Ohio rental markets, by the numbers
Every figure on this page carries a source and a date, because the two most common failure modes in Ohio real estate content are averaging away real disagreement between sources and letting a number quietly go stale. Neither happens here. Where sources disagree by more than a few percent, we show both and tell you why — see why the same city shows three different medians below.
This is a data reference, not a pitch. If you're deciding where in Ohio to buy a rental, start here, then run your specific property through the DSCR calculator once you have an address and a rent number.
02
The master table
| Metro | Median home price | Rent | Gross yield | County | County eff. tax rate | Character |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Columbus | $262K city (sale, −1.2% YoY) · ~$315K metro · $335K regional MLS (+4.7% YoY) | avg $1,366–$1,487; studio $982 / 1BR $1,216 / 2BR $1,442 / 3BR $1,717 | ~5.5–6.5% | Franklin | 1.47% | Growth and demand depth; thinnest yield of the big three |
| Cleveland | ~$111,059 (some sources $125K–$130K) | median $913/mo; turnkey-team average ~$1,200 at ~$125K entry | ~9.8%; price-to-rent 12.8 | Cuyahoga | 1.80% — highest in Ohio | Yield and operations; sub-$60K entries exist |
| Cincinnati | $276,000 (Feb 2026 sale, +10.7% YoY); SFR average ~$236,000 | avg $1,482 (+2.4% YoY); studio $1,169 / 1BR $1,290 / 2BR $1,553 / 3BR $1,957 | ~6.4% | Hamilton | 1.53% | Balanced — Fortune 500 employers plus a hospital corridor |
| Dayton | $131,950–$134,774 | apartment rents $650–$924 (studio $650 / 1BR $752 / 2BR $924) | not directly comparable — apartment rents run below SFR rents; see caveat below | Montgomery | high; parts of the county exceed 2.3% | Lowest basis in Ohio; Wright-Patterson AFB (30,000+ personnel) anchors demand |
| Toledo | avg value $130,101 (+5.1% YoY) · Zillow "typical value" index $113,873 (+2.5% YoY) | avg $967 (1BR $725–$797 / 2BR $899–$976) | ~8.9%–10.2% depending on which price figure you use | Lucas | 1.55%–1.75%, varies by taxing district | Deep value, operator-intensive |
| Akron | avg home value $131,255 | median asking rent $1,350 (Jul 2026) | 12.06% (vs 10.17% statewide) | Summit | 1.54% | Best gross yield in Ohio; emerging short-term-rental activity |
| Youngstown | avg home value $71,210 (+7.9% YoY) | 1BR average $745 (Jun 2026) — no independently confirmed SFR-rent figure at publish | not published — see caveat below | Mahoning | ~2.1% (among the state's highest) | The lowest entry price in the state; the least-verified row on this table |
| Canton | avg value $162,807 (+4.5% YoY) · median sale $125K–$127K | $995–$1,010 (Zillow Rental Manager / RentCafe) | ~7.4%–7.7% | Stark | 1.32% — lowest of the eight | Affordable, stable, unglamorous — the quiet market on this list |
SOURCE: SEE CITATIONS BELOW
Two honesty notes on this table. Dayton's rent figures above are apartment averages, not single-family rents, so we haven't computed a gross yield for it — a $132,000 SFR renting for $650 would understate what these houses actually lease for. And Youngstown's rent column is a 1-bedroom apartment average, not a whole-house figure, so we're not publishing a gross yield we can't stand behind. Both get corrected the next time we can source a matched price-and-rent pair for the same property type. That's the standard the rest of this table meets and those two rows don't, yet.
03
How to read a gross yield
Gross yield gets thrown around as if it were the answer. It's the first step of the math, not the last one. Take Cleveland, using the citywide figures above: a $111,059 median home renting for $913/month.
$913 × 12 = $10,956 a year. $10,956 ÷ $111,059 = 9.87% gross yield. That's the number that shows up in every "Cleveland is a 10% yield city" headline, and it isn't wrong — it's just not what lands in your account.
Walk it down to something closer to real:
| Step | Monthly | Running total |
|---|---|---|
| Gross rent | $913 | $913 |
| Less Ohio's 5.9% average rental vacancy | −$54 | $859 |
| Less Cuyahoga County property tax (1.80% of $111,059, annualized) | −$167 | $692 |
| Less landlord insurance (~$1,220/yr statewide average) | −$102 | $590 |
| Less a 6% maintenance/capex reserve on gross rent | −$55 | $535 |
SOURCE: SEE CITATIONS BELOW
$535/month net operating income × 12 = $6,420/year. $6,420 ÷ $111,059 = ~5.8% cap rate — inside the 6–7% range this desk generally sees on Cleveland SFRs once a management fee, a slightly higher maintenance reserve, or a lower-entry-price property shifts the math.
One more step, because DSCR financing changes what actually reaches you. At 20% down ($22,212) and an observed Ohio long-term-rental average rate of 7.20% (Q2 2026, Private Lender Link) — inside the broader national DSCR range lenders were publishing of 6.5%–8.75% — the loan payment on the $88,847 balance runs roughly $603/month principal and interest. Against $535 in monthly NOI, that's a negative $68/month before you account for a management fee at all. That is not a reason to skip Cleveland. It's a reason to run the calculator on the specific property, not the citywide median, before you make an offer — sub-$90,000 West Park and Slavic Village listings clear this math in a way the $111,059 citywide figure doesn't show. Run your own numbers on the DSCR calculator.
Observed rate figures above are market data we compile, not an offer of credit — your rate depends on your DSCR, credit, LTV and loan purpose, and is set by the lender, not by us.
04
Ohio, statewide
- Average home value: $242,141 (Apr 2026)
- Rental vacancy rate: 5.9%, against 7.2% nationally
- Gross rental yield, statewide: ~10.17% (Jul 2026)
- Average effective property tax: 1.36%, with an 88-county range from under 1% in rural counties
to over 2.3% in parts of Cuyahoga and Montgomery
- Landlord (DP-3) insurance: ~$1,220/year average; typical range $800–$2,500 for a long-term
rental single-family home
Ohio's yield sits well above the coastal norm because its entry prices are low relative to its rents — not because its rents are unusually high. A $913 Cleveland rent isn't remarkable. A $111,059 Cleveland house is.
05
Why the same city shows three different medians
Read enough Ohio real estate content and you'll see Columbus quoted at $262,000, $315,000, and $335,000 in three different articles — sometimes in the same week. None of them is wrong. They're answering three different questions.
- $262K is the city-limits median sale price — houses that actually closed, inside Columbus
proper, down 1.2% year over year.
- ~$315K is the metro median — the 11-county Columbus metropolitan statistical area, which
pulls in higher-priced suburbs like Dublin and New Albany that sit outside city limits.
- $335K is the regional MLS figure from the Columbus and Central Ohio Regional MLS, up 4.7%
year over year — a broader geography still, and a different data source (MLS listings) than the first two (recorded sales).
City limits vs. metro vs. regional MLS, and sale price vs. list price, are four different rulers. A site that averages them into one invented number is hiding the disagreement instead of explaining it. This is why every figure on this site states its geography and its measure — "$262,000, Columbus city limits, sale price, Feb 2026" is a fact you can check. "Columbus homes cost around $300K" is not.
06
The tax drag section
Property tax is the single most decision-relevant number this SERP leaves out, and it varies enough across Ohio's 88 counties to move a deal from cash-flowing to underwater. Here's what the same property costs in monthly tax, by county:
| Property price | Cuyahoga (1.80%) | Hamilton (1.53%) | Franklin (1.47%) | Statewide avg (1.36%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $130,000 | $195/mo | $166/mo | $159/mo | $147/mo |
| $200,000 | $300/mo | $255/mo | $245/mo | $227/mo |
| $300,000 | $450/mo | $383/mo | $368/mo | $340/mo |
SOURCE: SEE CITATIONS BELOW
The spread between Cuyahoga and the statewide average is $48–$110 a month depending on price point — money that comes straight off your DSCR numerator before a lender ever runs the ratio. A property that clears 1.25 in Franklin County can land at 1.10 in Cuyahoga on identical rent and price. See each metro page for the county-specific worked example, or run your own property through the calculator with the right county pre-loaded.
07
Ohio markets we cover
- Columbus → — Ohio's growth market. Thinner yield, deeper demand.
- Cleveland → — Ohio's yield market. The highest county tax rate in the
state sits directly opposite the highest gross yields.
- Cincinnati → — the balanced middle path between the two.
- Dayton, Toledo, and Akron — full metro pages are in production; the master table above carries
their current data in the meantime.
08
Sources for this page
- Zillow, statewide home value and rental vacancy data (Apr 2026) — zillow.com
- SFR Analytics (statewide and Akron gross yield) — https://sfranalytics.com/rental-yields/oh/akron-oh
- Private Lender Link (Ohio DSCR rate and loan-amount average, Q2 2026) — https://privatelenderlink.com/region/usa/ohio/residential-long-term-rental-ohio-usa/
- propertytaxrates.org (county effective tax rates, Summit, Stark) — https://propertytaxrates.org/states/ohio/
- Ownwell (Lucas County property tax data) — https://www.ownwell.com/trends/ohio/lucas-county
- Zillow home value and rental-manager data (Toledo, Youngstown, Canton) — zillow.com
- RentCafe average-rent data (Youngstown, Canton) — rentcafe.com
- RL Property Management 2026 Columbus market report — https://rlpmg.com/2026-columbus-market-report/
- coverforgeusa.com and insuredbetter.com (Ohio landlord insurance ranges)
Last updated 2026-08-24. Market data on this page is re-verified quarterly; the tax-drag and three-medians methodology sections are updated only on material change.