Uhhhh.
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+percentage+of+homes+are+over+%241+million
Apparently per Redfin 8.5% of homes in the US are 7 figures or more. We’re not talking the 1% here.
In California the median home price is almost $800,000.
I’m in a HCOL area in Washington State and regularly see 3bdrm and sometimes 2bdrm condos for over 1 million.
Not to mention sure your home is equity or net worth but most people only buy one and sell it anytime they move. Many of these people also planned on selling it / downsizing in retirement and converting it towards their retirement fund.
Remember that “afford” doesn’t mean they have a million dollars. “afford” means they saved up a down-payment and then paid interest and mortgage payments (sometimes barely scraping by) for at least 30 years. Usually many more years if they moved from smaller house or a condo to a larger house when they decided to have a family (thereby starting a new mortgage for another 30 years). Or worst case, they haven’t paid it off and now are underwater on their mortgage.
The banks are the ones making crazy money on all this.
This might not be super useful if you don’t write code but I always found the contest submissions fun to read and try to figure out for the https://www.underhanded-c.org/ contest.
They break down and explain the runner up and finalist for each year and how the attack works. It’s usually something very subtle that most people wouldn’t catch.