37% of the 65% of homeowners own their home free & clear.
That's 24%. You're obviously at a huge advantage if you're in this 24% - but it's kind of like saying that the top 10% of people have >$1M in assets (they also happen to predominantly be old).
Surely the people who are leveraged with a fixed rate mortgage at an even bigger advantage to those who own a home outright? (debt will get inflated away over time)
If you have 500k house outright vs. 500k equity in 1M house then probably yes I imagine that is correct on average.
But that is orthogonal. Both people in the comparison have the home equity to begin with. How? Either they paid $500k from earnings or they got it a lot cheaper in the past. A lot cheaper in the past == inflation.
The point is that the concentration of housing wealth becoming more concentrated means the average person (median) is worse off and their cost of living has increased accordingly.
