It is no secret that the average UK citizen highly values owning their own home, much higher than any other European country, in my humble opinion anyhow.
There has been some ups and downs over the past year for the UK property market, with Brexit being one of the biggest contributing factors, but this not one of those doom and gloom articles quite the opposite in fact.
According to research just published the United Kingdom now has more millionaires than any other time on record, 625,000 millionaires to be a little more precise, with one in 79 Britons aged 21 or over worth at least £1 million.
An impressive stat I must say.
Despite the rocky road the UK property market has travelled this past year, there is now 44,000 more millionaires than this time last year, this has been attributed to the continued rise in house prices throughout the country, with nearly half of all millionaires living in the most expensive regions, London and the South East, according to Barclays Wealth’s UK Prosperity Map.
This is not limited to London and the South East, every UK region now has more millionaires than it did 12 months ago.
Dena Brumpton, chief executive of wealth and investments at Barclays, says that a millionaire is defined as an individual worth more than £1 million, net of liabilities, factoring in all investable assets including cash, savings, equities, mutual funds, fixed income, pensions, and property.
“Rising house prices do have the potential to make millionaires of those who have a house worth £1 million or more – but only if they’ve paid off their mortgage,” she said.
“It’s interesting to see that the regions that have seen the greatest advance in millionaire numbers, namely the East Midlands and South West, have both seen healthy uplifts in property prices. The regions that have seen lower growth in millionaire numbers – for example, London – have typically experienced slower house price growth over the same period.”
Frances Clacy, a research analyst at Savills, commented on the latest news: “Over the past 10 years, the number of British homes worth in excess of £1 million has more than doubled, despite a small fall of 3.4% in 2016.
“We estimate that there are now some 394,000 properties worth more than £1m across the UK, largely driven by price growth in London and its fringes.
“A large proportion of household wealth can be attributed to equity from housing, so the strong levels of house price growth seen in the capital over the past ten years will have undoubtedly made a significant contribution to the rise in the number of millionaires.”
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