Market News

BY Tom Haynes

Baby boomers housing wealth has swelled to a record £2.89 trillion, analysis shows.

Research by property firm Savills found that those aged over 60 own 56pc of the nation’s owner-occupied homes, while those aged under 35 hold just 6pc.

The trend was pinned on the rise in boomers – those born between 1946 and 1964 – becoming mortgage free. In total, properties owned by the over-60s are worth £2.95 trillion – just £60bn of which is outstanding mortgage debt.

By comparison, those aged under 35 hold £600bn in property – half of which is mortgage debt.

Lucian Cook, head of residential research at Savills, said: “Over the past 10 years, debt has become a less important component of the growth in the value of the nation’s housing stock, with increasingly more equity concentrated among older homeowners and investors.

“The baby boomers have continued to build wealth, having paid off their mortgage debt, and Generation X has been working hard to achieve the same goal.

“Meanwhile, Generations Y and Z have had much less opportunity to work their way up the housing ladder profitably.”

It comes as boomers face increasing pressure to downsize to free up homes for young families.

Last month, Tony Blair’s think tank called for larger properties to be taxed more to encourage owners to downsize.

Researchers at the Tony Blair Institute proposed that the council tax system – in which bills are based on the property’s value in April 1991 – is ripped up and replaced with a levy set at 0.5pc of the home’s current value.

Thomas Smith, the institute’s director of economic policy, said the move would “incentivise homeowners in larger, under-occupied properties to downsize, improving housing market fluidity and supporting economic mobility”.

Nearly 10 million homes in England had at least two unused bedrooms last year, according to the English Housing Survey, with pensioners accounting for the largest share of these homeowners.

However, David Forsdyke, of Knight Frank Finance, said older homeowners tend to be “asset rich, but cash poor”, and that their pensions sometimes do not cover their living expenses.

Figures published this week by the Equity Release Council found that the amount of money extracted from the value of homes rose by roughly a third in the three months to March, compared to last year.

Mr Forsdyke said: “Older homeowners are borrowing more to cover their cost of living, which has risen sharply in the past five years.

“Equity release offers a solution whereby they can draw down small amounts to top up their income. Others simply borrow to gift money to their children or grandchildren.”