House cost as % of net worth

[54andchange]

15% now in a low cost of living area for retirement, post geo-arbitrage move from a medium cost of living City while working. Career/City pre-retirement number was 35% . Similar size and quality of houses in both areas.

[jkern]

My house is 40% of my NW, but that doesn't matter. The real question is your income (including any SWR from portfolio) greater than your total cost to maintain your standard of living. For example, if you have a $150K pension, but your Standard of Living cost $100K, your home can be 100% of your NW and it doesn't matter.

[street]

I did post my home as 3.5% of my net worth which is correct. When I add the ranch with my home that is in town, the combined is 13% of my net worth.

There is no income from the ranch now so will add that to my home percentage of my NW.

[TOOLMAN]

4% of NW.

[ncbill]

Currently ~7.5%, would like to see it much lower.

[kjpliny]

About 33% of net worth. HCOL area. No mortgage.

[Markola]

About 28% in our mid 50s and newly FIREd. Home values have long grown about 4.2%/year in this area and we kind of have age 72 or so pegged for downsizing, cashing out and being done with yards, snow and stairs. It’s hard to predict our health, portfolio, SS and other conditions that far out but 72 seems a turning point.

[indiajust]

I was 2/3 house, 1/3 retirement, and 10k in cash.

Much more lovely now, 100% investments and no house! Free at last!

[2177V]

I do not believe there is a rule of thumb of how much your house should be as a % of your net worth. I am retired now and I am more concerned about any future unexpected negative cash flow such as medical expenses. I do not want to liquidate assets that may have declined after a market crash, or after a housing crash so I have a rainy day fund.

Mothers would tell their children to save for a rainy day and they were right because they have experienced hard time while we have experienced a record setting bull market. I do not recall my Mom telling me to have a X% of my house as part of my net worth. If you do have a rainy day fund, then the X% of your house as part of your net worth should not be a significant factor.

[Emerson11]

I'm at 1/3 of NW. It works form me because I don't like to travel and my enjoyment comes from home life; gardening, friends visiting, and children treating it as a vacation destination. It all depends on what you want to do with your time.

[Suppertime]

4 years into retirement, just moved to a 25% more expensive house. House is 40% of net worth. 40% feels high.

My mental accounting for the house is how much rent is it saving me tax free. It's around 2.5-3% what I paid.

I reduced my allocation to fixed income which is yielding nothing.

[steveark]

Those percentages sound pretty high. Our paid for house represents 5% of our net worth.

[USGrant1962]

Quote:

Originally Posted by steveark Those percentages sound pretty high. Our paid for house represents 5% of our net worth.

Why do you say that? The median house in the US is ~$300K. At 5% the median ER member would need a $6M net worth, which is pretty high. 5% sounds pretty low. Great if you can do it, but hardly common.

[tb001]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kjpliny About 33% of net worth. HCOL area. No mortgage.

Perhaps that’s a better question. We’re in a HCOL area as well. The house is 25-30% of our net worth, but our mortgage is under 5%. While we could pay it off, we’re very happy with our low interest loan at the moment!

Expenses associated with the home are probably 30+% of our annual budget. Perhaps more. But we’re homebodies and, with young kids, don’t travel a ton. So while it’s a bigger expense line than others might have, it’s in the budget.

[ychuck46]

15% is probably somewhat normal for many here in this forum. I very seldom count our home when I think of our net worth, but it would be somewhere between 10-15% if I did.

[meleana]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rafapark 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]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alex The Great 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.