House cost as % of net worth

[meleana]

My apologies if this question has been asked before but I did a quick search and could not find the answer. Curious on what % of net worth is a good number to have invested in a house. I am talking primary residence. The reason I ask is that we are retired, 64YOs, we are building a house and it is ending up costing around 15% of our net worth. I was wondering what other people have in a similar situation.

That's pretty much us.

 

[Vacation4us]

I believe what is important w/r to FIRE is not how much of your NW is in house, but how much is property tax combined with other maintenance cost you pay each year for primary residence.
My house is ~50% of the total NW which is not normal but may happen at high COLA. I consider it as a last resort for living expenses, when all other sources fail.

My house is at 45% of my net worth. Bought 20 years ago for 500k less than Zillow’s estimated price today. Zero mortgage.

DH and I are blissfully happy but have a prenup. If life gives me lemons and a divorce the house is my back up plan if I can’t make it on my investments,small pension, and even smaller SS. As unlikely as this scenario is it helps me sleep at night.

 

[SloHan]

If I was to add the value of my home to my net worth then it would be about 19% of my net worth. I am 57 now. Back 31 years ago when I took out my first mortgage it was a much larger percentage of my net worth. Oh wait...my net worth was a negative number back then.