Charlotte has officially claimed the crown as the most welcoming rental market in the country for furry tenants with four legs, according to fresh data out of Zillow.

The North Carolina metro posted a staggering 91.6% pet-approval rate among its rental listings, narrowly outpacing Austin, Texas, which came in at 91.5%. 

Denver, Dallas and Nashville rounded out the top five, continuing a pattern in which Sun Belt and Mountain West cities dominate the leaderboard, largely thanks to newer apartment complexes built with pet policies baked in from day one.

Nationally, landlords have clearly gotten the memo.

Three-quarters of all rental listings on Zillow now allow pets, a dramatic jump from where the market stood just a few years back. Zillow Home Trends Expert Amanda Pendleton put the shift in stark terms, telling HGTV, “The rental market has undergone a dramatic shift for pet owners.”  

She noted that only a little more than half of listings allowed pets as recently as three years ago, adding, “Today, that number has climbed to 77%.”

The demand driving that shift isn’t hard to explain. 

Nearly six in 10 renter households now have a pet in the home, edging out the share with kids and even the share with houseplants. 

Two-thirds of renters call pet-friendliness a dealbreaker when apartment hunting, a number that’s climbed steadily as more Americans opt for a dog or cat over, well, anything else.

But not every city is keeping pace, and New York is one of the worst offenders.

The five boroughs allow pets in only 61% of listings, good for second-to-last among the nation’s largest metros. 

Only Providence, Rhode Island, trails further behind, with just 54% of its rentals opening the door to Fido.

That reluctance may be costing New York landlords real money. Pet-friendly units in the metro rent a full 26 days faster than those that ban animals, the widest such gap of any major market in the country. 

Listings that welcome pets also pull in significantly more views, saves and shares than the ones that don’t, according to Zillow’s research, suggesting Gotham’s holdout landlords are leaving both time and cash on the table.

Elsewhere, the numbers are moving fast. Salt Lake City posted the single biggest jump of any metro over the past year, climbing nearly eight percentage points, with Louisville, Cleveland, Miami and Indianapolis also showing meaningful gains.