Britain’s housing wealth is becoming increasingly concentrated among older homeowners, reinforcing the extent to which property remains both a store of value and a source of generational imbalance within the market. New estimates suggest owner-occupiers aged 60 and over now control the majority of the country’s net housing wealth, underlining how strongly accumulated equity is tied to age, geography and long-term ownership patterns.
Savills estimates that over-60s hold £3.84 trillion in housing equity, equivalent to 55 per cent of the UK’s net housing wealth. Of that total, around £2.92 trillion is tied to main residences, with the remainder held in buy-to-let investments and other residential property. The concentration is especially pronounced in London and the South East, where owner-occupiers in this age group alone are estimated to hold just over £1 trillion in net housing wealth. The figures point to a market in which wealth is not only embedded in housing, but increasingly locked within older cohorts who bought earlier and benefited from decades of price appreciation.
That has clear implications for market turnover and access. While first-time buyer activity has shown greater resilience over the past year following the relaxation of mortgage regulation, the transfer of equity between generations is set to remain a defining feature of the market. In practical terms, that means housing wealth is likely to influence transactions not just through sales, but through gifts, inheritance and family support, especially as affordability pressures continue to weigh on younger buyers.
There are also signs that landlord pressures may start to release some of that locked-up capital. Older investors facing tighter conditions in the private rental sector may choose to realise gains built up over many years, creating some movement in a market that has otherwise been shaped by constrained supply and elevated borrowing costs. Even so, the larger structural issue may lie elsewhere.
The greater opportunity may come from downsizing, where psychological, economic and practical barriers still limit mobility among older owners. If more of that housing equity were unlocked through a broader willingness to move, the effect on the wider market could be more substantial than incremental investor exits alone, particularly in areas where family housing remains scarce and heavily undersupplied.
