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Bloomberg
Discussion of house prices has long been a national pastime in Britain, and it’s little wonder.
Land accounted for 51 percent of the UK’s net worth in 2016, far more than in any other measured Group of Seven country, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday. In Germany, the figure was as low as 26 percent and the G-7 average excluding the US and Italy was 39 percent.
Around three quarters of UK land is owned by households after more than two decades of booming house prices. The financial crisis delivered only a temporary setback, as the record-low borrowing costs deployed in its aftermath sent values beyond the reach of many first-time buyers.
Continued increases in the value of housing and land saw the UK’s net worth rise by almost $645 billion to 10.2 trillion pounds in 2017.