Northeast Ohio counties with the cheapest rent prices

[In the player above, watch related coverage from FOX 8 sister station WCMH on the Out of Reach Ohio report.]

(WJW) — In 2021, rent prices in Ohio were higher than they had ever been.

That year, the median gross rent in the state was $870 per month, up 10% from 2012, when it was $788 per month, according to a July report from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency. And those prices are outpacing income growth.

Ohioans are now spending more of their income to rent. Though that spending had declined for a decade, it’s back on the rise, according to the agency. The record low was 23% in 2019. But now, the middle-of-the-road renter is spending 28% of their income on housing.

At 30%, renters are considered to be “burdened” by housing costs. Those who spend at least 50% of their income on housing are considered “severely burdened” — and that’s a quarter of all the state’s renters, according to the agency.

Though rent inflation is expected to level off this year, the gap to affordable housing for Ohio’s lowest-income residents has gotten bigger following the pandemic, according to the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.

For every 100 renters who make less than the federal poverty level or their area’s median income, there are only about 40 affordable units available. That gap has widened by 6% in the past year.

The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s latest Gap report shows Ohio lacks more than 270,000 affordable rental units for its low-income renters, including more than 56,000 units in the Cleveland–Elyria metropolitan area. Those are units that cost less than 30% of the renter’s income.

Ohioans need to make $19.09 an hour (about $38,180 per year) to afford a two-bedroom apartment — or they need to work 76 hours per week at the minimum wage of $10.10 per hour. It’s the 37th highest housing wage in the U.S., according to another report published earlier this year by the national housing coalition.

[Graphic credit: WCMH-TV]

“People need a safe, decent, affordable home to live to raise families, go to school, hold down a job, or age in place,” Amy Riegel, COOHIO’s executive director, is quoted in a news release. “Expanding access to affordable housing is a prerequisite for Ohio’s future prosperity.”

Using the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s latest housing needs report — which cites U.S. Census Bureau data from 2017 to 2021 — we ranked Northeast Ohio counties by their median gross rent. That figure includes the monthly payment tenants make to their landlords as well as other costs like utilities and insurance.

The rankings also include poverty rates from 2021 and eviction filing rates from 2022, as well as data showing the prevalence of severe rent burden in each of the counties.