home equity

American  

[hohm ek-wi-tee] / ˈhoʊm ˈɛk wɪ ti /

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.

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Etymology

Origin of home equity

First recorded in 1895–1900

Example Sentences

We currently have a home equity line of credit in the amount of $30,000 and a car loan of $15,000.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 6, 2026

Parents also want to avoid draining their retirement accounts or tapping home equity for college, as roughly 7% of families did last year.

From MarketWatch • Apr. 1, 2026

Increases in service charge costs can also act as a barrier to staircasing, as they reduce the income available to fund greater home equity, the report found.

From BBC • Mar. 24, 2026

Those things include helping many Americans save for retirement, accumulate home equity, and finance purchases; and financing the operations of many businesses with debt and stock sales.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 18, 2026

Greg Lippmann had traded bonds backed by various consumer loans—auto loans, credit card loans, home equity loans—since 1991, when he had graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and taken a job at Credit Suisse.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis