New Jersey ranks near the top
for home equity
A LendingTree study of more than 965,000 home equity loan inquiries put New Jersey among the top five states for reported equity, at a median of about $295,000. Pennsylvania came in 34th.
- New Jersey landed in the top five states for reported home equity in the first quarter, in a LendingTree study of more than 965,000 anonymized home equity loan and line of credit inquiries
- New Jersey shoppers reported a median of about $295,000 in equity, and almost three in four reported at least $200,000
- Pennsylvania came in 34th at a median of $180,000, and Hawaii led at about $425,000
Reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer. Summary in our words.
New Jersey came out among the top five states for home equity in the first quarter of this year, according to a LendingTree study reported by The Philadelphia Inquirer. The study is built from more than 965,000 anonymized inquiries for home equity loans and home equity lines of credit submitted through LendingTree, and the people making those inquiries reported how much equity they had. In New Jersey the median came to about $295,000, meaning half reported more and half less. New Jersey tied with Washington state, and edged it on one measure: almost three in four New Jersey shoppers reported at least $200,000 in equity.
Equity, also called housing wealth, is the difference between what a property is worth and what the owner still owes on the mortgage. It moves for two reasons at once. Values go up, and the loan balance comes down with every payment. An owner who has been in a South Jersey house for a few years has had both working at the same time, which is why the figure people carry in their head is the one from the last time they looked.
The state-by-state spread is wide. Hawaii led at a median of about $425,000, with more than 80 percent of its shoppers reporting at least $200,000. California was second at about $350,000. Pennsylvania, on the other side of the river, ranked 34th at a median of $180,000. West Virginia and Iowa tied for last at about $130,000. Nationally, LendingTree's read of Federal Reserve data puts households at $34.9 trillion in home equity as of the first quarter, which is $48.7 trillion in real estate assets against $13.8 trillion of mortgage debt.
Two things are worth keeping straight about the numbers. The first is who they describe: people who went looking for a home equity loan or line of credit, reporting their own equity. That is not a survey of every homeowner, and it is not an appraisal. The second is that equity is not cash. Matt Schulz, LendingTree's chief consumer finance analyst, said in a statement that reaching it generally means selling the home or borrowing against it, and that borrowing carries costs and risks. He also said equity moves with the market, and that owners should confirm how much they have and what a loan would ultimately cost before borrowing against a house. Those are questions for your lender, on your own numbers.
For a homeowner here, the useful part is not the ranking. It is that the gap keeps moving while nobody is looking at it, and the house side of it is worth what buyers are paying nearby, which is a figure that comes from what has actually sold rather than from an online estimate. That is a conversation, not a calculation, and it costs nothing to have.
Our take
Equity is the gap between what a home is worth and what is still owed, so it grows while values rise and the loan comes down. If you have owned in South Jersey a few years, that gap is likely wider than you last checked.
Curious what your home would bring? Let's talk.
The state figures come from people who shopped for a home equity loan or line of credit through LendingTree in the first quarter of 2026 and reported their own equity. They are not a measure of all homeowners, and they are not an appraisal. General information, not advice about any specific property. The JK Realty Group, brokered with OMNI Real Estate Professionals. Equal Housing Opportunity. See our Terms of Use for how we source and credit these posts.