The market value of households’ real estate assets rose in the second quarter, reaching $49.8 trillion, according to the most recent release of U.S. Federal Reserve Z.1 Financial Accounts. This level is 2.3% higher than in the first quarter and is 2.5% higher than a year ago.
This measure of market value estimates the value of all owner-occupied real estate nationwide. The calculation combines repeat-home sales data with estimates of additions to the housing stock, essentially measuring both price changes and the change in quantity of housing assets. This approach explains why household real estate wealth can continue to rise even as other measures may show a slowing in home price growth.
Real estate secured liabilities of households’ balance sheets, i.e. mortgages, home equity loans, and HELOCs, increased 1.1.% in the second quarter to $14.0 trillion. This level is 3.0% higher compared to the second quarter of 2025.
Owners’ equity share of real estate assets was 71.9% in the second quarter. This was the 13th consecutive quarter with this share being over 70%. Owners’ equity in real estate totaled $35.8 trillion in the second quarter.
Distributional Financial Accounts
The quarterly release of the financial accounts by the Federal Reserve includes extensive balance sheet data. As a supplement to the main release, additional data regarding households is released in the distributional financial accounts a few weeks after the main release. This data contains the level and share of aggregate household wealth by income, age, generation, education, and race. The section below focuses on real estate assets value by wealth percentile for households and is current through the first quarter of 2026.
In the first quarter, households in the 50-90% wealth percentile held the largest level of real estate assets, totaling $22.7 trillion. Households in this wealth percentile have a net worth between $241,362 and $2,148,339. The wealth percentile with the second-largest level of real estate assets was 90-99%, at $14.8 trillion. These households have a net worth between $2,148,339 and $11,146,846. Households in the bottom 50% in terms of net worth held the third most, at $4.8 trillion, while the top 99-99.9% held $4.5 trillion and the top 0.1% held $1.9 trillion. Households in the top 0.1% wealth percentile have a minimum net worth of $46,369,052.
Very few households fall into the three top wealth percentiles. Shifting the real estate asset value to a per household basis results in the top 0.1% owning far more than any other wealth percentile with a per household asset value of $14.2 million. Households in the 99-99.9% percentile had a per household asset value of $3.8 million. Households in the 90-99% wealth percentile held $1.2 million while households 50-90% wealth percentile held $418,893. Households in the bottom 50% of wealth percentile held $71,429 per household.