Average Home Equity for Retirees in 2025: Surprising Insights Revealed

If you’re like many Americans, your house might mean as much or more to your retirement as your 401(k).

The median home equity for homeowners age 65 and older stands at $250,000, according to a Harvard analysis of the most recent federal survey data. That’s 47% higher than it was in 2019.

And there’s no sign that number is dropping: total home equity held by Americans age 62 and older hit an all-time high of $14.39 trillion in mid-2025, according to the NRMLA/RiskSpan Reverse Mortgage Market Index. For homeowners with mortgages of all ages, the average equity is now $307,000.

For many retirees, especially Black and Latino homeowners, that equity represents most of their net worth.

Your Biggest Retirement Asset Might Have a Roof on It

The amount of home equity you have naturally tends to rise with age. That’s not because retirees are buying bigger homes, but because they’ve had more time to pay down their mortgages and benefit from rising home prices.

According to KFF, among Medicare beneficiaries, the median per-capita home equity rises from $134,450 for those aged 65 to 74 to $179,700 for those aged 85 and older. That trajectory makes sense: older homeowners are more likely to own their homes outright, whereas younger retirees might still be paying off a mortgage balance.

Income plays a major role, too. According to the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, retirees with incomes of $50,000 to $199,000 reported a median of $253,000 in total household savings (excluding home equity) as of late 2024. That compares with a median of $211,000 in home equity for the same group. One in five retirees (22%) had $500,000 or more in home equity, while 14% had no home equity at all.

Lower-income baby boomers have 3.8 times their annual income locked up in their homes, according to Vanguard, compared with 1.1 times for top earners—making housing wealth the most critical for those with the smallest retirement accounts.

There are also major differences across racial lines: The Urban Institute found that home equity makes up 81% of the total net worth of Black homeowners age 62 and older and 89% for Latino homeowners age 62 and older. For white homeowners age 62 and older, it’s 47%.

More Older Adults Own Their Homes, But More Also Owe on Them

About four-fifths (79%) of Americans age 65 and older own their homes. That’s good news.

But the picture is more complicated if we look at what’s happening with mortgages. The share of homeowners age 75 and older who still carry a mortgage has almost tripled since 1998, climbing from about 11% to 30% by 2022. And these aren’t small balances being slowly paid off over time: the median mortgage debt for that age group reached $106,800, a 61% increase from 1998 after adjusting for inflation.

That trend means that about 40% of homeowners age 62 and older with a mortgage are “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing. And it’s not just rising mortgage bills: property taxes, rising insurance premiums, and maintenance costs don’t go away just because you’ve retired.

The Bottom Line

Home equity is part of most retirees’ long-term safety net. The typical middle-class retiree holds about $211,000 in home equity, and for lower-income baby boomers, that housing wealth is about four times their annual income.

For many Americans, the difference between falling short and staying afloat is the value of their home.