Mentor, Ohio.
Typical home $275,597 (+3.5% in a year), asking rent $1,690 (+5.0%). Cleveland-Elyria, OH metro.
Property tax and schools in Mentor
Mentor’s own tax page → what a home here pays, who charges it, its levies and ballot, and its schools.
Mentor is in Lake County, where its property tax is set. Its homes there are in the Mentor Exempted Village school district. Check your own bill.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$804 (+125%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $9,297 +3%
- $266,300$275,597 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $64,113 +30%
- $211,484$275,597 since Sep 2021
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Mentor$1,447
- Ohio$1,291
- United States$1,922
At the last five years' pace, a typical home here doubles in price every 13 years.
Typical home values in Mentor, OH rose 3.5% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Asking rents in Mentor, OH rose 5.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Mentor runs $424/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $489 in Jan 2025.
That is $2,114 a month against $1,690 rent: a $1,447 mortgage payment, plus $373 property tax and $295 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Mentor
The owning line is the typical home's monthly payment at that month's rate, plus property tax and insurance & upkeep; the renting line is the typical asking rent; the grey line is the mortgage payment on its own. Same homes, same months, both ways of paying for a roof.
- Owning all in$2,114
- Renting$1,690
- Mortgage only$1,447
Property tax · $373/mo 1.62% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Lake County, OH
Insurance & upkeep · $295/mo insurance, maintenance and repairs together, from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey — the national figure for mortgaged homeowners, scaled to this market's home value. BLS publishes the three bundled and they cannot be split.
Both are priced off the same month's home value, so they rise with the market. Neither is a quote — a specific home's bill depends on its assessment, its age and its insurer.
Living in Mentor, Lake County, Ohio
Mentor is a city of 47,450 people in Lake County. Half its households earn more than $88,949 a year and half less, against $80,925 across Lake County; 5% of its people live below the poverty line. 85% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 15% are rented. Unemployment in Mentor was 1.6% in August 2026, and Lake County had 1.1% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then manufacturing.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Mentor is a city in Lake County, Ohio, with a population older than in much of the country. Most homes are lived in by their owners, a much higher share than in many places, and household incomes run above the county's. Fewer people live below the poverty line than is typical, and winters are cold and snowy, with warm summers and a fair amount of rain and melted snow through the year.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, with manufacturing, shops, and banks and insurance also common. Among the largest workplaces in Mentor are Steris, Mentor Exempted Village Schools and The Lincoln Electric Company. Unemployment is low and has come down over the past year, and a typical commute is fairly short, with a good number of people working from home.
Things to do. The James A. Garfield National Historic Site is in or beside town, a protected area tied to the twentieth president. A short drive away are Headlands Beach State Park, a protected area on the lakeshore, and Holden Arboretum, a botanical garden. The Chagrin River and the Grand River are also a short drive away for time by the water.
Report a mistake
- 20,355households
- 37%of adults have a degree
- 5%below the poverty line
- 22 mintypical commute
- 15%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Lake County had 99,690 jobs in 2025, 1.1% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 37° and lows near 24°; warmest in July, with highs near 82° and lows near 67°. About 40 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Painesville Northwest weather station, 5 miles away (NOAA).
Largest employers in Mentor
- Steris2,000
- Avery Dennison1,024
- Mentor Public Schools963
- City of Mentor954
- Classic Auto Group670
- Lincoln Electric540
- Component Repair Technologies495
- Race Winning Brands360
From the City of Mentor’s annual financial report for 2024, its schedule of principal employers (its source: “City of Mentor, Department of Economic Development US Census Data”), as Ohio’s Auditor of State publishes it: the report. Employees as the report counts them.
Natural hazards
- Winter weatherRelatively high
- Inland floodingRelatively high
- Strong windRelatively moderate
- Ice stormsRelatively moderate
- TornadoesRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Mentor’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very low. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Lake County and the Cleveland-Elyria, OH metro.
Mentor home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Mentor$275,597
- Ohio$245,982
- United States$366,157
Sellers are cutting prices on about 1 in 4 Mentor listings, and the typical home goes pending in 12 days — the market is cooling.
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Market heat, inside the city limits
Share of listings with a price cut
The early-warning dial: sellers cut when buyers stop reaching. Rising cuts cool a market months before prices notice.
- Mentor27.15%
- United States26.90%
Days to pending
How long the typical listing takes to go under contract.
- Mentor12
- United States27
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Mentor230
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Mentor96
Median sale price
What buyers actually paid — closed sales, not asking prices.
- Mentor$240,030
- United States$371,407
Sale-to-list ratio
Above 100%, homes sell over asking; below, buyers negotiate wins.
- Mentor101.28%
Zip codes with a Mentor address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Mentor — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.