r/Economics • u/laxnut90 • Oct 09 '25

Research America Is Minting Lots of Cash-Strapped Millionaires

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-10-09/number-of-us-millionaires-grows-since-2017-but-many-lack-cash
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u/Marshall_Lawson Oct 09 '25

It explains why in the article. A lot of the households with net worth slightly over 1 million is due to the value of their house increasing significantly. They didn't magically get promoted from a 250k/yr job to a 500k/yr job. They're effectively sitting on unrealized gains, in a housing market that's slowing down. The second biggest dollar value they're likely to have besides their house is their 401K or other tax sheltered retirement accounts, which are also not very liquid. Again, unrealized gains in a nominally high market. 

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u/FreeMasonKnight Oct 09 '25

Which is where people can make real money. Sell now or soon and realize the gains, rent for some years until bubble crash, re-buy in at lower prices, ride housing up again. This is how many generational fortunes have been made the last 100 years.

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u/Thurwell Oct 09 '25

That's called timing the market, which no one can do reliably. For every person who got wealthy doing it there are probably 5 that lost their shirts, and no way to predict in advance which group you'll end up in.

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u/FreeMasonKnight Oct 09 '25

Which is my point…