Rental Property in Ohio: What the Numbers Actually Look Like

Ohio is the state people mean when they say "the numbers work in the Midwest." Houses cost a fraction of what they cost in the Sun Belt, insurance is among the cheapest in the country, and rent-to-price ratios that would be impossible in Charlotte or Orlando are ordinary here.

All of that is true, and it is not the whole picture. Ohio also carries an effective property tax rate of 1.36% statewide and 1.80% in Cuyahoga County — higher than Florida, higher than Georgia, higher than North Carolina, and close to Texas. On a cheap house, a high tax rate does more damage than it looks like it should, because the tax bill does not scale with the rent.

What Ohio genuinely offers is the cleanest demonstration in this whole series of why the three "invisible" expenses matter. The worked example below shows a property that cash flows if you leave vacancy, management, and capital reserves out, and loses $342.62 a month once you put them back. Same house. Same rent. Same loan. That flip is the single most important thing on this page.

A note before you start: this is general educational information about how rental property arithmetic works in Ohio. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation about any property. Ohio property tax is levied by thousands of individual taxing districts and reappraised on a county cycle; insurance is priced per structure. Talk to an Ohio CPA about tax treatment, a licensed Ohio insurance agent about a real quote, and an Ohio real estate attorney about anything contractual.

1. What a rental costs to buy here

The statewide median is $245,500 (Redfin data as of January 2026, up 6.2% year over year). That figure is genuinely disputed: Houzeo, drawing on live MLS feeds from Northern Ohio, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton, cites $287,000. Direct verification against Ohio REALTORS and Redfin was blocked in the research pass, so treat Ohio's statewide median as a $245,500 to $287,000 range rather than a point. County figures are firmer and more useful anyway:

• Cuyahoga County (Cleveland): $223,000, effective property tax rate 1.80%, average insurance $1,596
• Franklin County (Columbus): $300,000, effective property tax rate 1.40%, average insurance $1,708

Ohio is also the only state in this comparison set with meaningful recent price growth in the data: +3.24% year over year, against declines in Texas and Florida.

The cash you actually need

• Transfer tax: a mandatory statewide conveyance fee of 0.1% ($1.00 per $1,000 of value) under Ohio Revised Code 322.02, customarily paid by the seller unless otherwise agreed. The nuance that a single statewide rate hides: ORC 322.02 additionally authorizes counties to levy a permissive transfer tax of up to $0.30 per $100 (0.3%) on top, so a combined rate near 0.4% is common in counties that levy the maximum. Check the county you are buying in.
• No mortgage recording tax. Ohio county recorders charge only a flat per-page fee — commonly $34 for the first two pages plus $8 per additional page — for mortgages, identical in structure to deeds. No percentage-of-loan tax applies.
• Closing costs: 2% to 4%. This is the softest figure in the Ohio file. HomeLight cites 2% to 4% for sellers; a buyer-specific percentage could not be confirmed against a live source. The 2% to 4% band is used as a conservative estimate consistent with Ohio having no attorney-closing requirement and a modest transfer tax. This article uses a 3% midpoint.

On the $223,000 Cuyahoga County example at 25% down:

• Down payment: $223,000 x 0.25 = $55,750
• Loan amount: $167,250
• Closing costs: $223,000 x 3% = $6,690
• Buyer-side transfer tax: $0 by custom
• Mortgage tax: $0
• Total cash in: $62,440

That is the lowest cash-in figure in this comparison set by a wide margin — about half of what the same 25%-down purchase costs in Florida.

2. The two expenses that decide whether it works

Property tax: Ohio's real cost, and it is bigger than people expect

The Tax Foundation puts Ohio's effective property tax rate on owner-occupied housing at 1.36%. SmartAsset reads a lower 1.22%, so treat the statewide figure as a 1.22% to 1.36% range. County effective rates diverge much further: Cuyahoga at 1.80%, Franklin at 1.40%.

On the Cuyahoga example: $223,000 x 1.80% = $4,014 a year, or $334.50 a month.

Put that next to the rent. Gross scheduled rent in Section 3 is $20,400. Property tax alone is 19.7% of gross rent. For comparison, insurance on the same property is $1,596 — the tax bill is 2.5 times the insurance bill, the exact inverse of Florida.

This is the structural point about cheap-house markets that gets lost: a high effective rate on a low price still produces a large number relative to the rent, because rent in a low-price market is also low. Ohio's 1.80% Cuyahoga rate on a $223,000 house produces almost the same annual tax as Florida's 0.78% on a $425,000 house ($4,014 versus $3,315), against 35% less rent.

Two Ohio-specific mechanics to check on a specific parcel:

Reappraisal cycles. Ohio counties reappraise on a six-year cycle with a three-year update. A property bought shortly before a reappraisal can see a step change in assessed value, and recent county reappraisals in parts of Ohio have produced large increases. Find out where the county sits in its cycle.

Levies. Ohio funds schools and local services through voted levies that appear on the ballot. The effective rate is not a fixed feature of the county; it is the sum of what voters have approved, and it moves. Budget for a rate that goes up, not one that stays flat.

Owner-occupancy credits. Ohio's owner-occupancy credit and homestead exemption require the owner to live in the property. A rental gets neither, so if you are underwriting from a seller's current tax bill, strip those out first.

Insurance: Ohio's real advantage

The reference figure is $1,943 a year at $300,000 of dwelling coverage with a $1,000 deductible. (The site's separate state file carries $2,080 from a different source; the insurance-specific file's $1,943 is the coverage-normalized figure and is used here.) Cuyahoga County's own average is $1,596; Franklin County's is $1,708.

Against Florida's $8,471 at the same coverage level, Ohio is paying about 23% as much. That is the compensating advantage that makes a 1.80% property tax rate survivable.

On the worked example, property tax and insurance together are $5,610 — 27.5% of gross rent and 29.89% of rent actually collected. The equivalent figure in Texas is 41.04% and in Florida 41.06%. That 11-point difference is most of why Ohio is on every list of cash-flow markets.

The trend is the one place Ohio looks worse than its reputation: +7.3% year over year, the steepest increase in this comparison set. Cheap does not mean static.

A rental is not insured on a homeowners form — you need a landlord policy (a dwelling fire form) with loss-of-rents coverage, priced for the specific address. The figures above are the right anchor for the level of cost; they are not your quote.

The percentage deductible, and why it is a landlord's problem specifically

Ohio has no coastal exposure and no hurricane or named-storm deductible. That was checked, not assumed: Ohio is not among the 19 states plus DC that use them, and the Lake Erie shoreline generates windstorm losses without a tropical-cyclone trigger.

What Ohio does have is a percentage wind and hail deductible driven by severe convective storms, and it has become common enough to matter. United Policyholders names Ohio among the Midwestern states where wind/hail deductibles have become the norm, and many carriers writing here now attach a separate percentage deductible that governs most roof claims — which matters, because wind and hail cause most Ohio roof losses.

Insurify's quote-database average across all Ohio quotes is 1.03% of dwelling coverage, roughly $3,502 — about three and a half times the $1,000 flat deductible that applies to everything else.

Two honest qualifications, both worth stating: this is carrier underwriting rather than law, so a meaningful share of Ohio policies still carry a single flat all-perils deductible; and Ohio's 1.03% is at the mild end of the Midwest, well under Oklahoma's 1.97% or North Dakota's 1.53%. Ohio is a wind/hail-deductible state, but a moderate one.

On a $300,000 dwelling limit, 1% is $3,000 and 2% is $6,000. Ohio construction runs about $235 per square foot to rebuild, so a 1,500 square foot house has a replacement cost near $352,500, on which 1% is $3,525 and 2% is $7,050.

Now put that against the property. Section 3 works out that this rental produces $9,241.20 of net operating income in a good year. Insurify's $3,502 Ohio average deductible is 37.9% of a full year's NOI, payable in one week, on a claim that is nominally covered. A 2% deductible on a $352,500 replacement cost would be $7,050 — 76.3% of a year's NOI.

You cannot pass that to a tenant. It is not a lease obligation, it is not billable, and it does not wait for rent to accumulate.

Roof settlement compounds it. Ohio is a high-frequency wind and hail state, and roof surface payment schedules and actual-cash-value roof endorsements past roughly 15 years are common, as are cosmetic-damage exclusions. Nothing in Ohio law sets the settlement basis — roof age and the endorsement decide it. Nationally, in March 2026 the Federal Housing Finance Agency relaxed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac requirements so ACV roof coverage can satisfy a lender rather than replacement cost being required, removing a constraint that had kept replacement-cost roof coverage in place by default.

And Ohio's matching regulation is weaker than most. Under Ohio Adm. Code 3901-1-54(I), when a loss requires replacement of an item and the replacement does not match the quality, color, or size of the original, the insurer must replace as much as will produce a "reasonably comparable appearance." That is a softer standard than the "reasonably uniform appearance" most states copied from the NAIC model, and Ohio courts have leaned on the difference. In Wright v. State Farm Fire & Cas. Co., 555 F. App'x 575 (6th Cir. 2014), unweathered replacement wood shakes satisfied the rule even though they would not exactly match weathered ones. Zinser v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co., 2017 WL 2838393 (Ohio App. 2017) requires the insured to put forward evidence beyond mere opinion that proposed materials would not produce a reasonably comparable appearance. The burden is on the property owner. For a landlord with a partially damaged roof, that means a mismatched patch may be all you are owed.

If no carrier will write you, the Ohio FAIR Plan Underwriting Association (ORC 3929.43, plan of operation at OAC 3901-1-18) is the backstop. In practice it requires denial by at least two carriers and may inspect the property first. Unusually for a FAIR plan, it writes a true open-peril homeowners form (HO 0003) rather than fire-and-extended-coverage only, alongside Dwelling Property and Commercial Property programs, with a maximum limit of $2 million per location combining building and contents. That is a genuinely better residual market than most states have.

3. A full worked example

The property. A single-family house in Cuyahoga County at the county median of $223,000.

The rent — read this carefully. This site does not carry rent data. The $1,700 a month used below is an assumption chosen to be plausible for a house at that price in that county. It is not a market observation. Pull three to five real comparable listings for the specific neighborhood and substitute the actual number.

The other assumptions:

• Vacancy: 8% of gross rent (roughly one month of turnover a year)
• Property management: 10% of collected rent
• Repairs and maintenance: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Capital reserve: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Financing: 25% down, 30-year fixed at 7.00% — the rate is an assumption, not a quote
• No HOA

Step 1 — income

• Gross scheduled rent: $1,700 x 12 = $20,400
• Vacancy loss: $20,400 x 8% = $1,632
• Effective gross income: $20,400 - $1,632 = $18,768

Step 2 — operating expenses

Management is charged on rent actually collected, not scheduled rent:

• Management: $18,768 x 10% = $1,876.80
• Property tax: $223,000 x 1.80% = $4,014
• Insurance: $1,596 (Cuyahoga County average)
• Maintenance: $20,400 x 5% = $1,020
• Capital reserve: $20,400 x 5% = $1,020
• Total operating expenses: $9,526.80

Expense ratio: $9,526.80 / $18,768 = 50.76% of collected rent — comfortably inside the 35% to 55% band most rentals land in. That is a healthier expense ratio than Texas (61.91%) or Florida (61.93%) on the same assumptions.

Step 3 — net operating income and cap rate

• NOI = $18,768 - $9,526.80 = $9,241.20
• Cap rate = $9,241.20 / $223,000 = 4.14%

That 4.14% is the highest cap rate in this eight-state comparison set on identical assumptions, and it is the mathematical statement of Ohio's reputation.

Note what is not in it: the mortgage. Cap rate deliberately excludes debt service so two identical houses do not look like different investments because one buyer put more down. Including debt service in a cap rate is the most common error in this whole exercise.

Step 4 — debt service and cash flow

Loan: $223,000 x 75% = $167,250. At 7.00% over 30 years, principal and interest is $1,112.72 a month, or $13,352.64 a year.

• Annual cash flow = $9,241.20 - $13,352.64 = -$4,111.44
• Monthly cash flow = -$342.62
• Debt service coverage ratio = $9,241.20 / $13,352.64 = 0.69

Step 5 — cash-on-cash return

• Cash invested: $62,440 (Section 1)
• Cash-on-cash = -$4,111.44 / $62,440 = -6.58%

Rate sensitivity, since 7.00% was an assumption

• At 6.50%: P&I $1,057.13/mo, annual cash flow -$3,444.36
• At 7.00%: P&I $1,112.72/mo, annual cash flow -$4,111.44
• At 7.50%: P&I $1,169.44/mo, annual cash flow -$4,792.08

The check that Ohio passes, and why it is dangerous

Add up the four bills a lender escrows:

• Principal and interest: $1,112.72
• Property tax: $4,014 / 12 = $334.50
• Insurance: $1,596 / 12 = $133.00
• Total: $1,580.22 a month

Against $1,700 of assumed rent, that is +$119.78 a month.

Ohio and Alabama are the only two states in this eight-state set where the naive "does the rent cover the mortgage" check passes. That is genuinely good news about Ohio, and it is also precisely the trap. A property that clears PITI feels like a property that works, which is why the next section exists.

4. The expenses people leave out

This is the most important section in the article, and Ohio is the clearest illustration of it in the whole series, because here the property does not just get worse — it changes sign.

Vacancy, management, and capital reserves do not arrive as invoices. Nobody bills you for the month between tenants, or for the roof you will need in eleven years, or — if you self-manage — for your own weekends. So they fall out of the mental model.

Here is the same Cuyahoga house with those three removed and everything else identical:

Read the bottom four rows again. Left column: a 6.17% cap rate, positive cash flow, a debt service coverage ratio above 1.0 — a property that services its own loan. Right column: a 4.14% cap rate, a $4,111.44 annual loss, and a DSCR of 0.69.

Nothing about the house changed. The rent did not change. The loan did not change. Three line items worth $4,528.80 a year — $1,632 of vacancy, $1,876.80 of management, $1,020 of reserve — moved it from cash flowing to losing $342.62 a month.

This is the specific failure mode Ohio produces more than any other state, because Ohio is cheap enough that the naive numbers look fine. A property that "cash flows $35 a month" is not a thin winner. It is a loser that has not been fully counted.

Vacancy is not optional. Eight percent is roughly one month a year — what a single clean turnover costs between move-out and the next tenant's first full month, assuming nothing goes wrong. Setting it to zero assumes the house is never empty, including between tenants.

Management is a real cost even if you do it yourself. Zeroing it means the return is paying you for your labor, not for the property. Self-managing this house saves $1,876.80 a year, lifting NOI to $11,118 and the cap rate to 4.99%, with cash flow improving to -$186.22 a month. That is a meaningful improvement and it still does not reach zero — and it stops being free the moment you move, get busy, or buy a second house.

Capital reserves are certain, not unlikely. Ohio's housing stock is old, and older stock means the roof, the furnace, the water heater, the electrical panel, and the sewer line all sit closer to the end of their lives on the day you buy than they would in a newer market. The 5%-of-rent convention used above is one option; a harsher and equally common convention is 1% of purchase price a year for maintenance and 1% for capital, which here is $2,230 each. Run that way: total operating expenses $11,946.80, expense ratio 63.66%, NOI $6,821.20, cap rate 3.06%, cash flow -$544.29 a month, cash-on-cash -10.46%.

For Ohio specifically, the percentage-of-price convention is probably the more honest one, precisely because the housing stock is old. That gives an honest cap-rate range for this property of 3.06% to 4.14%. Cheap entry price and old building are the same fact viewed from two directions, and only one of those directions shows up in the purchase price.

What would actually have to be true

The rent this property needs. For cash flow to reach zero at this price and this financing, gross scheduled rent must reach about $26,048 a year, or $2,170.63 a month — 0.97% of purchase price per month. The assumed $1,700 is 0.76%. Ohio is the closest of the eight states to its own breakeven, which is the quantitative version of "the numbers almost work here."

The price this rent supports. Hold rent at $1,700 and solve for the purchase price at which cash flow reaches zero with 25% down: about $170,206, which is 76% of the Cuyahoga median. In Florida the same calculation lands at 50% of the median and in Texas at 58%. A Cleveland investor has to buy about a quarter below the county median to break even at 75% loan-to-value; a Miami investor has to buy at half.

The down payment this price needs. Keep the $223,000 price and the $1,700 rent and solve for the loan the NOI can service: about $115,752 — roughly $107,248 down, or 48% of the price. Ohio is the only state in this set where the breakeven down payment is under 50%.

A middle option that actually moves. At 40% down ($89,200), the loan falls to $133,800, principal and interest to $890.17 a month, and cash flow to -$120.07 a month with a DSCR of 0.87. Combine 40% down with self-management and this property is roughly at breakeven. That is a real, reachable answer, and it is not available in most of the states in this series.

5. What actually varies by county here

Ohio property tax is not set at the state level. It is levied by thousands of individual taxing districts — school districts, municipalities, townships, counties, libraries, parks, and joint vocational districts — that stack on the same parcel, and it is driven by voted levies that change. Two houses at the same price in different school districts can carry materially different bills.

The county spread is the largest single lever in Ohio. Take the identical $223,000 house at the identical $1,700 rent and change only the county's effective tax rate and average insurance:

A $780 a year difference in NOI and 0.35 points of cap rate, on the same house at the same rent, from the tax line alone. Insurance actually runs slightly higher in Franklin, and it does not come close to offsetting.

But Franklin County's real median is $300,000, not $223,000. Run a Franklin property at its own median with a $2,100 assumed rent: NOI $12,437.60, cap rate 4.15%, cash flow -$460.46 a month. Columbus's lower tax rate is fully consumed by its higher price. Cuyahoga's cheaper entry and Franklin's cheaper tax rate land in almost exactly the same place on cap rate — 4.14% against 4.15% — by completely different routes.

That is the practical Ohio lesson: the cap rate is set by the ratio of rent to price and by the tax rate, and the two counties trade one for the other. What separates a good Ohio deal from a bad one is not which metro you pick, it is buying below the median in whichever metro you pick.

Never use a statewide rate to underwrite a specific Ohio property. Pull the parcel's actual bill from the county auditor, note the school district, and check where the county sits in its six-year reappraisal cycle.

6. Financing a rental is not financing a home

These are standard mechanisms across the mortgage market. Any specific rate or overlay is your lender's, not this article's.

Down payment. Conventional financing on a non-owner-occupied one-unit property generally requires more equity than an owner-occupied purchase — 20% is usually the floor and 25% the common expectation, which is why this article models 25%. FHA and VA are not available for a property you do not occupy. The real exception is house hacking: a two-to-four-unit property you live in one unit of qualifies for owner-occupied programs, and Ohio's older urban housing stock has a lot of legal duplexes.

Rate. Investment-property loans price above owner-occupied loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apply loan-level price adjustments for investment occupancy that scale with loan-to-value and credit score, and lenders pass those through as rate or points.

Loan size. This one bites in Ohio specifically. Many lenders set a minimum loan amount, and below roughly $75,000 to $100,000 the conventional market thins out considerably. At Cleveland price points that is a real constraint, and it pushes small purchases toward portfolio lenders, local banks, and credit unions — which is worth knowing before you go under contract on a $90,000 house.

Reserves. Lenders typically require post-closing reserves — months of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance in liquid assets — scaling with the number of financed properties you own. Given Section 2's wind/hail deductible, you want those reserves regardless.

Rental income counting. Lenders credit a portion of market or lease rent toward qualifying, not all of it. Ask what percentage yours uses and whether they need an appraiser's rent schedule.

DSCR loans. A debt service coverage ratio loan qualifies the property rather than the borrower, comparing property income to debt service and largely skipping personal income documentation. The trade is a higher rate, a larger down payment, frequent prepayment penalties, and a minimum DSCR — commonly stated at or above 1.0 and often above 1.2. Many DSCR lenders also set minimum property values or loan amounts that exclude the cheapest Ohio stock.

Section 3's example has a DSCR of 0.69. Even stripped of vacancy, management, and reserves it is 1.03 — technically above 1.0 but nowhere near the 1.2 many programs require, and 1.03 is the flattered number. That is the underwriting telling you what the cash flow line already said.

7. What to check before you buy in this state

The tax bill, on the parcel, from the county auditor.

1. Pull the actual bill and list the taxing districts on it. School district levies are the largest component and vary sharply within a county.
2. Check where the county sits in its six-year reappraisal cycle and whether a reappraisal or triennial update is imminent.
3. Strip out any owner-occupancy credit or homestead exemption on the current bill. A rental gets neither.
4. Look at the levy history and assume the rate goes up, not sideways.

Insurance, before your inspection period ends.

1. Get a bindable landlord policy quote for the specific address, with loss of rents coverage, and check how many months it pays.
2. Find the wind/hail deductible on the quote. If it is a percentage, multiply it into dollars against the dwelling limit and write the number down — Insurify's Ohio average is 1.03%, about $3,502.
3. Ask how the policy settles a roof claim and get the roof's age in writing. Fifteen years is the threshold at which ACV endorsements and payment schedules become common.
4. Ask whether the policy carries a cosmetic damage exclusion for hail. They are common in Ohio and they matter on a metal or architectural-shingle roof.
5. Price flood separately. No property policy anywhere covers flood, and a large share of national flood claims come from outside mapped high-risk zones.

The building, because Ohio's stock is old.

1. Get the age of the furnace, water heater, roof, electrical panel, and sewer lateral in writing. In pre-1960 stock, knob-and-tube wiring, galvanized supply lines, and clay sewer laterals are all live possibilities and all expensive.
2. Ohio has meaningful lead paint exposure in pre-1978 housing, and lead disclosure obligations apply to rentals. Some Ohio cities have their own lead-safe certification requirements for rental units. Check the city.

The rent, from the market.

1. Pull three to five genuine comparable rentals for the specific neighborhood and note how long they sat.
2. Divide monthly rent by purchase price. Section 4's breakeven for this example was 0.97%. Ohio is one of the few states where properties above that threshold genuinely exist.

The law, from the statute rather than from an article.

1. Do not take eviction timelines, notice periods, security-deposit rules, or late-fee limits from a blog — including this one. Ohio residential tenancies are governed by Ohio Revised Code Chapter 5321, and eviction procedure by Chapter 1923 (forcible entry and detainer). Read them at Ohio's own code site, https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code, or have an Ohio real estate attorney walk you through them. These rules are genuinely state-specific and they change.
2. Check the city as well as the state. Ohio municipalities commonly impose rental registration, periodic inspections, point-of-sale inspections, and lead-safe certification — Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Toledo all have their own requirements, and they are not in any state-level summary.
3. Ohio cities also levy municipal income tax, and how rental income is treated varies by municipality. Ask your CPA specifically about the city, not just the state.

The money.

1. Size cash reserves against the wind/hail deductible in dollars, not against a month of mortgage payments.
2. Ask an Ohio CPA about depreciation, passive activity loss rules, municipal income tax treatment, and what happens on sale.

What to do next

Every figure above came from a data file or was computed in front of you. Re-run all of it with your own numbers.

The Ohio rental analysis calculator does exactly the work in Sections 3 and 4 — enter your price, your real local rent, and your own vacancy, management, and reserve assumptions, and it produces NOI, cap rate, cash flow, cash-on-cash, and DSCR. Given what Section 4 shows about Ohio specifically, the important thing is that it warns you when you have left those three expenses out rather than letting a flattered number pass.

The Ohio insurance premium estimator gets you closer to a real figure for a specific dwelling limit than the $1,943 statewide average, and converts the wind/hail deductible percentage into actual dollars.

The Ohio mortgage payment calculator gives you the principal and interest figure for the rate you are actually quoted.

This article is general educational information about rental property arithmetic in Ohio, based on figures current as of August 2026. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice. The rent figures in the worked examples are stated assumptions, not market data. Ohio's statewide median home price is genuinely disputed across sources and is presented as a range. Property tax rates, insurance premiums, and mortgage rates change and vary by property. Consult an Ohio CPA, a licensed Ohio insurance agent, and an Ohio real estate attorney before buying.