The number of millionaire homeowners in America has more than quadrupled in five years, a new report has found.
Between 2017 and 2022, the amount of households earning a seven-figure salary ballooned from 30,000 to 136,697.
Analysis of US Census bureau figures by real estate site Point2 shows the profile of a typical millionaire homeowner is a 50-year-old chief executive living in New York or San Francisco.
On average they own a $1.8 million, ten-room home including five bedrooms and three cars.
The trend is being driven by increasing incomes across the board, as the number of families earning less than $75,000 is also falling.
According to Point2, the ultra-wealthy homeowner is one of the fastest-growing income brackets in the country.
However, experts point out that even affluent households are struggling under the weight of red-hot inflation and elevated interest rates.
The rate of annual inflation rose to 3.5 percent in March while the Federal Reserve’s benchmark funds rate is currently at a 23-year-high of between 5.25 and 5.5 percent.
In theory higher interest rates are intended to reign in consumer spending. They have a knock-on effect on mortgages, credit card interest and personal loans.
The average rate on a 30-year mortgage is currently 6.88 percent while the average APR on a credit card is now above 20 percent.
Money blog Financial Samurai writes: ‘Thousands of households living in expensive cities are running on this never-ending treadmill.
‘They’ve got big mortgages, private school tuition to pay, and fancy cars to drive. No matter how much they make, these households tend to spend all their income and not save as much as they should.
‘Now with inflation running near 40-year highs, important costs are simply going up further.’
Point2’s study looked at data collated by IPUMS which looks at trends in the 30 most populous metros from US Census Bureau figures.
The term ‘millionaire owner’ refers to households that have a combined income of more than $1,000,000 and owned a condo or house.
Its findings showed the New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area had the highest share of millionaire households, counting 26,561 in total.
It was followed by Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA, which is home to 10,762 millionaire owners.
The US has the world’s biggest millionaire population, at about 5.5 million people.
A recent report by consultancy Henley & Partners found that Austin, TX, is home to the fastest-growing millionaire population.
The number of seven-figure earners in the city has grown by 110 percent in the last decade to 32,700.
The boom was attributed to the fact several major tech companies including Tesla and Oracle have moved their headquarters to the city in the past few years.
Low taxes also attracted an influx of well-paid workers during the pandemic, when a widespread shift to remote working unshackled them from their offices in New York and San Francisco.