wealthschema/archetypes/h-01-affluent-investor-1m-3m
H-01High Net WorthAccumulationhigh tax complexity

Affluent Investor ($1M–$3M)

Household with $1M–$3M investable assets, working with RIA, diversified portfolio, estate planning in progress.

H-01 is the $1M–$3M investable-asset band where the household has crossed into managed-portfolio territory but hasn't reached estate-tax-or-family-office complexity. It's the canonical RIA-client testing profile: tax-loss harvesting, direct indexing, and tax-efficient location are where the dollars matter.

Age Range
40–60
Net Worth
$1M–$5M
Cohort
High Net Worth

About this archetype

H-01 exists because the $1M–$3M investable-asset band is structurally different from both the mass-affluent below and the HNW above. The household has typically engaged an RIA (assets-under-management or hybrid fee-plus-planning), the portfolio is professionally diversified rather than DIY, and tax-aware management — tax-loss harvesting, direct indexing, asset-location across qualified vs taxable vs Roth — is meaningful enough to drive measurable basis-point alpha. Estate planning is in progress (revocable trusts, beneficiary updates, ILIT contemplation) but the lifetime gift exemption hasn't been pressured because the household is well below the estate-tax threshold. The §199A QBI deduction is potentially available where rental or pass-through income exists. NIIT 3.8% on net investment income applies and is a permanent feature of the projection model. Below this archetype, AUM products usually aren't worth the fee load; above it (H-02), the surface includes GRAT/SLAT mechanics and concentrated-position-unwind that H-01 doesn't yet need.

Cash-flow shape is mixed W-2 plus material investment income. Median combined income is $318,062 with a tight 25–75 of $288k–$360k — high enough to fund continued accumulation but low enough that the investment portfolio is doing meaningful work. Median net worth is $2.31M with $1.07M median liquid, putting the median household squarely inside the $1M–$3M band the archetype is named for. 77% are homeowners, NY/CA/WA cluster 40% of the corpus, and 83% carry dependents — the household is mid-life with education funding live and meaningful (25 of 30 households).

What makes H-01 distinct from neighbors is the *RIA relationship* and the *managed-but-not-yet-complex* portfolio. P-03 sits at similar incomes but with peak dual-W-2 accumulation rather than managed-portfolio drawdown-prep. H-02 has $3M–$10M and the inflection where estate tax and concentrated-position mechanics start to matter. RE-01 is a near-cousin in retirement — same wealth tier, but with withdrawal-strategy and Medicare timing as the dominant surface rather than ongoing accumulation under managed advice.

Defining characteristics

  • RIA client
    Engaged with a Registered Investment Advisor under AUM or hybrid fee structure. Form ADV Part 2, Reg BI care obligation, and quarterly billing flows are part of the operating surface — not theoretical.
  • Tax-loss harvesting
    Systematic TLH on taxable brokerage with §1091 wash-sale handling across substantially-identical positions, including coordination between household, spouse IRA, and 401(k) accounts.
  • Estate plan
    Revocable living trust, durable powers of attorney, healthcare directives, beneficiary updates across all qualified accounts. ILIT and SLAT contemplated but typically not yet executed at this wealth tier.
  • Charitable giving
    Donor-advised fund is the dominant vehicle; appreciated-security gifting is routine. QCDs (qualified charitable distributions from IRA) become relevant in 5–10 years as primary approaches 70½.
  • Alternative investments
    Light alternative exposure — typically interval funds, BDCs, REITs, or a small private-credit slice — within the $1M–$3M band. Accredited-investor status is met but qualified-purchaser threshold ($5M+) is not.
  • Direct indexing
    Direct-indexing solutions from direct-indexing vendors are economically viable at this asset level; the per-lot tracking and TLH yield meaningful basis-point alpha.

Corpus signature

n = 30 households

Aggregated across the 30 H-01 households in the shipped v3 corpus corpus. Numbers describe the corpus, not population claims.

Median income
$318k
p25–p75 $288k–$360k
Median net worth
$2.3M
mean $2.6M
Liquid net worth
$1.1M
median
Investable assets
$1.6M
median
Income distribution
$225k–275k
5
$275k–325k
12
$325k–375k
6
$375k–425k
7
Net-worth distribution
$1.3m–2.2m
13
$2.2m–3.1m
8
$3.1m–4.1m
6
$4.1m–5m
3
Goals across the corpus
Retirement30 / 30
Education funding25 / 30
Debt payoff15 / 30
Home purchase7 / 30
Emergency fund1 / 30
Liability composition
Credit cards30 / 30
Mortgages23 / 30
Student loans15 / 30
Auto loans9 / 30
  • 23 of 30 (77%) are homeowners; the remainder rent.
  • NY, CA, WA account for 12 of 30 households — 40% of the corpus.
  • Median adult-member age is 50 (range 40–61 across primaries and spouses).
  • 25 of 30 (83%) carry one or more dependents.
  • Married filing jointly is the dominant filing status (27 of 30).

Representative household

H-01-seed-17
Samantha S.Domestic partnership·San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, CA

Samantha and Michael are a domestic-partnership household at the corpus median on income and just below on net worth — the canonical RIA-onboarding profile. The diagnostic shape is high liquid ratio ($1.32M of $2.22M) and minimal debt ($12k total), with on-track retirement and home-purchase goals but off-track education funding against a $912k target. This is the household where direct-indexing and 529-front-load decisions both move the projection materially. Domestic-partnership filing also exercises non-MFJ paths often skipped in HNW fixtures — use this household to validate per-individual aggregation logic and asset-titling state-of-domicile interaction.

Combined income
$316,841
Net worth
$2,223,901
Liquid NW
$1,320,955
Ages
40 / 42
Top goals on this household
Retirement
$5,618,400
Education funding
$911,630
Home purchase
$253,473

Schema fields covered

Every H-01 household ships with — at minimum — these JSON fields populated. The full schema is documented in the data set you purchase.

members[].age
income.combined_gross
net_worth.total
filing_status
accounts.taxable.lots[].acquisition_date
accounts.taxable.lots[].cost_basis
accounts.taxable.lots[].unrealized_pnl
taxes.wash_sale_flags

Who builds against this archetype

Three buyer profiles use H-01 most heavily. RIA-tech and portfolio-accounting platforms validate household-aggregation, performance-reporting, billing, and proposal-generation flows against the $1M–$3M client profile that is the bread-and-butter of mid-tier RIAs. Direct-indexing and tax-management vendors use H-01 to model TLH efficacy, wash-sale coordination across household accounts, and the basis-point alpha tracking that justifies the strategy's existence above the $250k account-minimum threshold. Estate-planning software uses H-01 to populate the canonical first-trust-package use case: revocable trust, pour-over will, financial and healthcare POAs, beneficiary update workflows.

Testing scenarios this corpus is calibrated for

  • 01Household-aggregation across taxable, qualified, and Roth accounts with per-account TLH and asset-location optimization
  • 02Direct-indexing portfolio rendering with per-lot tax-basis tracking and §1091 wash-sale coordination
  • 03Reg BI care-obligation documentation for $1M–$3M client recommendations including alternative-investment suitability
  • 04529 funding-shortfall modeling against $500k–$1M per-child targets with five-year-front-load gifting
  • 05QCD eligibility approaching age 70½ — IRA-direct-to-charity coordinated with DAF strategy
  • 06Revocable-trust funding checklist generation with beneficiary-update coverage across all household accounts

Edge cases and what's not in this corpus

H-01 is calibrated to the $1M–$3M investable-asset band specifically, with an active RIA relationship. Households at $3M–$10M with estate-tax planning, GRATs, and concentrated-position-unwind belong in H-02. UHNW households above $10M with family offices and dynasty trusts are H-03. Households at $1M–$3M who self-direct rather than engaging an RIA — Boglehead-style index-only DIYers, or overconfident-trader profiles — belong in B-02. Retired households in the same wealth band where the surface is withdrawal-strategy and RMD are RE-01 or RL-01 by age. Affluent households whose primary asset is a closely-held business rather than managed liquid wealth are P-02. Same-sex households with the same financial signature but distinct adoption/surrogacy/estate-titling needs belong in X-03.

Calibration notes

H-01 income and net-worth bands during v3 synthesis were anchored to Cerulli US Retail Investor segments and Federal Reserve SCF wealth-tier distributions for the $1M–$3M investable band. Industry mix skews toward healthcare, finance, technology, and professional services — the four sectors where mid-career $300k incomes commonly compound into $2M+ portfolios. Alternative-investment allocation is intentionally light (interval funds, BDCs, small private-credit slices) because qualified-purchaser threshold ($5M+) is not met at this wealth tier. Per CLAUDE.md §9 the v3 corpus is frozen and per-domain priors aren't independently auditable; treat calibration claims as descriptive of synthesis intent rather than reproducible.

How this differs from related archetypes

Frequently asked questions

What does the H-01 archetype represent?+

H-01 — Affluent Investor ($1M–$3M) is the household in the $1M–$3M investable-asset band, typically married, 40–60 years old, working with an RIA on a diversified managed portfolio. The defining features are an active advisor relationship, systematic tax-loss harvesting, and an estate plan in progress (revocable trust, beneficiary updates) but well below estate-tax thresholds.

How is H-01 different from H-02 above it?+

H-01 sits at $1M–$3M investable; H-02 sits at $3M–$10M. The difference isn't just scale — H-02 crosses into territory where estate tax, GRATs, SLATs, and concentrated-position unwind become the dominant planning surface. H-01 is still primarily an accumulation-and-tax-aware-management profile.

What income and net-worth range does H-01 cover?+

Combined gross income median is $318,062 with a 25–75 range of roughly $288k to $360k. Median net worth is $2.31M with $1.07M median liquid and $1.64M median investable assets — squarely inside the $1M–$3M band the archetype is named for.

Does H-01 include alternative investments?+

Yes, but lightly. The corpus models accredited-investor-eligible exposures (interval funds, BDCs, REITs, small private-credit positions) typical at the $1M–$3M tier. Qualified-purchaser-only products ($5M+ threshold) are not modeled here; those appear in H-02 and H-03.

Which data sets include H-01 households?+

H-01 is tagged for six bundles — B02, B05, B06, B07, B11, and B12 — covering tax planning, executive compensation, retirement contribution strategies, alternative investments, business planning, and estate planning. See the right-hand sidebar for the data sets that ship H-01 households.

Is the H-01 corpus regenerable?+

No. The shipped v3 corpus is frozen and not regenerable from current code (drift was confirmed on 2026-05-09 per CLAUDE.md §9). Sampler improvements land in a future v4 release with per-archetype golden fixtures in CI.

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