New research highlights massive potential for equity release
With UK over-60s controlling £2.89 trillion in property wealth, brokers have a prime opportunity to connect older clients with equity release solutions and boost business this year.
According to new research by Savills, owner-occupiers aged 60 and above control homes worth £2.95 trillion, with only £60 billion in outstanding mortgage debt. This means just 2% of their total property value is encumbered, leaving a vast pool of potential for equity release products.
Savills found that homeowners without mortgages represent the largest share of property value in the UK. Their share has grown steadily over the past decade, driven by an increasing number of older owners reaching mortgage-free status.
Older owner-occupiers now account for 56% of all owner-occupier housing wealth in the UK. Those over 75 years old hold almost 23% of the total. In comparison, under-35s own just 6% of this wealth. Under-35s also hold property valued at £600 billion but owe £300 billion in mortgages, highlighting the widening generational wealth gap.
The release of this data coincides with strong growth in the equity release sector. The Equity Release Council recently reported that total lending reached £665 million in the first quarter of 2025, signalling rising demand from older homeowners seeking to unlock property wealth without selling their homes.
“Over the past 10 years, debt has become a less important component of the growth in the value of the nation’s housing stock, with increasingly more equity concentrated among older homeowners and investors,” said Lucian Cook (pictured above), head of residential research at Savills.
“The baby boomers have continued to build wealth, having paid off their mortgage debt, and Generation X has been working hard to achieve the same goal. Meanwhile, Generations Y and Z have had much less opportunity to work their way up the housing ladder profitably.”
Cook also noted that few older owners are choosing to downsize despite living in homes that may be too large for their current needs. “While boomers make up 44% of homeowners, they only made up 18.5% of homebuyers last year,” he said, “meaning that just one in 57 of them moved house.”
He added that greater availability of retirement housing and other incentives could help unlock homes for younger buyers. “The provision of more retirement housing, along with other incentives to make downsizing more appealing, is also fundamentally important,” Cook said. “Such measures would help unlock much-needed family housing and equity that can be used to help younger generations get on and trade up the housing ladder.”
Regionally, the South West and Wales have the highest proportion of baby boomer homeowners, each at 49%. These areas are popular among retirees for lifestyle reasons.
London has the lowest share of homeowners aged over 60, at 38%, but the South East holds the greatest amount of housing wealth by value. Over-60s in the South East own £603 billion worth of property, representing 21% of all housing wealth held by this age group. This figure is £203 billion higher than in London and £171 billion more than the combined total for Wales and the South West.
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