A review of data from the first quarter of 2025 indicates Springfield is seeing growth in housing availability, but that’s there’s still not enough affordable housing for those in need.
So is it a buyer’s market? Seller’s market? Balanced? Depends who you ask.
Local housing, mortgage stats
The first quarter of the year brought a lot of uncertainty, with potential housing buyers “sitting on the sidelines,” something Mo Carpenter, president-elect of the Springfield Board of Realtors attributed to the presidential inauguration.
“I think it’s a great time to buy and sell ... A lot of lenders are offering different incentives to help buyers,” Carpenter said.
According to Multiple Listing Service data, the median price of a home sold in the city was up 8.8% year-over-year as of April, to $179,972.
The region is considered a sellers market according to MLS data, meaning more people are buying than there are homes available.
Carpenter said there was a boost at the start of April and he considers the current situation a balanced market, equally good for buyers and sellers.
“Sellers are still getting great prices for their homes but buyers are still getting the opportunity to buy without paying typically exorbitant amounts over asking price, like during COVID where you’re competing against maybe seven, eight, 10 offers and having to make a decision within an hour,” Carpenter said. “Now you may get a day or so and you might not pay way over asking.”
Rachel Goff, executive director of the Neighborhood Housing Partnership, disagreed, saying it is close to being a balanced market but “sellers are still able to hold out for what they want if they choose to do so.”
Interest rates at the beginning of the year were around 7.5 or 7.25%, dropping to 6.84% for a standard 30-year fixed loan as of Wednesday. Depending on the details of the buyer, the home and the loan product, those numbers can vary somewhat.
“I think it’s cyclical,” Carpenter said. “Spring market’s usually really busy. I think it’s a few different things. I think the rates dropping, I think the weather breaking, I think more homes hitting the market have all played a factor in it.”
Sales prices are staying fairly consistent, on the higher end of the market, Carpenter said.
City invests in housing through tax abatements
For the past several years, Springfield’s city government has encouraged development of new houses, via tax abatements. It currently has 82 active abatements with just under $2 million of forgone taxes in residential Community Reinvestment Areas.
The city’s biggest development in progress is Melody Parks, which is planned to have more than 1,2000 housing units and retail spaces near East National Road. The development is expected to be completed over the next seven to 10 years. Single-family homes there are expected to start in the mid $200,000s.
Melody Parks is within the East Springfield Community Reinvestment Area (CRA) which allows eligibility for all housing units to be tax-abated. However, the Infrastructure Agreement between 40 Partners LLC and the city of Springfield enables an assessment to be charged on each home in lieu of the property tax payments on improvements. These assessments will assist in funding the public utilities, roadways and green spaces required to deliver a project of this magnitude.
The development has been controversial for the Clark-Shawnee Local School District, which has said the increase in enrollment, although not all at once, will present a challenge and a need for increased staffing.
Horton Hobbs, vice president of economic development for the Greater Springfield Partnership, said there is a delicate balance with attracting new housing developments and investing in the community over time. Tax incentives “mitigate the risk of a development,” he said, and developers have universally been willing to support school districts in “reasonable ways.”
“We have to not just look at the immediacy of the development, but we also need to look at the long-term impacts of the development on the school districts,” Hobbs said. “In every instance, these developments will end up increasing property tax base and valuation, which ultimately benefits the schools districts.”
Work began in March on a 16-acre housing development on the former Mercy Health Fountain Boulevard campus. The development, Fountain Village, is planned to feature 54 single-family homes and nine townhomes with 23 total housing units.
Around 3,100 residential subdivision-type units are in various phases of development countywide, Hobbs said.
“It is certainly the most significant housing construction we’ve seen in a generation,” Hobbs said.
Credit: Joseph Cooke
Credit: Joseph Cooke
Local strategies link to 2019 study
A comprehensive study from the Greater Ohio Policy Center in 2019 discussed population declines, gaps between rent and income, and other local housing issues.
Many of the recommendations from that survey have been implemented, including a vacant property registry, focusing on downtown development and supporting ongoing and new developments with expanded CRA and TIF tax abatements.
“It was kind of a watershed moment for our community to really understand the housing dynamics and needs within our community,” Hobbs said. “Housing, just like lots of other things, it’s an ecosystem. You can’t have an imbalance of housing types or you kind of stagnate your ability to grow.”
The city recently expanded on one of the recommendations, approving more rules for its vacant property registry, increasing registration fees and penalties for not registering, and expanding the scope of properties that need to register.
Rent or buy? One family’s housing example
The city for a long time “did not have an environment that was conducive” to new homes being built, for homeowners to renovate their houses and did not have “entry-level” houses, Hobbs said.
“What we’re doing as a community is we’re trying to adjust for 40 years of a relative lack of significant housing development in our community,” Hobbs said. “And we’re trying to adjust that not with just one housing product but lots of different housing products so that you as an individual have the ability to move throughout your housing needs and have options for you here in our community.”
Kolton Rice and fiancée Kelsey Belford, both 23, bought their first house near the Ridgewood area in July 2024 while interest rates were high but their rent was increasing $200 per month.
“There was limited inventory when we tried to buy and it was really competitive,” Rice said. “We went through and looked through about five houses and every one we went through ... someone would offer cash on the spot or someone was offering $50,000 more than asking price.”
Rice, who was born and raised in Springfield, said he and his fiancée wanted to stay in the city, pointing to commercial development here and nearby as evidence of its continued growth. He owns a video production agency while Belford is a paraprofessional currently in school to be a teacher.
He said he recommends people look at houses to start and then find an agent, at which point they are not “locked into anything.” Rice recommended getting preapproved for a mortgage, which will give a buyer six months to find a house while knowing what their payments would be.
More affordable housing needed - to buy or rent
“Affordable” housing is considered to cost no more than 30% of a person or family’s income, said Goff, of the Neighborhood Housing Partnership. For example, a person or family bringing in $3,000 per month would spend up to $900 for housing.
People in particular fields, like a truck driver who earns around $50-55,000 annually, or a police officer who earns up to $74,000 per year, are considered low income for this area, Goff said. To be considered affordable, their housing costs would be around $1,200-1,800 per month, she said.
But affordable housing stock doesn’t match the need, Goff said.
“Here in the Midwest region in general, we see that prices of homes have gone up — the monthly house payments are going up about 70-80%, whereas wages in our area have only gone up like 28-30%,” Goff said. “It’s definitely becoming more challenging for anybody that wants to buy or even rent because of that.”
Rent prices are more than 4% higher than they were last year, and finding a rental in any price range is “very difficult,” Goff said.
Rental prices in Springfield are considered average compared to nationwide data, but Fair Market Rent is more expensive than 64% of other FMR areas. The Department of Housing and Urban Development sets Fair Market Rents each year to determine standard costs for government housing assistance programs. FMR prices are the 40th percentile rates of an area, slightly below the median rental price.
The Neighborhood Housing Partnership has been working to build at least three homes per year for people with moderate to low incomes, and expects each home to be sold within six months or less, Goff said.
“It’s a small amount for the amount of need that’s out there,” Goff said.
The organization also provides homebuyer education, covering the entire process from budgeting, preparing credit for mortgage approval and the purchasing process. It also helps people find down-payment assistance through lenders.
Putting down roots, building wealth
Goff said it has been exciting to provide homes to first-time owners.
“They’re going to move in there, have a new home, be secure for 20 years or more before they even have to think about repairs and things like that,” Goff said. “It’s really changing the playing field for a lot of these families because they start to build wealth. It turns out the fastest way to build wealth for someone who’s in those lower income levels is to buy a house and build on that equity.”
If interest rates drop, Goff said there may be more opportunities for contractors to build affordable housing. But right now, “there’s not a lot of money in it for them.”
With a “boom in population” over the last few years, rental demand has increased, speeding up rent price increases, Goff said. Springfield has been estimated to have more than 10,000 Haitian immigrants living locally, with a large increase over the past few years and smaller decrease more recently with immigration fears.
Goff said she is seeing an interest among Haitian immigrants in buying homes.
“That’s a good thing; they are wanting to put down roots and invest in the community, and that’s huge,” Goff said. “But that demand is higher, so that can put more pressure on the already strained stock, availability of homes.”
Hobbs said housing issues are “not isolated to one demographic” and have been “a generation in the making.” He said the city is in a good position to grow and handle people coming and leaving.
“Any large influx or exodus of any population is going to impact the economy, right?” Hobbs said. “It’s going to have an impact if we’re talking housing, it’s going to have an impact on the rental market. It’s going to have an impact on the single-family home, multi-family units — all of those things."
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