This is in comparison to the first quarter of 2005 and equates to a total loss of £432,377.44 per hour, £7,206.29 every minute, or £120.10 a second. The findings come from the latest results from Economic Lifestyle’s Pensioners Property Equity Index.
Retired homeowners were particularly badly affected in London and the South East of England, where the collective value of pensioners’ homes decreased by some £5.7 billion after regional property prices fell by 1.1% and 1.2% respectively. This equates to a loss of £2,767 per retired homeowner in these regions. However, this was offset by significant gains in other regions of Britain, where property prices continued to rise. For example, pensioners in Wales saw the value of their homes increase by £1.99 billion, or £6,457 each, over the past three months.
Mark Neal, managing director of Economic Lifestyle, said: “Many retired homeowners regard their property as their biggest financial asset so the fact that collectively these assets are falling in value by £120 per second is particularly worrying.
“Despite this, we still expect to see an increase in the number of retired people releasing equity from their homes and we anticipate that many pensioners will consider moving to a purpose-built retirement property as one of the options available to them.”
