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This past week, I was listening to a podcast episode where they briefly discussed housing, along with their broader AI episode agenda. In that conversation, the individual highlighted that more household wealth is tied to the stock market than housing, and any major decline in the stock market would have serious implications.
Surprisingly, this happens to be true, and I figured I’d share it with you all.
As of June 30, 2026, U.S. households held approximately $74.0 trillion in stocks, compared with $49.8 trillion in owner-occupied residential real estate (before deducting mortgages). That's nearly 49% more wealth in equities than the gross value of their homes.1
The difference gets larger when you look at net housing wealth rather than the market value of people’s homes.
After subtracting approximately $14 trillion in residential mortgages, homeowners have about $35.8 trillion of equity. That means stock holdings are more than twice the amount of equity Americans actually own in their homes.
What’s more interesting is how this has changed over time. From December 2015 to June 2026, equity wealth grew >230%, while home values grew only 115%.
Source: Federal Reserve Z.1 Financial Accounts, September 11, 2026 release. Corporate equities include direct and indirect ownership by households and nonprofit organizations. Housing reflects gross market value before mortgage debt.
The real acceleration happened after 2022. Between December 2022 and June 2026, household equity holdings increased from $38.6 trillion to $74.0 trillion, while the value of homes rose from $41.9 trillion to $49.8 trillion.
But there are two important caveats to this data.
This does not represent the typical American household. Stock wealth is heavily concentrated among wealthier Americans. The Federal Reserve estimates that the wealthiest 1% own approximately 51% of directly held corporate equities and mutual fund shares, compared with just 13.4% of real estate assets.2
The $74 trillion of stock ownership includes stocks owned through mutual funds and defined-contribution retirement plans, as well as some closely held corporate equity. It is broader than just publicly traded stocks in brokerage accounts.
This enormous rise in equity wealth has not been widely attributable to many of the market’s constituents. Concentration within the S&P 500 is at a recent high, with the five largest stocks having their weight rise from 11.7% in 2015 to 27.5% by the end of September 2026.3
Nvidia (NVDA) alone represented ~8% of the index by the end of September 2026.
Given that everyone is talking about an AI bubble, it’s not too far-fetched to think that a significant drawdown from a bubble popping would have serious impacts on the economy, more so than in previous cycles.
Side-by-side, American households held the same level of equities as the market values of their homes in 2015. In that same year, the S&P concentration was just 18.9% for the top ten constituents.
Fast forward to today, households own ~49% more in equities than the value of their homes, while ~40% of the S&P 500 is concentrated in just ten stocks.
This creates two distinct types of exposure:
Household balance-sheet exposure: The aggregate value of American household assets is increasingly sensitive to stock-market valuations.
Index concentration exposure: The performance of major stock indices is increasingly sensitive to a small group of very large companies.
While the trend isn’t technically ‘new’, it’s worth noting just how wide the gap has gotten, coinciding with a historic increase in S&P 500 concentration.
That combination is worth examining when considering the wealth effect, market fragility, and consumer-spending sensitivity to equity-market corrections.
Until next time,
Paul Cerro | Cedar Grove Capital Management
Personal Twitter: @paulcerro
Fund Twitter: @cedargrovecm
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1 Financial Accounts of the United States
2 Distributional Financial Accounts, Release Date: 2026-09-18
3 Nuveen