By Tessa McLean
SFGate, San Francisco
(TNS)
Sept. 10 — California’s oldest residents are projected to pass down a massive amount of wealth in the coming years.
A new report from LendingTree estimates that Californian homeowners 65 and older could transfer $3.4 trillion from 2026 through 2045. That’s nearly 20% of the total for the U.S. as a whole, and larger than Florida’s and New York’s totals combined.
Annually, Californians may transfer around $171 billion, nearly $1 of every $5 transferred nationwide.
The financial marketplace’s analysis was modeled using data from the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Census Bureau, applying average mortality rates and assuming that 65% of wealth would be distributed after taxes and other expenses. It’s worth highlighting that it’s a model, and not an estimate of total household net worth.
The company’s analysis used an estimated mean home value of $981,746 for California, and accounted for 2,723,823 California homeowner households headed by someone 65 or older.
That high mean home value—nearly $1 million—is much higher than in other states that also will transfer a huge amount of wealth, like Florida and New York. So, while California has the highest population of people 65 and over, it also has the highest home values. Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief consumer finance analyst, said the findings about how large the wealth transfer could be in California are “pretty eye opening”—even considering how large the California economy is in general (as of 2025, it was the fourth largest economy in the world).
“It speaks to just how much money is in California, and also just how expensive homes are in California,” Schulz said.
Florida is estimated to transfer $1.7 trillion over the next 20 years, New York would transfer $1.2 trillion and Texas would transfer $908 billion. North Dakota and Alaska are expected to pass on the least amount of wealth, at $21 billion and $24 billion, respectively.
When looking at the numbers on a per-household basis, rather than the state as a whole, Hawaii edges out California. The model shows Hawaii having $3.1 million in transferable wealth per older homeowner household, while California has $2.9 million. The District of Columbia is close behind with $2.8 million per household.
The wealth transfer could be a huge boon to those who stand to inherit, but given the rising cost of healthcare, estimating how much will actually be distributed is difficult. “Even with these staggering numbers, there’s no guarantee what percentage of that will make it down the line,” Schulz said.
No matter the number, the transfer could widen California’s economic gap even further. “That extreme concentration of wealth has led to an affordability crisis that may only be made worse when all of those fortunes are passed down. We’ve already seen many families leaving the state for more affordable locales, and that seems unlikely to stop anytime soon,” Schulz said in the report.
Photo credit: Freepik
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© 2026 SFGate, San Francisco. Visit www.sfgate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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Tags: california, Payroll, wealth, wealth transfer
