Rising house prices boosted the UK’s total net worth to £7.3 trillion last year, the Office for National Statistics said today.
The £74 billion increase on 2011 means the average wealth of the UK’s 63.7 million population increased by £400 to £114,000, its latest figures on the national balance sheet showed. The average household’s wealth increased to £275,000. Non-financial assets — mainly property, but also things like factories and machinery — increased in value by £225 billion while financial assets such as loans held by banks fell £150 billion.
The figures underlined the importance of property to the nation’s wealth as the most valuable non-financial asset. The value of property, which accounts for 60% of non-financial assets, soared £163 billion to £4.4 trillion. This is nearly four times the £1.2 trillion value in 1992, without removing the effects of inflation.
