the country for apartment hunters coming from elsewhere. Renters in Orlando and Detroit were the most eager to search outside their cities.

Jeffrey Buchanan, director of public policy at Working Partnerships USA, said escalating Bay Area prices caused by a housing shortage have put more stress on renters. Many have strong ties to the region — families, jobs, schools and other support — that make it difficult to leave, he said.

But moving farther away from Bay Area cities — bringing longer commutes but cheaper rents — is a choice many families have been forced to make, he said.

“We constantly hear about families facing an eviction notice or a rent increase and they’re looking to move,” he said. “All of these things create additional stress, especially for families with young children.”