Americans aged roughly 60 and older sit on nearly 30 million homes worth a combined $13.8 trillion, and most of those properties still lack a clear transfer strategy. That is not just a family-law problem. For anyone who thinks about wealth preservation in real terms, the way this housing stock changes hands over the next two decades will shape inheritance patterns, tax exposure, and the real purchasing power of the next generation’s balance sheets.

Older Americans control more than a third of U.S. housing value while making up just 18% of the population, and estate-planning attorneys say too many of those homeowners are relying on default probate rather than targeted tools like Transfer on Death Deeds or trusts to move their largest asset to heirs efficiently.

A census data analysis from the National Association of Home Builders, reported by USA TODAY, puts the numbers in sharp relief: boomers and older Americans control 34.1% of U.S. housing stock value across 29.6 million homes. That concentration matters because residential real estate is, for most families, the single largest store of wealth. When the owner dies without a plan, the asset falls into probate, a process that can be slow, expensive, and corrosive to the value heirs actually receive.

Why the Concentration Matters Now

Eighteen percent of the population holding a third of the nation’s housing value is not merely a demographic curiosity. It is a structural feature of the American balance sheet. And it arrives at a moment when younger households already face steep barriers to ownership. As we explored in our look at how parental wealth now matters more than income for homeownership, intergenerational transfers are increasingly the margin that determines whether the next generation builds equity or rents indefinitely.

That makes the mechanics of transfer consequential well beyond any single family’s kitchen table. If $13.8 trillion in housing value passes through inefficient channels, the friction shows up as legal fees, delayed sales, family disputes, and forced liquidations at inopportune moments. For capital-preservation-minded readers, the lesson is direct: your home is not a passive asset in retirement. It is a planning obligation.

Transfer on Death Deeds: The Simple Tool Most People Overlook

One instrument gaining traction is the Transfer on Death Deed, or TODD. Missouri first adopted the concept in 1989, and more than 30 states now offer TODDs or some version of them, according to legal self-help publisher NOLO.com. The mechanism is straightforward: the property owner completes a form designating a beneficiary, signs it, and records it with the county where the property sits. Upon the owner’s death, the home transfers directly to the named beneficiary without passing through probate.

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The appeal is obvious. Probate can drag on for months or years, depending on the jurisdiction and the complexity of the estate. A TODD sidesteps that entirely for the specific property it covers. And the cost is modest. Attorneys cited in the USA TODAY report put the price of setting up a TODD at hundreds of dollars, compared to thousands for a trust, which may also carry ongoing administration fees.

Don Ford, an attorney at Ford + Bergner LLP, framed the tool’s sweet spot plainly:

“They’re best used for smaller estates. They avoid probate and are not as complicated as trusts.”

For a retiree whose primary asset is the family home and whose financial picture is relatively uncomplicated, a TODD can be the most efficient path. But efficiency has limits.

What a TODD Does Not Do

Los Angeles-based attorney Michael Chuah drew a sharp distinction between the two main tools. A TODD, he said, “is a surgical tool for a very specific purpose, to avoid probate, but it’s not doing much else.” A trust, by contrast, is “a whole tool box.”

The differences matter in practice. A TODD does not address what happens if the homeowner becomes incapacitated before death. It does not protect the property from an heir’s creditors after the transfer. And it assumes a clean, uncomplicated succession. As Chuah put it: “A TODD assumes nothing happens to mom and dad, they die in line, and then the house goes to one kid so there are no conflicts.”

Real life rarely cooperates with those assumptions. Families with multiple heirs, blended households, or properties in more than one state face complications a TODD was never designed to handle. Cory Krueger, managing partner of Hensley & Krueger, flagged the creditor risk directly: once a TODD transfers the home into an heir’s name, “creditors can come after it.” That exposure can erase the very wealth the owner intended to preserve.

The broader point is that the cheapest tool is not always the safest one. For readers who think seriously about protecting purchasing power across generations, the choice between a TODD and a trust is not just a legal question. It is a risk-management decision.

Trusts: More Expensive, More Durable

A revocable living trust costs more upfront and requires ongoing attention, but it covers scenarios a TODD cannot. Incapacity planning, creditor shielding, multi-beneficiary distribution, and the ability to set conditions on inheritance all live inside a trust structure. For larger or more complex estates, that flexibility is worth the price.

Chuah’s advice was practical rather than prescriptive: “Every family is different. They need to look at their assets to make the decision of whether to use a TODD or trust.” The implication is that no single instrument fits every situation, and the worst outcome is doing nothing at all.

That last point deserves emphasis. The default in most states, absent any planning, is probate. And probate is not a neutral process. It consumes time, legal fees, and family goodwill. For a generation already contending with elder care costs that quietly drain the wealth boomers planned to pass down, letting the largest asset default into the slowest, most expensive transfer channel is a compounding error.

The Wealth-Transfer Backdrop

The $13.8 trillion figure sits inside a larger story about generational wealth, housing affordability, and the erosion of middle-class balance sheets. Retirees face rising costs on every front. As we have covered, retirement costs by state reveal a savings crisis most Americans are not ready for, and the pressure to spend down assets during retirement competes directly with the desire to leave something behind.

That tension is real and growing. Many older homeowners are house-rich but cash-constrained. The home may represent 60%, 70%, or more of total net worth. When medical bills, long-term care, or simple cost-of-living inflation eat into liquid savings, the house becomes both the last reservoir of wealth and the hardest asset to manage in an estate plan.

For metals-oriented readers, the parallel is instructive. Physical gold and silver share a key characteristic with real estate: they are tangible, illiquid relative to financial assets, and easy to neglect in estate planning. The same families that fail to title a house properly often fail to document the location, ownership, and intended disposition of physical bullion. The principle is the same. If the asset lacks a clear, legally enforceable transfer mechanism, the heirs pay the friction cost.

What Readers Should Take Away

The practical considerations break down along a few lines:

  • Simple estate, single property, one heir: A TODD may be the most cost-effective option, costing hundreds of dollars and avoiding probate entirely.
  • Multiple heirs, blended families, or creditor concerns: A trust provides broader protection, though at higher cost and complexity.
  • Incapacity risk: A TODD offers no coverage. A trust or durable power of attorney is necessary.
  • State availability: More than 30 states offer TODDs, but not all do. Homeowners need to check their jurisdiction.

None of this is personalized advice. But the pattern is clear: the families that preserve the most wealth across generations are the ones that plan the transfer before the transfer is forced upon them.

The fear of outliving one’s savings is now widespread. As we noted in our coverage of how running out of money scares Americans more than dying, the emotional weight of that anxiety often paralyzes decision-making rather than accelerating it. The result is inaction, and inaction defaults to probate.

The Bigger Picture for Capital Preservation

Thirteen-point-eight trillion dollars in housing wealth, concentrated in the hands of an aging 18% of the population, is a slow-moving event with fast-approaching deadlines. Every year without a plan is a year of accumulated risk: legal risk, tax risk, family risk, and the quiet risk that inflation and care costs erode the asset before it ever reaches the next generation.

For readers who hold hard assets precisely because they distrust the system’s ability to preserve purchasing power, the estate-planning gap is an unforced error. Gold, silver, and real estate all share the same vulnerability: they protect wealth only as long as the owner has arranged for that protection to survive them.

The system does not reward passivity. It rewards planning. And the clock, as always, belongs to the creditors and the courts.