Historically high home price growth pushed U.S. mortgage holders’ equity to a record $11 trillion in March, according to the May 2024 ICE Mortgage Monitor Report from Intercontinental Exchange Inc.

Though U.S. home price growth slowed somewhat, March marked the third consecutive occurrence of above-average monthly gains. Rising prices combined with higher interest rates have added to the affordability pressure on prospective homebuyers. Existing homeowners, on the other hand, continue to reap the benefits of historically strong price gains.

The Northeastern continues to experience the strongest monthly price gains, with New Haven (1.3 percent) and Hartford, CT (1.1 percent) leading the way. Together with the New York City metropolitan area (1 percent), Boston, MA (.9 percent), Bridgeport, CT (0.9 percent) and Allentown, PA (0.8 percent), these markets were six of the seven largest single-month price gains among the nation’s top 100 metro areas.

“The recent trend of rising interest rates has dampened homebuyer demand and allowed the inventory of homes for sale to improve,” ICE Vice President of Enterprise Research Strategy Andy Walden said in a statement. “We’re still very much in a hole from an inventory perspective, but that deficit has fallen from 50 percent a year ago to 38 percent in March. Today, with 3.3 months of supply, inventory is still historically low and indicative of a seller’s market. This is helping to keep home price growth resilient even though demand is down. In fact, despite some minor slowing, March marked the third consecutive month of stronger than average growth.”

Just five West Coast markets – Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, and Seattle – account for nearly a quarter of all tappable equity available.

Approximately 48 million mortgage holders have some amount of tappable equity in their homes that could be accessed even under relatively conservative combined loan-to-value ratio limits.