Home Equity Percentile Calculator
Enter what your home is worth and what you still owe on it to see how the equity compares with U.S. homeowners — both against every owner and against owners in your own age band.
How do you compare?
Your own estimate of today’s sale price, which is what the survey asks homeowners for too.
Everything secured against this home, including any home-equity loan or line of credit. Enter 0 if it is paid off.
Used only for the second comparison, against owners your age.
Your $220,000 of equity is more than 54% of U.S. homeowners hold in their primary residence.
- Your equity
- $220,000
- Share of the home you own
- 55%
- Loan-to-value
- 45%
| Compared with | Your percentile | Their median | Top 10% from |
|---|---|---|---|
| All U.S. homeowners | 54th | $200,000 | $700,000 |
| Owners aged 45 to 54 | 52nd | $206,886 | $696,000 |
Renters are not in this comparison at all — it covers only the 66.1% of U.S. families who own their home. Figures are Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances 2022 data.
How the percentile is calculated
Equity is your home’s value less everything secured against it. That figure is then placed on the distribution of primary residence equity among U.S. homeowners, and the result is the share of owners holding strictly less.
Equity = Home value − Debt secured on the homePercentile = weighted share of owners holding less- Home value
- What it would sell for today — the same self-estimate the survey collects
- Debt secured on the home
- Mortgage plus any home-equity loan or line of credit
- Owners
- Families who own their primary residence; renters are excluded
The distribution was computed directly from the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances Summary Extract Public Data as HOUSES minus MRTHEL — the value of the primary residence less the debt secured by it — across all five multiple-imputation implicates at a fifth of the survey weight. That is the same quantity the Federal Reserve calls net housing value, which makes it directly checkable: the Board reports a median of $201,000 for homeowning families in 2022, and this pipeline computes $200,000 from the public file. It also reproduces the published 66.1% homeownership rate exactly.
Why two comparisons instead of one
Home equity is mostly a function of time. It accumulates as a mortgage amortises and as prices rise, so an owner of thirty years will usually rank above a recent buyer regardless of anything either of them decided. Comparing against every owner answers “where do I sit nationally”; comparing against owners your own age removes most of that time effect.
Both figures come from the same survey and the same variable, so they are directly comparable with each other.
What this calculator assumes
- Figures are 2022 dollars from the 2022 survey wave, and change only when a person updates them.
- Only the primary residence counts, on both sides. Second homes and rental property are excluded from the survey measure used here.
- The home’s value is whatever you enter. The survey figure is the owner’s own estimate too, so both sides carry the same optimism, but neither is an appraisal.
- Selling costs, capital gains tax and any second lien you forget to include are not modelled. Equity here is a balance-sheet figure, not cash you would walk away with.
- Percentiles are read from a 21-point grid of the real distribution, within 3.1 percentile points of the full microdata at worst — wider than the other comparisons on this site because surveyed home values cluster on round numbers, and outright owners inherit that clustering.
Home equity percentile FAQ
How is home equity calculated?
Value minus the debt secured against it. If the home would sell for $400,000 and $180,000 is left on the mortgage, the equity is $220,000 — 55% of the home’s value, which is the same thing as a 45% loan-to-value.
Does this include renters?
No. Only the 66.1% of U.S. families who own their home are in the comparison. Including renters at zero would flatter every homeowner and answer a different question.
What if I owe more than the home is worth?
The page says so rather than printing a percentile. Only around 0.8% of homeowners in this wave had zero or negative equity — and fewer than that were strictly underwater — which is too thin a slice to rank inside honestly.
Is home equity counted in my net worth percentile?
Yes — the net worth percentile includes home equity alongside every other asset and debt. This page isolates the house.
Other ways to see where you stand
- Net worth percentile — the whole balance sheet, home equity included.
- Debt by age — everything you owe, mortgage included.
- Income percentile — where your earnings rank in your age group.
- Retirement savings by age — the other big asset most families hold.
Sources and review notes
- Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System — Survey of Consumer Finances, 2022 Summary Extract Public Data (variables HOUSES and MRTHEL, weighted by WGT across five implicates)
- Federal Reserve Bulletin — “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances”
- Federal Reserve — Survey of Consumer Finances documentation and codebook
Distribution tables computed from the 2022SCF public summary extract and checked against the Federal Reserve’s published homeownership rate and median home value before release. The percentile lookup is covered by deterministic unit tests against exact weighted answers from the microdata. No financial professional review is claimed yet.