Home ownership remains one of the most powerful drivers of productive wealth—but it’s been a long haul, not a sprint.
This dynamic timeline and the long-term reality of property equity were the focus of a recent panel discussion at the Realtor.com® 2026 SXSW Open House.
“I like to think of real estate … not as a get-rich-quick scheme, but as a get-rich-quick scheme,” Danielle Halesays the chief economist at Realtor.com®.
It may sound like a cheap marketing pitch at face value, but the results speak for themselves.
The average homeowner boasts a net worth of about $430,000, while the average renter’s net worth is closer to $10,000, the noted author said. Jessica Lautzdeputy economist and vice president of research at the National Association of Realtors.
That divide has widened in recent decades: The median wealth gap between renters and owners has increased 70% since 1989, and the average wealth gap has increased 260%, according to the report. Jung Hyun Choiprincipal research fellow in the Housing Finance Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
But the ‘get rich’ race only works if people can get to the starting line. To that end, the panelists agreed that addressing the housing shortage is the only way to ensure that home ownership remains a viable path to wealth for all.
‘You can’t find your rental property’
Behind that dramatic difference in net worth is a simple truth: While renting is an expense, home ownership is an asset.
Colin AllenThe Executive Director of the American Property Owners Alliance and the moderator of the discussion, put it bluntly: “You can’t find your inheritance for rent.”
As homeowners pay off their mortgage principal each month, and their property benefits increase each year, they gain equity. So even if a homeowner doesn’t feel any different financially than they did as a renter, they are quietly doing the work of building wealth.
Renters do not benefit from any such approach, despite managing monthly housing costs like owners do.
Getting out of that cycle early can have a huge impact on the overall value of homeownership. Buying your first home at age 32 is associated with a 22.5% higher price (equivalent to $119,000) at age 50 than buying 10 years later, according to research from Realtor.com.
But getting into that first home has been hard to do. The average age of first-time homebuyers has risen from 30 in 1990 to 40 in 2025, data from the NAR shows. That change has been largely driven by home prices rising twice as fast as incomes—a deterioration that can be seen in the home value-to-income ratio chart, as seen below.
During this time, the time it takes the average home buyer to save for a down payment has skyrocketed from just over three years in 1990, to nearly ten years today, according to a report from Realtor.com.
Different starting lines
As the timeline for saving a down payment has gotten longer, more pressure has been placed on family assistance to help buyers get into the market during that critical first window.
“One of the things we find is that housing makes it easier to get rich, and the children of homeowners are more likely to be homeowners by age 35,” Hale noted.
This “stickiness” of home ownership—where the success of one generation sets up opportunities for the next—results in dramatic gaps when combined with systemic barriers to mortgage and credit access.
“White Americans have a homeownership rate of 75% while African Americans and Hispanics have less than 50%,” Hale added.
“Most young adults who are Hispanic or Black do not have a parent to help them buy [their first] at home with a down payment subsidy,” explained Choi.
Without that initial equity transfer, these buyers are forced to navigate the market on their own, often facing high rejection rates. Currently, debt-to-income (DTI) ratios are the number one reason for mortgage denials, an obstacle that is often compounded by the burden of student loans.
This creates a catch-22: To lower their DTI and keep monthly payments affordable, consumers need larger down payments—the very thing the non-wealth generation strives to provide.
Chances are on the edge
But while it is difficult to achieve, the get-rich-quick scheme still works.
“I don’t think home ownership as a way to build wealth is going to end,” Hale said.
Although owners may face the same cash flow issues as renters, owners benefit from a level of mortgage guarantee and foreclosure protection that renters simply do not have.
That added stability is why Choi thinks that expanding the credit box by committing to help more homebuyers qualify is one way to improve access to home ownership.
Lautz also highlighted looking at the “edge” of the market—innovators such as accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and modular construction.
And while the barriers to entry are higher than in previous generations, the long-term profitability of those who can break through remains revolutionary.
In Hale’s words: “It’s not without its challenges, but it’s still really worth it.”
