At £1.25 trillion – £1,250bn – the value of the flats and houses owned by almost two million small-time landlords is catching up on the £1.6 trillion total amassed in workers’ pension schemes.
They then go on to worry about rising mortgage rates. But if the average (mean) bty landlord has £625,000 in equity then it’s not really much of a problem if rates rise. It’s only if that is the gross value, against which we have to put the mortgage borrowings, that it could be.
And if it is a problem them they don’t own that much wealth, do they?
If it’s a problem then the government should
a) reverse Brown’s tax increase on pension savings
b) do everything it can to get more homes built
c) stop implicitly guaranteeing house price increases via HtB.