Author Topic: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?  (Read 49314 times)

Spork

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #100 on: May 30, 2015, 09:17:55 PM »
This is interesting to me, I was expecting a lot lower numbers. I'm surprised how many of you are well into the double digits.

We have about 5% of our NW now in "house downpayment savings" plans, with the hope do about double that by year-end.

Won't that also put you into double digits?


... depends on how the market does, I guess.

We're also doing other savings than just for a house, so it's likely our percentage will still be below 10% at the end of the year.

Doubling the actual amount, not the percentage of our net worth :)

Ah!   Totally misunderstood that.

needmyfi

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #101 on: May 30, 2015, 09:18:40 PM »
about 25%-no mortgage

CCCA

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #102 on: May 31, 2015, 12:18:59 AM »
This is interesting to me, I was expecting a lot lower numbers. I'm surprised how many of you are well into the double digits.

We have about 5% of our NW now in "house downpayment savings" plans, with the hope do about double that by year-end.

What Spork said.

Also,  perhaps many of us "double digit" folk have owned our houses quite a while by now.  June 15 will be 20 years in my primary residence. and we've owned our rentals for 13 years each.

Sure, and that means they've paid down some of their principal, and have appreciated.  On the other hand, it also means that the rest of your portfolio has had a decade and 1/2 to grow.  :)

In my case, it just means I got really lucky buying my house.


We also got very lucky buying our house.  In under 5 years, we've seen appreciation of more than 60%.

CommonCents

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #103 on: May 31, 2015, 11:09:00 AM »
This is interesting to me, I was expecting a lot lower numbers. I'm surprised how many of you are well into the double digits.

We have about 5% of our NW now in "house downpayment savings" plans, with the hope do about double that by year-end.

1. I live in a high cost of living area.  Where do you live?
2. DH recognizes that it's probably better to invest the money than pay it off at 4% interest, but he emotionally hates debt and having someone else (the bank) own his house.  He feels more comfortable owning it outright so we pay down extra.  He also thinks that the market is going to crash soon, so he's not keen about pouring our extra cash into the markets right now.

sol

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #104 on: May 31, 2015, 01:00:53 PM »
We also got very lucky buying our house.  In under 5 years, we've seen appreciation of more than 60%.

So, not nearly as good as your stock investments?

arebelspy

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #105 on: May 31, 2015, 01:03:51 PM »
We also got very lucky buying our house.  In under 5 years, we've seen appreciation of more than 60%.

So, not nearly as good as your stock investments?

Hah, good point.

They were probably significantly more leveraged on the former though.

[Edit: Typo.]

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ender

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #106 on: May 31, 2015, 01:45:33 PM »
This is interesting to me, I was expecting a lot lower numbers. I'm surprised how many of you are well into the double digits.

We have about 5% of our NW now in "house downpayment savings" plans, with the hope do about double that by year-end.

1. I live in a high cost of living area.  Where do you live?
2. DH recognizes that it's probably better to invest the money than pay it off at 4% interest, but he emotionally hates debt and having someone else (the bank) own his house.  He feels more comfortable owning it outright so we pay down extra.  He also thinks that the market is going to crash soon, so he's not keen about pouring our extra cash into the markets right now.

Midwest. $200k here buys a very spacious 4BR 1500-2000 sqft house.


brooklynguy

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #107 on: May 31, 2015, 02:08:02 PM »
DH recognizes that it's probably better to invest the money than pay it off at 4% interest, but he emotionally hates debt and having someone else (the bank) own his house.

I never understood why some people feel that they don't "own" their house if it is encumbered by a mortgage.  I can understand why someone would derive psychological benefits from being debt-free (even though I don't personally feel that way), but you do own your property whether or not it is subject to a lender's security interest.  Even if you have no mortgage, if you fail to satisfy any obligations that you legally owe, your creditors can reduce their claims against you to a judgment, obtain a judgment lien and "take away" your property just the same (subject to any applicable debtor protection laws, like homestead protection exemptions).  Maybe it's just a matter of semantics, and when someone says they don't like "not owning their house" they really mean they don't like holding any debt a default in respect of which would have a reasonable likelihood of resulting in the forced disposition of their home?

CCCA

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #108 on: May 31, 2015, 03:05:52 PM »

We also got very lucky buying our house.  In under 5 years, we've seen appreciation of more than 60%.

So, not nearly as good as your stock investments?

Hah, good point.

They were probably significantly more leveraged on the latter though.

Yes. We put down about 25% so if you calculate it based upon our initial down payment we returned over 200% in under 5 years.

CommonCents

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #109 on: June 01, 2015, 08:20:05 AM »
DH recognizes that it's probably better to invest the money than pay it off at 4% interest, but he emotionally hates debt and having someone else (the bank) own his house.

I never understood why some people feel that they don't "own" their house if it is encumbered by a mortgage.  I can understand why someone would derive psychological benefits from being debt-free (even though I don't personally feel that way), but you do own your property whether or not it is subject to a lender's security interest.  Even if you have no mortgage, if you fail to satisfy any obligations that you legally owe, your creditors can reduce their claims against you to a judgment, obtain a judgment lien and "take away" your property just the same (subject to any applicable debtor protection laws, like homestead protection exemptions).  Maybe it's just a matter of semantics, and when someone says they don't like "not owning their house" they really mean they don't like holding any debt a default in respect of which would have a reasonable likelihood of resulting in the forced disposition of their home?

Yes, he means that he does not feel as comfortable having a lien on the house which could result in him being disposed of it, however unlikely it may be.  I just shortened the 10 minute explanation.  Obviously you can get a lien in other ways (e.g. failing to pay taxes), and he's acknowledged that, but he doesn't have another lien, just this one.  Previously he lived 10 years in his condo that was bought with cash, so to live in a house with a mortgage is a change.

He understands it's illogical to pay off the mortgage first in that the stock market is likely to go up more, but apparently seeing the amount of the mortgage check going to interest 1) distresses him and 2) he points out that "past returns are not guarantees of future returns" or in other words, the stock market can go down while the mortgage has a fixed savings of ~3%.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2015, 04:33:09 PM by CommonCents »

Jesstache

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #110 on: June 01, 2015, 10:12:53 AM »
Ours is 44% total, but that includes two rental houses plus we rent out a portion of our main house that equates to about half of our mortgage payment.  If you count just our main home it's 27%.  We also live in a relatively HCOL area and we have a really nice house... So its total value is about $550k (and climbing like crazy, we paid $370 in 2012) with about $140k being owed on it.  We have quite a bit of other savings (which most here could figure out based on the numbers I provided) so the high value doesn't bother me at all.  We also plan on downsizing to one of our rentals that's about half the size of our current house when our kids are grown.  At that point, we will either sell the house we're living in now or rent it out and use the rental income to live off of in FIRE.  Decisions, decisions :)

Jack

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #111 on: June 01, 2015, 10:30:16 AM »
We also got very lucky buying our house.  In under 5 years, we've seen appreciation of more than 60%.

So, not nearly as good as your stock investments?

Hah, good point.

They were probably significantly more leveraged on the latter though.

That's an understatement!

I was essentially 100% financed. I got an 80% LTV FHA loan, the city gave me a ~20% down-payment grant*, and the FHA required me to bring a minimum of $1500 cash to closing, which I borrowed from my parents and paid back with the $8K Federal first-time buyer tax credit a few months later.

In essence, I made somewhere between $75K-$175K out of thin air.

2009 was a good time to buy a house!

(*It's structured as a 0% APR second mortgage with $0 monthly payment, which gets forgiven as long as the house remains my primary residence for another 4.5 years.)

nobodyspecial

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #112 on: June 01, 2015, 02:57:56 PM »
Quote
the city gave me a ~20% down-payment grant*, ...(*It's structured as a 0% APR second mortgage with $0 monthly payment,

Thank deity the government learned from the housing bubble and isn't doing anything to encourage people to buy houses they can't afford.....

..... of course 6 figure handouts to mustachains is different ;-)

Cookie78

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #113 on: June 01, 2015, 03:34:34 PM »
34% for my primary house (half of which is rented out).
62% if you count both rental properties.

*Based on very rough estimates of what I could sell them for now.

Villanelle

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #114 on: June 01, 2015, 03:39:25 PM »
I think the higher numbers are probably also from places with high COL.

As I said earlier, we are well into double digits (roughly 1/3), and that's for a 1900sqft townhouse that is surely nothing fancy (no granite!  no stainless! Oh, the humanity!).  In SoCal, that's still a half a million dollar property.  So of course it makes up more of our net worth than someone who owns in a cheap housing market. 

There are places where a nicer home, fully paid off, is only $100,000.  Ours, only 2/5 paid, still accounts for double that.  So of course the average person in Nebraska has less of his net worth tied up in his home than they average person in Manhattan. 

brooklynguy

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #115 on: June 01, 2015, 04:12:04 PM »
I think the higher numbers are probably also from places with high COL.

As I said earlier, we are well into double digits (roughly 1/3), and that's for a 1900sqft townhouse that is surely nothing fancy (no granite!  no stainless! Oh, the humanity!).  In SoCal, that's still a half a million dollar property.  So of course it makes up more of our net worth than someone who owns in a cheap housing market. 

There are places where a nicer home, fully paid off, is only $100,000.  Ours, only 2/5 paid, still accounts for double that.  So of course the average person in Nebraska has less of his net worth tied up in his home than they average person in Manhattan.

I'm personally in the same boat as you, but I disagree with both of the bolded statements.  High COL areas also tend to have more high income opportunities (which, strictly from financial perspective, is the primary reason why it would make sense to live in a HCOL area), so it doesn't necessarily follow that housing will represent a higher percentage of net worth for a homeowner in a HCOL area.

And the average person in Manhattan rents and therefore has zero percent of his/her net worth tied up in his/her home.  You probably meant to say "the average homeowner in Manhattan."  I'm not trying to be pedantic, but just pointing this out because it is consistent with the fact that in HCOL areas the rent/buy calculation often skews in favor of renting.

Ferrisbueller

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #116 on: June 01, 2015, 04:17:40 PM »
Bout 50% of nw

Bought for 500k in 2011, now worth 900k+ ish

partgypsy

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #117 on: June 01, 2015, 04:25:32 PM »
home equity, around 44%. We do not include house equity in retirement plans. Sounds like most of you have a whole lot more in your retirement accounts than I do!

SMCx3

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #118 on: June 01, 2015, 05:47:13 PM »
14% of NW

Villanelle

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #119 on: June 02, 2015, 05:34:40 AM »
I think the higher numbers are probably also from places with high COL.

As I said earlier, we are well into double digits (roughly 1/3), and that's for a 1900sqft townhouse that is surely nothing fancy (no granite!  no stainless! Oh, the humanity!).  In SoCal, that's still a half a million dollar property.  So of course it makes up more of our net worth than someone who owns in a cheap housing market. 

There are places where a nicer home, fully paid off, is only $100,000.  Ours, only 2/5 paid, still accounts for double that.  So of course the average person in Nebraska has less of his net worth tied up in his home than they average person in Manhattan.


I'm personally in the same boat as you, but I disagree with both of the bolded statements.  High COL areas also tend to have more high income opportunities (which, strictly from financial perspective, is the primary reason why it would make sense to live in a HCOL area), so it doesn't necessarily follow that housing will represent a higher percentage of net worth for a homeowner in a HCOL area.

And the average person in Manhattan rents and therefore has zero percent of his/her net worth tied up in his/her home.  You probably meant to say "the average homeowner in Manhattan."  I'm not trying to be pedantic, but just pointing this out because it is consistent with the fact that in HCOL areas the rent/buy calculation often skews in favor of renting.

I don't think income and housing prices are always directly tied though.  We own (now a rental, but originally our home) in San Diego, which was just rated the least affordable housing city in the country.  (The rest of the top 5 was LA, San Jose, NY and San Francisico.) That isn't based on prices; it is affordability, so it is based on home prices compared to salaries. $440,000 median home price (and frankly, that is likely to be only houses that involve quite a commute), and $60,000 median income.  So the salary is not proportionately increased to match the housing prices.  Which leads back to my point that it makes sense when you live in a places where housing costs are high (and salaries not comparably high), more of your net worth will be in you home. 

And yes, I was referring to homeowners, since that's the topic of the thread.  While you are correct that high real estate prices lead to many rentors, for those who do buy, their home will likely be a relatively large % of net worth, especially in cities like San Diego where you don't have proportionately higher salaries, meaning more (both as a dollar amount and a %) of the salary goes to a home (and likely to other necessities) and less goes into an investment account.

Jack

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #120 on: June 02, 2015, 07:37:11 AM »
Quote
the city gave me a ~20% down-payment grant*, ...(*It's structured as a 0% APR second mortgage with $0 monthly payment,

Thank deity the government learned from the housing bubble and isn't doing anything to encourage people to buy houses they can't afford.....

..... of course 6 figure handouts to mustachains is different ;-)

Well, you still have to be able to qualify for the (primary) mortgage -- you just don't need to show a track-record of saving. Of course, you don't really have to do that for a 3.5%-down FHA loan, either.

On the whole, I think it's a good program (and not just because I benefited from it): it offsets some of the extra cost of living in the city (rather than in the suburbs) and it increases neighborhood stability both by increasing the proportion of owner-occupied properties and by incentivizing people to stay in the same house longer.

Fuman

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #121 on: June 02, 2015, 05:54:11 PM »
I'd say...roughly...50% of net worth.  I purchased the biggest dump in my neighborhood in 1999 and polished that turd into a lovely diamond.  No mortgage since '08.

HCOL, it's now worth 3X what I paid for it.  WOOT - WOOT!

I absolutely count it toward my net worth.  I've been doing contract work and traveling for years and have not lived there full-time since 2009.  I never intended to be a landlord but I rent it to a friend. 

All-in-all, it's worked out QUITE NOICE!

Squirrel away

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #122 on: June 03, 2015, 01:41:12 AM »
27%.

smithy

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #123 on: June 03, 2015, 06:46:09 AM »
Home equity: 29%
Rental equity: 38%
Funds: 33%

I include home equity in NW calculations, but not in any SWR/FI calculations.

monarda

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #124 on: June 03, 2015, 09:32:22 AM »
Home equity: 29%
Rental equity: 38%
Funds: 33%

I include home equity in NW calculations, but not in any SWR/FI calculations.

Ooh, I like this simple way of expressing it.

Mine:
Home equity   15%
Rental equity   63%
Funds, both liquid and IRA   22%

BlueHouse

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #125 on: June 04, 2015, 01:12:26 PM »
Quote
the city gave me a ~20% down-payment grant*, ...(*It's structured as a 0% APR second mortgage with $0 monthly payment,

Thank deity the government learned from the housing bubble and isn't doing anything to encourage people to buy houses they can't afford.....

..... of course 6 figure handouts to mustachains is different ;-)

Well, you still have to be able to qualify for the (primary) mortgage -- you just don't need to show a track-record of saving. Of course, you don't really have to do that for a 3.5%-down FHA loan, either.

On the whole, I think it's a good program (and not just because I benefited from it): it offsets some of the extra cost of living in the city (rather than in the suburbs) and it increases neighborhood stability both by increasing the proportion of owner-occupied properties and by incentivizing people to stay in the same house longer.
I agree with the bolded section.  I live in a community in WDC that includes homes with a similar subsidy, public housing rentals, and $1M townhomes.  The homes are designed to look exactly alike from the outside so no one knows who is who.  It's an experiment and it's not perfect by any means, but I do believe that having different economic classes of people living side-by-side creates more understanding of one another.   And I'm pretty sure that's a good thing. 

Tortoise Banker

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #126 on: June 04, 2015, 04:59:41 PM »
45%.  I live in a HCOL area and my wife wants a house (we're in a condo).  I've been prepaying our mortgage a bit to help save for a higher downpayment in the future as Houses start around 600k.

Money Badger

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #127 on: June 04, 2015, 08:46:37 PM »
Our only home's equity is 33% of total net worth...   We're on track to actually increase that % a tad with some mortgage prepayments...   Or it hopefully shrinks on a net % basis of total net worth as we're max'ing my 401K now.    The game is on!

Dicey

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #128 on: June 09, 2015, 04:32:37 PM »
45%.  I live in a HCOL area and my wife wants a house (we're in a condo).  I've been prepaying our mortgage a bit to help save for a higher downpayment in the future as Houses start around 600k.
I'm confused. How does prepaying your mortgage help you save for a higher down payment? Might you be Canadian?

CommonCents

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #129 on: June 10, 2015, 10:22:02 AM »
45%.  I live in a HCOL area and my wife wants a house (we're in a condo).  I've been prepaying our mortgage a bit to help save for a higher downpayment in the future as Houses start around 600k.
I'm confused. How does prepaying your mortgage help you save for a higher down payment? Might you be Canadian?

My guess is they intend to sell the condo and use the equity in it to finance the house purchase.

Terrestrial

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #130 on: June 10, 2015, 02:17:41 PM »
45%.  I live in a HCOL area and my wife wants a house (we're in a condo).  I've been prepaying our mortgage a bit to help save for a higher downpayment in the future as Houses start around 600k.
I'm confused. How does prepaying your mortgage help you save for a higher down payment? Might you be Canadian?

My guess is they intend to sell the condo and use the equity in it to finance the house purchase.

If one intends to move up in a short/mid-term time frame this makes good sense...you will at least earn the rate of return your mortgage is at on the additional down payment money, prob not great but 4% is better than <1% sitting in a savings acct, if the time frame is too short to put the money into the market.

Erica/NWEdible

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #131 on: June 10, 2015, 07:30:51 PM »
33%. Not calculated as part of SRW.

Rural

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #132 on: June 10, 2015, 07:37:46 PM »
33%. Not calculated as part of SRW.


Yes, but yours is sort of an investment, since it feeds you and employs you (through the blog). Different situation.

Erica/NWEdible

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #133 on: June 10, 2015, 08:32:29 PM »
33%. Not calculated as part of SRW.


Yes, but yours is sort of an investment, since it feeds you and employs you (through the blog). Different situation.
True. There are some offsets. But from a purely financial perspective, we are over-invested in this one particular asset that we happen to live in. But there's the issue - we deliberately DON'T consider home value an "asset" in the traditional sense of something we hold for appreciation and capital generation. If I looked at our home that way, and calculated the opportunity cost of everything we've put into our house and garden vs. piling cash into the market, I might weep. But you know what? You can't eat stock certificates, you can't welcome your friends and family under a well balanced portfolio, you can't grow roots in the S&P 500. Bottom line is, we choose to prioritize and cultivate our home life. My passion for living this way has, shockingly, turned into an income-earning job. But we'd live this way regardless I think. It's just a very satisfying life for us, and it happens to both make and save enough money to more than justify the over-investment in one rather lovely big ol' chunk o' real estate.

Edit to make the words work.

canadian bacon

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #134 on: June 12, 2015, 11:22:31 AM »
15% and the house is paid for.

Why do I feel that some people do not understand how to calculate net worth? 

Bolshevik Artizan

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #135 on: June 12, 2015, 11:40:05 AM »
52.6%.... and trying to get that down to below 45%

Shinplaster

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #136 on: June 12, 2015, 11:49:38 AM »
About 30% - no mortgage.  We live in Ontario, so no tax benefits for mortgage interest.  Only debt we've ever had, and glad to pay it off years ago.   I am undervaluing it by about 20%, since if we stay in it for at least 5 more years, there will be some renovations/repairs required.  We didn't buy it as an investment, just as a place to live, but it's increased in value about 60% over the past 15 years.  Bonus!

Jack

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #137 on: June 12, 2015, 12:25:45 PM »
We live in Ontario, so no tax benefits for mortgage interest.

FYI, most Americans don't get tax benefits for mortgage interest either. A lot of them may think they do because they've heard of a thing called the "mortgage interest deduction," but didn't pay enough attention to their tax preparer to realize that because they're taking the standard deduction they don't qualify for it.

The mortgage interest deduction doesn't actually make sense to use unless you're way above the median both in income and home price.

(Cue a bunch of people here talking about how great the mortgage interest deduction is and how they genuinely do get it, not realizing that their East Coast or West Coast HCOL lifestyle is not representative of the median American.)

Fastfwd

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #138 on: June 12, 2015, 12:54:44 PM »
37% no mortgage

GuitarStv

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #139 on: June 12, 2015, 01:03:39 PM »
80-90%

It is part of my net worth, but it's excluded when calculating a safe withdraw rate.

Sweet, someone with more cash in their shack than me!

Now there's 2 people with more house than I : I'm at 63%

same here - approx 63%. For now. I would rather that it wasn't that way, but that is what it is in a HCOLA.

Hong Couver?

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #140 on: June 12, 2015, 03:47:33 PM »
80-90%

It is part of my net worth, but it's excluded when calculating a safe withdraw rate.

Sweet, someone with more cash in their shack than me!

Now there's 2 people with more house than I : I'm at 63%

same here - approx 63%. For now. I would rather that it wasn't that way, but that is what it is in a HCOLA.

Since my investment stash is growing, it would be nice to think that the proportion would drop with time, but housing prices are still going up, so thats not happening.

Spork

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #141 on: June 12, 2015, 04:02:07 PM »
We live in Ontario, so no tax benefits for mortgage interest.

FYI, most Americans don't get tax benefits for mortgage interest either. A lot of them may think they do because they've heard of a thing called the "mortgage interest deduction," but didn't pay enough attention to their tax preparer to realize that because they're taking the standard deduction they don't qualify for it.

The mortgage interest deduction doesn't actually make sense to use unless you're way above the median both in income and home price.

(Cue a bunch of people here talking about how great the mortgage interest deduction is and how they genuinely do get it, not realizing that their East Coast or West Coast HCOL lifestyle is not representative of the median American.)

FWIW... that's been around a long time... like back when mortgage rates were over 10% (and standard deductions were much lower).   When you add property tax + 10% interest... it was enough to make a difference even on an $80k house back when I was first starting out.

I'm not saying I'm in favor of them... just providing a little history.

Maya

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #142 on: June 12, 2015, 04:02:58 PM »
35-40%. We just sold our rental property so shifting things around. Used to be 75% before.

Self-employed-swami

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #143 on: June 12, 2015, 04:10:14 PM »
Ours is somewhere between 50 and 55%, depending on how you value our house.  We put a very large downpayment on it (64%), to keep our cash-flow needs down, because we were single income when we bought it.  It's worked well for us.

Fuman

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #144 on: June 12, 2015, 04:29:51 PM »
15% and the house is paid for.

Why do I feel that some people do not understand how to calculate net worth?

If I was to sell right now, I'd list the house for around $650K.  I've been told be several folks that at that price, a bidding war (Seattle) would absolutely take place - launching my former shack into the financial stratosphere.

The markets that I'm familiar with (Seattle, Bay Area and Denver/Boulder) have attained ludicrous levels.  I'm seriously thinking of selling.

slugline

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #145 on: June 12, 2015, 06:11:09 PM »
When I bought a house a couple of years ago, it was 22%.

Now it's 30%. It's not because I'm aggressively paying the mortgage. It turns out I had jumped in just as a sellers' market was starting to roar.

Faraday

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #146 on: June 12, 2015, 06:35:57 PM »
31% and remaining steady, since I'm paying off the mortgage at about the same rate as I'm saving/investing. What's interesting is, if you look at the portfolio in something like "Personal Capital", the home mortgage and equity portions provide the appearance of much higher stability and gains/losses than simply equities and investments alone.

OurTown

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #147 on: June 07, 2018, 11:41:17 AM »
I'm going to bump this one b/c someone resurrected the car vs net worth thread, and there is an active conversation going on in this subject in the 1-2 million thread.

Here is where we are:  TNW = $617,000
Home fmv = $255,000
Mortgage balance = {$133,000}
Home Equity = $122,000

That puts us at 19.8%.  I would assume this varies quite a bit by region, and that the Californians will have a higher percentage.

mak1277

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #148 on: June 07, 2018, 11:54:11 AM »
I'll play.  Our (paid for) home is 10.9% of our total NW.

hadabeardonce

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Re: Home equity as a percentage of net worth?
« Reply #149 on: June 07, 2018, 11:56:38 AM »
I would assume this varies quite a bit by region, and that the Californians will have a higher percentage.
Californian... 50%+ of my net worth is home equity. Bought a condo in 2004 for 228,000. SF Bay Area real estate is crazy.

Code: [Select]
$662,000 Net Worth
$483,000 Condo FMV
$146,000 Mortgage Balance
$340,000 Condo Equity

We've only been mustachianimizing our investments since mid 2016.