Table of contents
- What real estate wealth means in the data
- The clearest numbers at a glance
- Homeownership, debt, and housing wealth
- What the 2022 SCF says about property ownership
- What the ACS says about owners, renters, and costs
- Where mortgage-free ownership stands in 2024
- How income and geography shape the picture
- What to watch next in housing wealth
What real estate wealth means in the data
Real estate wealth is not just the market value of a home. It also includes the debt secured by that home, the share of households that own without a mortgage, and the separate holdings families have in other residential property, nonresidential property, and business equity.
That broader view matters because the latest statistics show housing wealth rising fast, but not evenly. Some households gained a lot of equity from price growth, while others still face high housing-cost burdens or have little margin between income and housing expenses.
The clearest numbers at a glance
| Measure | Latest figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership of primary residences | 66.1% in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Homeownership rate for families in the bottom half of usual income distribution | 50.3% in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Families with debt secured by a primary residence | About 42% in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Median debt secured by a primary residence | $155,600 in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Ownership of other residential property | 12.9% in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Ownership of equity in nonresidential property | 5.9% in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Ownership of business equity | 14.6% in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Median net housing value for homeowners | $200,000 in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Median real home value to median real family income ratio | Over 4.6 in 2022 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Mortgage-free homeownership share | 39.4% in 2024 | Census mortgage-free homes 2024 |
The pattern is straightforward: household housing wealth is high, mortgage-free ownership is substantial, and cost pressure remains visible in both federal survey and census data.
Homeownership, debt, and housing wealth
The Federal Reserve SCF 2022 data show ownership of primary residences at 66.1%, up from 64.9% in 2019 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). That is a modest rise, but the more important story is what happened to net housing value.
Median net housing value for homeowners rose 44% from about $139,100 in 2019 to $200,000 in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). Mean net housing value rose 27% from $263,000 in 2019 to $335,300 in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). Both gains were the largest on record in the modern SCF (Federal Reserve SCF 2022), which is a strong signal that the housing market delivered a broad increase in household balance-sheet wealth.
Why the median matters
The median tells you what happened to the typical homeowner. Because median net housing value reached an all-time high in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022), the typical owner saw a stronger housing-wealth position than in any prior modern SCF year.
The mean also reached an all-time high in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022), but the mean is more sensitive to very high-value properties. That gap is useful. It suggests the gains were not limited to a narrow set of expensive homes, even though higher-value households still pulled the average upward.
Debt did not disappear
Rising housing wealth did not mean households were debt-free. About 42% of families had debt secured by a primary residence in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). The median amount of that debt was $155,600 in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022).
That pair of figures is important because it separates ownership from leverage. A large share of households still carried mortgage debt even as home values climbed. The result is a housing-wealth picture that is stronger on paper, but still tied to financing costs, refinance timing, and local price conditions.
What the 2022 SCF says about property ownership
The SCF also shows that housing wealth is only one part of real estate exposure. Families held other types of property assets as well, but at lower ownership rates.
| Asset type | Ownership rate | Conditional value measure | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Other residential property | 12.9% | Median value $225,000 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Equity in nonresidential property | 5.9% | Median value $125,000; mean value $467,700 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
| Business equity | 14.6% | Median value $90,000; mean value $1,622,500 | Federal Reserve SCF 2022 |
These figures show how concentrated non-primary real estate wealth can be. The ownership rate for other residential property was 12.9% in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022), and the conditional median value was $225,000 in 2022, up 21% from 2019 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). That means the households that did own this type of property generally held a meaningful asset.
Equity in nonresidential property was even less common. Only 5.9% of families owned it in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022), with a conditional median value of $125,000 and a conditional mean value of $467,700 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). The gap between median and mean points to a distribution with a handful of very large holdings.
Business equity was more common than nonresidential property equity, at 14.6% in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). But the value profile was highly uneven. The conditional median value was $90,000, while the conditional mean value was $1,622,500 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). That spread shows how quickly average wealth can be pulled upward by a small number of very large holdings.
The income split inside housing wealth
Housing wealth is also distributed unevenly by income. The homeownership rate for families in the bottom half of the usual income distribution was 50.3% in 2022, the highest since 2010 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). That is a meaningful recovery, but it still sits far below the overall 66.1% primary-residence ownership rate (Federal Reserve SCF 2022).
At the upper end, the median housing wealth for upper-middle income households was $201,000 in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). For households in the top 10%, the median housing wealth was $583,000 in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). Those two figures make the distribution gap easy to see.
What the ACS says about owners, renters, and costs
The American Community Survey data add scale. They show how many homes are owned, how many are rented, and how the cost burden changed across the country.
The U.S. had 82.9 million owner-occupied housing units in the 2019-2023 ACS, up 8.4% from 76.4 million in 2014-2018 (Census CB24-208). Over the same span, the number of rented units increased from 43.3 million to 44.6 million (Census CB24-208). That means both sides of the housing market grew, but ownership grew faster in absolute terms.
The national median home value rose 21.7% from $249,400 in 2014-2018 to $303,400 in 2019-2023 (Census CB24-208). Median gross rent also increased from $1,246 to $1,348 per month nationally (Census CB24-208). Both are signals of a higher-cost housing environment, but home values rose more sharply than rents over these two ACS periods.
Owner costs moved only slightly
The median monthly housing cost for owned homes rose from $1,897 to $1,902 (Census CB24-208). That looks almost flat in nominal terms, but it sits alongside a fall in the median share of income homeowners spent toward housing costs from 18.3% to 17.5% (Census CB24-208). For mortgaged homes, the median ratio of income to housing costs fell from 21.6% to 20.9% (Census CB24-208).
So the ownership side of the market saw a mix of higher asset values and relatively stable-to-lower cost ratios. That combination is one reason housing wealth can rise even when many households still feel stretched.
Over-30-percent burdens remain common
The ACS also shows where the pressure stays high. There were 20.0 million rented units paying more than 30% of income toward housing costs in 2019-2023 (Census CB24-208). There were 17.3 million owned units paying more than 30% of income toward housing costs in 2019-2023 (Census CB24-208).
That matters because it shows cost stress is not limited to renters. Even among owners, a large number of households are still spending more than the commonly used affordability threshold.
Where mortgage-free ownership stands in 2024
Mortgage-free ownership is one of the cleanest indicators of accumulated housing wealth. The latest census release puts the national free-and-clear share at 39.4% in 2024, which means nearly 40% of U.S. homeowners did not have a mortgage (Census mortgage-free homes 2024).
That is up from 34.4% in the 2010-2014 period (Census mortgage-free homes 2024). The increase is substantial over a decade. It suggests more households moved into a stronger equity position, whether through amortization, long ownership duration, smaller debt loads, or outright purchase.
A compact state comparison
| State or area | Mortgage-free share in 2024 | Source |
|---|---|---|
| West Virginia | 53.9% | Census mortgage-free homes 2024 |
| New Mexico | 48.5% | Census mortgage-free homes 2024 |
| Maryland | 29.0% | Census mortgage-free homes 2024 |
| District of Columbia | 24.3% | Census mortgage-free homes 2024 |
The spread is wide. West Virginia had the highest state mortgage-free homeownership share at 53.9% in 2024 (Census mortgage-free homes 2024), while Maryland had the lowest state share at 29.0% excluding DC (Census mortgage-free homes 2024). The District of Columbia was lower still at 24.3% (Census mortgage-free homes 2024).
That variation usually reflects differences in age structure, home-price levels, tenure patterns, and how long households have stayed in place. The data do not reduce those differences to one simple cause, but they do show that housing wealth is geographically uneven.
County-level patterns point the same way
County data make the unevenness even clearer. There were 2,204 counties with mortgage-free shares above 40% in 2024, compared with 493 counties below 40% (Census mortgage-free homes 2024). Another 446 counties were not statistically different from a 40% mortgage-free share in 2024 (Census mortgage-free homes 2024).
Back in 2014, 1,870 counties had mortgage-free shares above 40%, while 803 counties were below 40% (Census mortgage-free homes 2024). That shift tells you the mortgage-free pattern widened over the decade.
One county stands out. Chattahoochee County, Georgia, saw its mortgage-free share grow by 18.9 percentage points to 69.0% between 2014 and 2024 (Census mortgage-free homes 2024). Across the country, 1,577 counties saw statistically significant growth in mortgage-free ownership between 2014 and 2024 (Census mortgage-free homes 2024).
How income and geography shape the picture
The relationship between housing wealth and income is visible in the SCF ratio data. The median real home value to median real family income ratio was over 4.6 in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). That ratio had bottomed at 3.5 in 2016 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022).
That is one of the clearest signs of the housing market?s change over time. Home values moved faster than family incomes in the measured period, which pushes the ratio higher and makes entry harder for households without existing equity.
At the same time, the homeownership rate for families in the bottom half of the income distribution was 50.3% in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022), while the overall rate for primary residences was 66.1% (Federal Reserve SCF 2022). So the national average masks a large internal divide.
A simple way to read the data
- Higher home values increase paper wealth for owners.
- Higher home value-to-income ratios make new entry harder.
- More mortgage-free homes mean more households have substantial equity.
- More than 30% housing-cost burdens show that affordability pressure remains in the market.
Those four points can all be true at once, and the latest data say they are.
What to watch next in housing wealth
The current numbers set up a few questions for the next round of releases. First, can primary-residence ownership keep rising from 66.1% in 2022 (Federal Reserve SCF 2022), or does higher cost pressure slow that progress? Second, will median net housing value keep setting new highs, or do price and rate conditions flatten the recent gains (Federal Reserve SCF 2022)? Third, does the mortgage-free share continue moving above 39.4% nationally in 2024, or does the decade-long improvement level off (Census mortgage-free homes 2024)?
The current statistics show a housing wealth system with three layers at once: strong asset growth, large regional differences, and persistent affordability stress. That is the clearest reading of real estate wealth statistics right now.