Reading, Ohio.
Typical home $229,007 (+1.3% in a year), asking rent $1,045 (+1.9%). Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN metro.
Property tax and schools in Reading
Reading’s own tax page → what a home here pays, who charges it, its levies and ballot, and its schools.
Reading is in Hamilton County, where its property tax is set. Its homes there are in the Reading Community City school district. Check your own bill.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$670 (+126%) since Jan 2020.
- 1 year
- Up $2,884 +1%
- $226,124$229,007 since Sep 2025
- 5 years
- Up $52,993 +30%
- $176,014$229,007 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.
- Reading$1,202
- 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 Reading, OH rose 1.3% over the past year — in step with the nation.
Asking rents in Reading, OH rose 1.9% over the past year — slower than the nation's +2.7%.
Owning the typical home in Reading runs $690/mo more than renting one. The gap peaked at $713 in May 2024.
That is $1,735 a month against $1,045 rent: a $1,202 mortgage payment, plus $288 property tax and $245 insurance & upkeep.
Owning vs renting — Reading
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$1,735
- Renting$1,045
- Mortgage only$1,202
Property tax · $288/mo 1.51% of value a year — the ACS 2020-2024 median bill over the median home value for Hamilton County, OH
Insurance & upkeep · $245/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 Reading, Hamilton County, Ohio
Reading is a city of 10,600 people in Hamilton County. Half its households earn more than $61,866 a year and half less, against $72,470 across Hamilton County; 12% of its people live below the poverty line. 58% of its homes are lived in by their owners and 42% are rented. Unemployment in Hamilton County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 0.3% fewer jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most residents work in schools and health care, then professional services.
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. Reading is a small city in Hamilton County, in the Cincinnati area, with a population that skews older than much of the country. Incomes run below the county's, and a majority of homes are lived in by their owners, with typical home values and rents that fall in a middle range for the region. Winters are cold, with January the coldest month, and summers turn properly warm by July.
Work. Many residents work in schools, hospitals and social care, and others in professional and business services, manufacturing and shops. Among the larger workplaces in Reading itself are Thermo Fisher Scientific, General Tool Company and Reading Community City Schools. Commutes are short, and a good number of people work from home.
Things to do. The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden and the Cincinnati Art Museum are both a short drive away. Great American Ball Park, where the city's baseball team plays, is also close by. Farther afield, Kings Island amusement park is a longer drive.
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- 5,158households
- 24%of adults have a degree
- 12%below the poverty line
- 18 mintypical commute
- 20%work from home
What residents work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Hamilton County had 514,266 jobs in 2025, 0.3% fewer than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in January, with highs near 39° and lows near 22°; warmest in July, with highs near 87° and lows near 64°.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Milford weather station, 8 miles away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Reading
- EmcorFacilities support services1,319
- Thermo Fisher ScientificPharmaceutical preparations manufacturing808
- General Tool CompanyMachine tool manufacturing302
- Reading Community City SchoolsSchool district281FTE
- Nitto Denko Avecia Inc, CincinnatiMedicinal chemicals, uncompounded, manufacturing183
- OH06 Interconnects - SealtronElectronic connector manufacturing104
- AluChem75
- Cincinnati Classical AcademySchool district46FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 8 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 2,845 people in all. School districts come from the Common Core of Data (NCES, 2023–24); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- Heat wavesrelatively high in parts of ReadingRelatively moderate
- Tornadoesrelatively high in parts of ReadingRelatively moderate
- Inland floodingRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Reading’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, relatively 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 Hamilton County and the Cincinnati, OH-KY-IN metro.
Reading home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Reading$229,007
- Ohio$245,982
- United States$366,157
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
Homes for sale
Active for-sale inventory. More supply hands power to buyers.
- Reading18
New listings per month
Sellers arriving at the market.
- Reading9
Zip codes with a Reading address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Reading — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.