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Total London Housing Stock Valued at £1.13tn
This article is an external press release originally published on the Landlord News website, which has now been migrated to the Just Landlords blog.
The Halifax has valued London’s total housing stock at £1.13 trillion, almost double the worth of all the homes in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Total London Housing Stock Valued at £1.13tn
Property in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is worth a combined £582 billion, says the mortgage lender.
The substantial rise in the value of London’s homes means that the capital’s residential property is now worth the same as the total housing stock in the North West, Yorkshire and the Humberside, the North East and Scotland.
The housing stock in the north of England, from Cheshire to Northumberland, is valued at £810 billion.
The Halifax’s research found that the estimated total value of the UK’s private housing stock has exceeded £5 trillion for the first time. However, this hides a huge north-south divide.
House prices in the north have risen by 36% over the last decade. Meanwhile, property values in the south have surged by 66%.
As a result, the south’s share of the UK’s total housing worth has grown from 56% in 2005 to 61% this year.
Although mortgages are typically higher in the south, the average homeowner in London has net equity – the value of the property after the mortgage is deducted – of £306,000, compared to £94,000 in the North East and £82,000 in Northern Ireland.
On paper, Britons are much wealthier than they were a decade ago, with the net value of homes increasing from £3.3 trillion in 2005 to £5.1 trillion today.
The growth of £1.8 trillion is equivalent to £76,316 per household, according to the Halifax. However, it did not specify how much is down to private landlords.
Since lenders began providing buy-to-let mortgages, owner-occupation in Britain has dropped significantly, from a peak of 70% in 2005 to below 65% this year.
The data also highlights how much more property prices have increased than inflation and wages, with growth of 53% over the last ten years, compared with a 35% rise in CPI.
A separate study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows how Britons consider housing the best long-term investment. It found that 44% of people think that property will make them the most money in life, compared to less than 10% who believe the stockmarket is a better investment.
The latest house price index from the Halifax found that the average home in Britain is now worth £205,500, up by 9.7% over the last year.
