home equity

[ hohm ek-wi-tee ]

noun

, Personal Finance.

1. 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.

Word History and Origins

Origin of home equity¹

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

If you have a major purchase or home project coming up, taking out a home equity line of credit may be a smart move.

From Ozy

Even though home equity is rising far more slowly than stocks are, it’s still adding substantially to our national wealth.

From Washington Post

The increase in the home equity number, from the Fed’s updated Financial Accounts of the United States report released last week, is pretty impressive.

From Washington Post

Another service called Hometap, which offers cash in exchange for shares in home equity, was able to exclude any Facebook users under 35 from their campaigns.

From Search Engine Land

The remainder is owned largely by middle-class households, for whom home equity is often their biggest source of wealth.

From ProPublica

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast

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

From The Daily Beast