The percentages in the National Housing Conference’s analysis describe how many tracked occupations had wages sufficient to buy a typically priced home, not what share of Mansfield residents could afford one. NHC compared wages for nearly 300 occupations with housing costs in 390 metropolitan areas. In Mansfield, the share of occupations meeting its affordability measure fell from 82% in 2020 to 30% in 2025, according to the NHC analysis.
How the Mansfield measure shifted
The typical home value used in the analysis rose from $115,041 in 2020 to $188,863 in 2025. Over the same period, the annual income needed to qualify increased from $28,483 to $62,931—a 121% rise, NHC reported. The share of tracked Mansfield occupations able to afford that benchmark fell by 52.13 percentage points, according to the article’s cited NHC findings.
Occupations on either side of the threshold
In 2020, the occupations able to afford a typical Mansfield home included elementary and special education teachers, EMTs and paramedics, firefighters, and postal service mail carriers. By 2025, firefighters and postal mail carriers were among the occupations no longer meeting the measure, along with executive secretaries and loan officers, according to NHC.
The decline extends across Ohio
Ohio had the largest five-year drop among states in NHC’s analysis: the share of occupations able to buy a typically priced home with a 10% down payment declined by 40.97 percentage points from 2020 to 2025. Mansfield, Cleveland, Springfield, Toledo, and Akron were among the 25 metropolitan areas with the largest declines nationally, the NHC release said.
Ohio Capital Journal reported that 67% of occupations statewide could afford a home under the measure in 2020, compared with 26% in 2025. Its report also gives Columbus figures of 40% and 9%, respectively. In the two years from 2023 to 2025, Springfield’s measure fell 13.48 percentage points and Toledo’s fell 12.05, according to NHC. Nationally, occupations that lost the ability to buy over the five-year period had an average annual salary of $70,283, NHC reported. The statewide and Columbus figures were reported by the Ohio Capital Journal.
Rental affordability is also part of the picture
Ohio Capital Journal reported that the share of occupations able to afford a two-bedroom apartment fell from 77% in 2020 to 69% in 2025. The report also said a full-time Ohio worker would need to earn at least $23.82 an hour to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment, citing the National Low Income Housing Coalition and COHHIO.
Marcus Roth, a spokesperson for COHHIO, told the Ohio Capital Journal that people unable to buy are staying in the rental market longer, adding demand and contributing to higher rents. That account, along with the hourly wage figure, comes from Megan Henry’s October 16 Ohio Capital Journal story, later republished by 10TV. Separately, COHHIO’s 2026 Gap Report says Ohio has a shortage of 266,000 affordable and available rental units.
