How does homeownership build wealth? It promotes wealth building by acting as a forced savings mechanism and through home value appreciation. Wealth building depends on the homeowners’ ability to build home equity. Here in the San Francisco Bay Area (and in California) this is a fact. The image here, from the National Associaton of Realtors (NAR) shows the Top 10 areas for the largest wealth gains by income levels in the past 10 years. Just another good reason to be a homeowner!