How rich were the McCallisters in ‘Home Alone’?

Since “Home Alone” was released in 1990, many have wondered how the McCallisters could afford their house or to travel with a large family for Christmas to Paris. The question is, how rich are the McCallisters?

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The McCallisters are the 1%, according to the New York Times. The biggest clue is the house as to how much money the family has.

The house at 671 Lincoln Ave., in Winnetka, Illinois, is a real house and is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the country, according to Realtor.com, per the Times.

“In 1990, the house was affordable only for the top 1% of Chicago household incomes, and that would still be the case today, according to economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago…the home would have been affordable to a household with an income of $305,000 in 1990 (about $665,000 in 2022),” the Times reported, according to Variety.

This means that Peter (John Heard) and Kate McCallister (Catherina O’Hara) had to make at least $305,000 a year in 1990 to afford their house, Variety reported. In 2022, that would have been more than double at $665,000 a year.

“Home Alone” never revealed what the family did for a living but it was assumed that Kate McCallister worked in fashion since the house had mannequins. Kevin’s dad was a businessman because it was “a safe bet,” Todd Strasser, who wrote the official novelizations of “Home Alone” said, according to the Times. He also claimed that he didn’t think about how rich the family was but thought of them as “upper middle class.”

“I don’t know how much the McCallisters made, but it sure did a lot for my bank account,” Strasser said, according to the newspaper.

Zillow in 2022 estimated that the house was worth around $2.4 million, according to Variety. This house specifically in 1990 was only affordable by people in the top 1% in Chicago, according to the Times. That reportedly would still be the case today.

For years, fans of the “Home Alone” movies, specifically the first one, speculated about how rich the McCallister family is because taking 15 family members for Christmas to Paris is not cheap, Variety said. It was also speculated that it was something in the family because it was Kevin McCallister’s uncle who paid for the family’s plane tickets.

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