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37% of the 65% of homeowners own their home free & clear.

That's 24%. You're obviously at a huge advantage if you're in this 24% - but it's kind of like saying that the top 10% of people have >$1M in assets (they also happen to predominantly be old).

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The point is that the concentration of housing wealth becoming more concentrated means the average person (median) is worse off and their cost of living has increased accordingly.

Surely the people who are leveraged with a fixed rate mortgage at an even bigger advantage to those who own a home outright? (debt will get inflated away over time)

If you have 500k house outright vs. 500k equity in 1M house then probably yes I imagine that is correct on average.

But that is orthogonal. Both people in the comparison have the home equity to begin with. How? Either they paid $500k from earnings or they got it a lot cheaper in the past. A lot cheaper in the past == inflation.

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