A new data report from Redfin (NASDAQ: RDFN) has reached the conclusion that the wealthiest 1% of Americans have the financial capacity to buy 99% of the nation’s homes.
How does that work? According to Redfin, the combined value of nearly 100 million American homes reached $49.7 trillion at the end of 2024, while the combined net worth of nation’s wealthiest 1% reached a record level of $49.2 trillion. Redfin noted the growth trajectories of home values and the net worth of the richest 1% tracked similar paths over the past 20 years.
The wealthiest 1% encompassed roughly 1.3 million households – their exclusive demographic is defined by the Federal Reserve as households with a minimum net worth of $11.2 million. Real estate represents 12.3% ($6.1 trillion) of that net worth.
At the other end of the financial spectrum, the bottom 50% of households have a total net worth of $3.9 trillion, with real estate assets making up $1.8 trillion (46.4%) of that amount.
And while it is not likely for the richest of the rich to buy up nearly every home, Redfin Economics Research Lead Chen Zhao observed that the wealthiest 1% still own a disproportionate 13.4% share of US real estate.
“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. “It is a striking example of the concentration of wealth in America that the top 1% 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.”
Your analysis is interesting, but perhaps misleading. While the wealthiest one percent may own a disproportionate amount of real estate, I suspect that farms and ranches constitute much of that value. Many of those people are “land poor“ and while they have a wonderful asset they may not have the ability to buy homes in the quantity that you’re talking about
I think the analysis is misleading. The wealthiest people may afford to buy-up all properties, but it’s not their main focus. What is the focus of large corporations buying-up all available, reasonably priced homes, and turning them in rentals……..so that they can’t be purchased!!
Some one should have stopped this from happening at the very beginning. It has completely changed the economics of the United States.
You and the previous blogger are missing the point, it has nothing to do if that is the purpose or not of the 1% to buy property, although many do and will do, but to show the inequality that exists in the USA. While a bunch of people can afford to buy 99% of real estate in the USA because of their incredible wealth, there are more struggling to even pay rent. THAT IS THE MESSAGE HERE. there is nothing misleading about the analysis, just your interpretation of it.
Let me also point out that many of those 1% people have made their money by screwing the rest of the USA citizens, these people show no patriotism, they have played the system well to enrich themselves even further while there are so many people in the USA who live pay-check to pay-check, and some of them having to work two to three jobs, while watching people in their families die because they don’t have enough money for healthcare. The system has been rigged to help the rich get richer and the poor poorer…and now with the new administration its getting worst, so many people are being laid off because of the whims of billionaires, although the game is to disrupt and bankrupt the USA, how so many of you cannot see it is hard to believe.
Your vision is totally warped. Many of your “statements of fact” are, in fact, not factual. You are clearly a lover of socialism/communism because you have failed to succeed. You would obviously be more happy if you lived in North Korea, Russia, China or maybe Cuba. You’re obviously not a fan of capitalism, so why don’t you relocate to one of the countries I just listed. We don’t like commies here in the U.S.
“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. This statement is not the truth. I know many real estate investors and they all leverage their holding in real estate.
This is another example of the extreme imbalance of wealth in our country. Unfortunately, by only focusing on real estate we don’t even get the whole picture. What about all of the Americans that would like to own real estate, but can’t afford it. People that are homeless, living on campuses or with family members.
I’d also like to point out that this does not include wealthy foreign investors. (recent google search) They own 2-3% residential, 3.1% of commercial and 3.6% of our Agricultural land. I went into real estate believing that every American that worked hard should be able to buy a home. That’s not true anymore and it breaks my heart.
You listed “people that are homeless, living on campus or with family members” as those that break your heart because they can’t buy a home. Homeless people are generally the mentally ill. If people are living on campus, they’re called college students who generally don’t even had a job. Those who live with family members can be mentally ill, alcoholics, drug addicts. Your heart is breaking because they can’t buy a home? There are a lot of people who cannot buy a home and will never own a home because they’re LOSERS. You better harden your heart or open your pocketbook for all these POOR PEOPLE who can’t buy a house. Grow up.
and yet they don’t. Because all of us need to encourage these sellers to DROP THE PRICES>
I cannot conjure any redeeming value to this article while I see non-investor Purchasers being perhaps locked out of the real estate market forever by Sellers and Agents driving sales prices to unreachable heights.
The prior commenter says that Sellers should DROP their prices.
I’m not sure what was meant, but it seems that suggestion was made so that homes could be more affordable??
That is the oddest statement I’ve heard today.
I’m not sure if that commenter owns a home or any property, but would that person sell their own properties for significantly under market value because they feel sorry for buyers who want a home they can not afford?
If anyone is that kind, then that’s amazing!
But the reality is that a buyer who got a home for quite a bit under market value would likely just turn around and sell it for FULL market value and walk away with the profit that the prior seller should have gotten.
That’s why it’s hard to be nice in selling real estate, even if you want to be nice.
Bingo.
I’m very much concerned with the high cost of homes and land (including agricultural lands) and the huge and growing wealth gap in this country, a gap that has been precision engineered to help a few but not most people.
It’s a tightening club of ultra-Billionaires now, and even millionaires are being pushed out.
I am socially liberal and fiscally conservative in the true sense of that word, and my hubby and I worked all our lives and still worry about making it to the end, particularly with the GOP long wanting to gut Social Security and Medicare, two programs that workers paid into and are absolutely entitled receive the promised benefits because that was the deal. Workers pay the taxes thru their total compensation agreement, and the government promised to pay out benefits to seniors. These programs are NOT welfare. They are EARNED entitlements.
But now the Trump Muskrat team is dismantling the government with their eyes on SS and Medicare. Our savings and small pension won’t carry us. We need our earned benefits, and they are at risk now. Furthermore, cutting Medicaid without knowing where any waste is won’t stop waste. Blindly cutting programs will only put more burdens on family and friends and charities who will be needed to pick up the slack, and it’s expensive to support yourself now, much less others whose Medicaid benefits may be cut.
So, I’m like a lot of people. I can NOT just give away my property for under market value.
If I were really wealthy, I would just donate some properties and charge low rents to those I felt deserve that largesse.
But, I’m not rich at all. If I make a profit (let’s assume that miracle occurs), then I will keep all of it, pay my taxes if required, and make sure I can protect myself, and then I will donate to organizations that I trust if I have money left over.
I spent most of my adult life donating a lot of time and money to many causes, and it harmed me, financially.
But I’m not sure I regret those decisions because some battles have to be fought all the time, like civil rights and protection of the environment and protection of animals.
Without people joining together to fight to keep and improve the world for everyone and every non-human species, then the world would already be a living hell, far worse than it is now. Besides that, I met so many kind people, and kind people are lot more inspiring than greedy people.
But, if anyone here wants to put a property up for sale at significantly under market value, then send me an email, and I’ll buy it under value, and I’ll sell it and give some of those profits to charity.
Home affordability has fallen for many reasons, but here are some.
The wealthy DO buy a lot of real estate and homes (including foreign investors, and many of them hide behind layers of corporations or hide behind “front buyers” who look like U.S. citizens, but the money originates from foreign sources.
That bulk of big money pushes out many regular buyers because the prices go up, and most buyers can NOT pay all cash. From 2020 to 2023, big investment buyers bought 28% of all homes for sale! Some newly built subdivisions were entirely bought by big investors.
The goal is exactly to turn the entire nation into a renter class society, with a few Oligarchs owning all the real estate (agricultural food production lands included), and then charge the renters as much as they can to keep them permanently poor.
This has been the goal of many Americans since early colonial times.
Many people wanted to mimic the King and Nobility system of Europe, and many still do.
Huge wealth disparity is created through many engineered tax favors, like the sick tax trick used by really wealthy people who claim only a small income, but they pull loans off the value of the stocks they own, and they can write off the interest rate.
So this bulk of money is largely untaxed. The system also encourages pump and dump schemes to impact stock valuations.
Large businesses often compensate their upper management by having the business purchase homes, cars, vacations, luxury items, cloths, golf packages, etc. for those in higher up management, and the company can write off those expenses.
This is yet another way that the Billionaires can live like Kings but pay very low taxes
Last I read, Billionaires pay about 3.5% on their asset valuation, and those tricks keep the taxes super low.
Extraction industries that lease Public Lands (minerals and resources owned by the Public) can “write off” a depletion for the resources that they extract!
Isn’t that crazy! We, the public, own those resources in common, yet the leasing extraction industry gets to take the depletion allowance and leave the site denuded (extracted) and less valuable.
Grazing on Public Lands is a shake down against Taxpayers. It costs only about $1.30 to graze a cow and calf for 1 month on Public Lands. If a livestock owner had to pay Private Land rates, it would cost $25 to $30 per month for that cow and calf.
So the Public (taxpayers) are being ripped off again. It’s also why burgers are still cheap due to massively ridiculous give-away subsidies on Public Lands. The Public then has to pay to clean up and repair the damages done, including water pollution and erosion from over-grazing.
Agricultural lands receive endless subsidies, including really cheap water. Most Ag property owners pay no taxes due to all their write offs. Water tables are being depleted by Ag operators, while entire towns go bust for lack of water and have to truck water in.
It’s insane. These Ag owners often play the fiddle of poverty while being very wealthy, that is particularly true in the mega-Ag state of California.
Trump’s 1st term resulted in Tariffs, and taxpayers had to pay out just under 1 Billion to farmers harmed by those tariffs, so the farmers had a safety net. Trump is set to repeat that process again. But most mid to small companies don’t and won’t get any subsidies to offset tariff costs, but farmers will. And even many farmers feel this system is corrupt.
If you wonder why the rich get so rich. Look to the unfair tax and credit systems that reward some, even guarantee profits with recurring yearly subsides, while the rest of us have to pay taxes and suffer the ups and downs of our businesses, without a dime of assistance from the government, and no safety net in bad years.