UK Homeowners Have £2 trillion of Assets

Our news team here like to keep things upbeat so with that in mind here is some good news from Ge Money. Their latest research showed property price rises have added £1.96trillion of wealth to homeowner's pockets which is a total of £127,455 for each UK property.

The figures, based on industry data and research by GfK NOP, suggest that of the 62% of people who own their own homes in the UK,26% own outright, the other 36% of homeowners have a residential mortgage and on average own a third of the equity in their homes, worth £582billion.

The south east accounts for the majority of the UK's housing wealth, with £377billion of equity held by homeowners, or 19% of the total housing stock in the UK.

Properties in the north-east are worth the least at £58billion, accounting for just 3% of the total value of housing stock in the UK, with Wales second from bottom at 4.5% and £88billion.However he north-west and Wales have the highest percentage of people who own their homes outright,30% compared with 20% in London.

Gerry Bell, head of mortgage marketing with GE said "Whatever happens to the property market in the short term, we have had a prolonged period of rising prices which have importantly helped many homeowners to build equity and a reassuring cushion against any downturn," .