[IKantRead]

As this other comment pointed out [0] 40% of homes are mortgage free, but that says nothing about home owners.

Anecdotally I know that none of my neighbors are mortgage free. However I also have a few friends that had major cash windfalls things like startup exits or time working in hedge funds, each of them owns 3-5 houses outright as investments.

So, with this small sample I can easily see that of the total number of homes owned by friends/neighbors, 40% being mortgage free sounds about right, but far less of my friends/neighbors are mortgage free.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38612670

[giantg2]

I agree overall, but the census should be measuring the primary residence of the respondent and exclude second houses or renters. Basically it's measuring households and not houses.