With a lot of help from the Fed.

Home prices continue to post record gains, pushing household wealth up to the highest level in U.S. history. Considering that the pandemic showed signs of unleashing a cataclysmic financial event, the numbers are staggering:

A new index from the Federal Housing Finance Authority showed home prices jump another 1.4% in July, capping off a year of unprecedented growth that drove the value of the average home up by nearly 20%.

Per Bloomberg, that’s the largest-ever increase in value of real estate holdings, which added $1.2 trillion to U.S. household wealth in just the first half of 2021. The Federal Reserve reports that total U.S. household wealth now stands at a record-shattering $141.7 trillion.

What does it all mean? In the face of calamity — and with newly printed bucks supplied by the Fed — America did what it does best: we shopped. Specifically, we bought homes, an asset class that outperformed as usual, but now like never before.