#REAL ESTATE
A young homeowner's wealth shows up as a solid number. About half of that number isn't actually theirs: it's debt.
Published on August 21, 2026
According to INSEE ('Détention de la résidence principale,' in Les revenus et le patrimoine des ménages, 2024 edition, based on the 2020-2021 Histoire de vie et Patrimoine survey), real estate accounts for 64.7% of gross wealth on average among households who own their main residence, versus 13.5% still owed as mortgage debt. But that average hides a sharp age effect: among homeowners under 30, real estate makes up 82.3% of their reported gross wealth, and debt accounts for 49.2% of it, nearly half. In other words, close to half of what counts as 'wealth' for young homeowners is in fact a loan still owed to the bank. This share falls mechanically with age as the loan gets repaid, dropping to 1.3% among homeowners aged 65 and over. A comparable pattern shows up in the Banque de France's distributional wealth accounts, where real estate net of debt represents about 55% of the average net wealth of all households (Q2 2023) — the same structural dominance of real estate once debt is factored in.
When you add up a young homeowner's wealth, has the remaining loan on their home already been subtracted from the total?
No: INSEE measures gross wealth, before subtracting the outstanding loan — a recent buyer's reported wealth is therefore inflated by the property's value, without the associated debt being removed before the real-estate share is calculated.
In other words: a young homeowner's reported wealth largely consists of what they still owe the bank, not what they actually own.
Three caveats, because they matter
- INSEE's 'gross wealth' does not subtract the outstanding loan: the real-estate share and the debt share are read side by side, not net of each other.
- The survey covers households who own their main residence: it does not cover the 42.3% of households who don't, whose wealth is structured differently.
- The gap with the Banque de France's 55% comes from a different measure (net wealth of all households, not just owners) and a different reference date (2023 vs. 2021): the two sources converge on the order of magnitude, not on an identical figure.
Why it still matters: comparing your wealth to an older homeowner's without accounting for remaining debt means comparing two different things: an asset owned outright, and one still largely financed by a loan.
For you
- If you own your home, have you calculated the share of debt still included in your reported wealth?
- Should that share be highlighted as often as the gross wealth figure itself?
Source: INSEE, 'Détention de la résidence principale,' in Les revenus et le patrimoine des ménages, 2024 edition (2020-2021 Histoire de vie et Patrimoine survey); Banque de France, distributional wealth accounts of households (Q2 2023).
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