Ten states are set to hold 59 cents of every dollar in the so-called Great Wealth Transfer, according to a new LendingTree analysis. California alone accounts for nearly 1 in 5 of those dollars nationally.
The study estimates homeowners 65 and older will pass down roughly $17.2 trillion in wealth between 2026 and 2045. Of that, $10.2 trillion is concentrated in California, Florida, New York, Texas, Washington, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona.
California alone accounts for close to $3.4 trillion, more than Florida and New York combined.
For an industry that’s spent years watching housing gains diverge by geography, LendingTree’s numbers suggest the next two decades will inherit that divergence rather than smooth it out.
“Home value appreciation has been wildly uneven by geography over the past 30-plus years,” said Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com. “And this data shows that unevenness is about to get inherited, not just lived in.”
California wins on volume, Hawaii wins on value
LendingTree’s ranking changes depending on which number you’re looking at.
Hannah Jones
By raw dollars transferred, California leads because it pairs a huge population of older homeowners — about 2.7 million age 65-plus — with an average home value near $982,000.
Florida’s older-homeowner population is nearly as large, at 2.5 million, but their homes average roughly $504,000. Texas has more than 2 million older homeowners with an average value closer to $360,000.
Flip the metric to wealth per household, though, and Hawaii jumps to the top. LendingTree models about $3.1 million in transferable wealth per older homeowner household there.
Hawaii is followed by California at $2.9 million and Washington, D.C., at $2.8 million in transferable wealth per older homeowner household. West Virginia sits at the bottom of the ranking, at roughly $592,000, followed by Mississippi and Arkansas.
Jones cautioned against treating those totals as fixed.
“These projections rely on chained assumptions over a 20-year horizon, and small changes in any one assumption compound significantly over two decades,” Jones said. “I’d treat the geographic pattern as the durable finding and the dollar figures as a reasonable-but-fragile estimate.”
Will the expected inheritance come, though?
The concentration matters more once you factor in how many people are already banking on an inheritance that may not materialize.
Matt Schulz
One-third of Americans under 65 told LendingTree they expect to receive an inheritance or financial gift. Among those earning at least $100,000, that expectation climbs to 53 percent. Nearly half say their retirement planning depends heavily on that expected windfall.
But just 43 percent of homeowners 65 and older say they actually plan to leave one.
“Many Americans are counting on an inheritance to help fund retirement, even though relatively few older Americans say they plan to leave one. That’s a risky gap,” said Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief consumer finance analyst.
Families aren’t necessarily closing that gap through conversation, either.
Among those expecting to inherit, 57 percent say they’ve discussed it clearly with the person they expect it from, while 16 percent haven’t discussed it at all.
“An inheritance can be a wonderful financial boost, but it shouldn’t be treated as a guarantee,” Schulz said. “Honest conversations now can help families avoid confusion, disappointment and difficult decisions later.”
A lump sum goes a long way
For real estate agents, the more immediate signal is what inherited wealth already does to homebuying odds.
Households that receive at least $5,000 in inheritance are about 2.5 times as likely to become homeowners as those that don’t, according to prior Realtor.com research. The difference is even larger among Black and Hispanic households.
That advantage has grown more valuable as rates have risen off pandemic lows.
A cash inheritance that lets a buyer put more down, or skip financing altogether, avoids interest costs that a buyer without that cushion has to absorb.
And the down payment itself, not the monthly payment, has become the binding constraint in many markets. Twenty-two percent of first-time buyers in 2025 used a gift or loan from a relative or friend to cover it.
Jones said that a lump sum “can be the difference between buying now and buying years later, while still renting and missing out on appreciation.”
