Owning Your Own Home

A survey of Adventist Pastors revealed eight different factors that may allow pastors to retire as millionaires. In this series I’ve been sharing each of these eight factors in bite size pieces. Coming in at number one in correlation strength is owning your own home.

The anticipated average net worth of those who have never owned a home is $795,455 and the average net worth of those who have owned a home is $1,607,744. Owning your own home is a game changer for net worth. 

What percentage of net worth can be attributed to home equity? The average anticipated net worth of all participants was $1,552,038 and the average anticipated home equity was $825,313. This means that on average, home equity is 53% of a pastor’s anticipated net worth.

For those pastors who have not yet purchased a home should you continue to rent? Or should you buy? This is a conversation you must have with your future self. 

We’ll see who wins out in your conversation. In my life, the old guy won, and I’m glad he did! 

This just about completes this series on lessons learned from millionaire pastors, but I’ve saved one more bonus for next time. How do gender, race/ethnicity impact net worth? The answer may be surprising. (Hint: The white guys didn’t win this contest). 

Author’s note: These articles are condensed from the full report of the study that was presented at the 2022 CALLED Pastors’ Family Convention and can be downloaded here: If you would like to dialogue with the author you can email him at davegemmell@gmail.com.

Dave Gemmell recently retired from NAD Ministerial and is enjoying spending more time with his family, especially his three grandsons.