Strong demand for housing last year kept home prices surging, and that means more homeowners are now sitting on more cash in the form of home equity.
Collectively, homeowners with mortgages saw their equity increase by just over 8 percent in 2018, according to CoreLogic. That is from a combination of home value gains and borrowers paying down their mortgages. It adds up to roughly $678 billion in additional wealth over the last year - or about $9,700 per homeowner.