home equity

[ hohm ek-wi-tee ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

noun

, Personal Finance.

the value of the portion of a person’s home that is free of debt, as mortgages, claims, liens, etc., and which the homeowner actually owns, calculated by subtracting the amount owed to lenders from the current market value of the home:
Home equity can increase or decrease significantly with fluctuations in the local real estate market.

First recorded in 1895–1900

But the fuel that powers spending for most shoppers is wages, not savings, or dividends, or capital gains, or home equity.

This, in turn, will reduce the amount of home equity that blue homebuyers build.

Even worse, recessions that reduce the value of retirement assets will also tend to hit wage income and home equity.

And as both home equity and stocks were battered over the last few years, retirement insecurity worsened.

Every renovation generates more than enough home equity to cover the cost, because prices go nowhere but up.

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