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As real estate values surge, America’s top 1 percent have multiplied their riches at an accelerated pace over the past 20 years — and now boast enough buying power to scoop up nearly every home in the U.S., according to a Redfin analysis.
The value of America’s nearly 100 million homes hit $49.7 trillion at the end of 2024, as the combined net worth of the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans hit a record $49.2 trillion, Redfin reported on Tuesday.
The figures were drawn from an analysis of the Redfin Estimate for more than 98 million residential properties in the U.S. and Federal Reserve data for the total net worth held by the top 1 percent of Americans.
Credit: Redfin
Home values and wealth controlled by the top 1 percent have grown at a similar rate, Redfin noted, with home values eclipsing the net worth of the top 1 percent in the 2000s, pre-housing market crash, and then falling beneath them after the crash, for the most part. When stocks fell sharply at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, 1 percenters took a brief hit to their assets, but since then, their net worth has recovered.
Although the wealthy have more diverse assets, they still own a higher proportion of real estate at 13.4 percent of all real estate in the U.S., Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao said. Rising home values have helped drive the growth of their wealth.
“This group is able to watch their real estate assets appreciate without facing mortgage interest payments, as they mainly buy homes with cash,” Zhao said in Redfin’s report. “It is a striking example of the concentration of wealth in America that the top 1 percent could hypothetically afford to buy every home in the country — without going into debt — while millions of households struggle to buy or hold onto just one. Asset growth, including real estate, has consistently outpaced wage growth in recent decades, increasing the gap between the top and bottom wealth brackets.”
America’s wealthiest 1 percent is comprised of about 1.3 million households, per the Fed’s definition, which specifies that 1 percenters have a minimum net worth of $11.2 million. Real estate makes up about 12.3 percent (or $6.1 trillion) of their net worth, with most of that wealth tied up in financial assets.
Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent of households have a combined net worth of $3.9 trillion with real estate making up about 46.4 percent of that net worth, or $1.8 trillion — a much more significant percentage.
The contrast between mortgage debt held by the lowest versus the top wealth tiers also highlights the stark disparity between these groups. The bottom 50 percent of Americans own real estate representing $4.9 trillion and has a total mortgage debt of $3.1 trillion. The top 1 percent, however, hold $6.5 trillion in real estate, but only $411.5 billion in mortgage debt.
The even more exclusive top 0.1 percent wealth bracket has some impressive buying power. This group, which is made up of about 134,000 U.S. households with a minimum net worth of $46.3 million, has a combined net worth of $22.1 trillion. With that collective buying power, the top 0.1 percent could buy every house in the 25 biggest metro areas by population.
This ultra-elite group’s wealth increased by $4.4 trillion, or nearly 25 percent, in the last two years. During this period, the net worth of the bottom 50 percent only grew by 8.5 percent, or $306.3 billion.
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