BRITAIN'S homeowners have enjoyed an amazing '2.3trillion windfall, in the decade to 2005, simply by sitting at home and watching property prices soar, according to a new market analysis from Halifax.

With homeowners in London's Borough of Westminster reckoned to be sitting on bricks and mortar worth '40billion, Halifax claims the UK's private housing stock trebled in value from '1.1trillion in 1995 to '3.4trillion in 2005.

While London's housing stock, at '584billion, tops the value of the combined housing stock of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the North - '520billion - the capital saw the smallest rise in the last five years in any region and that enabled a larger share of housing wealth to reach the provinces.

Over the last five years, says the survey, the largest increases in the value of private homes took place in regions far from the capital.

Eden, in the North-West, recorded a 169% rise in value, followed by Easington in the North East, up 160%.

Other big risers over the same five year period to 2005 include North Cornwall (up 155%); Gwynedd in Wales (up 154%); North Devon (up 150%), Lincoln, East Midlands (up 145%) and Pembrokeshire in South Wales (up 145%).

The ten richest local authority areas in Britain, measured by value of privately-owned homes, are :-

Westminster '40.3billion.

Birmingham '38.2billion

Kensington & Chelsea '37.6billion

Barnet '33.9billion

Leeds '31.5billion

Wandsworth '29.3billion

Edinburgh '27billion

Bromley '26.9billion

Richmond upon Thames '26.2billion

Ealing '24.2billion



The figures throw new light on Britain's growing personal debt crisis, which has seen the total of unpaid bills wracked up by British households soar past the '1.3trillion- and trigger widespread fears of a personal debt crisis capable of throwing the entire economy into recession.

Halifax reckons our outstanding mortgages total '976billion - barely a quarter of the total value of privately-owned homes.

Add '1.3trillion of debts to that total and some might conclude that British homeowners have at least another '1trillion or so to burn, before they have splashed all the cash locked up in bricks and mortar.

In fact, of course, the fine line between success and failure is nothing like as simple as that.

Much of the equity is held by older homeowners who paid off their mortgages years ago and now take great care to spend more no more than they earn on a monthly basis, while heaviest debts are invariably held by young people who have taken on huge mortgages to clamber aboard the owner-occupation bandwagon.

Halifax also points out the carve-up of individual housing wealth is strictly regional.

Some 55% of UK housing wealth is located in southern regions of England, while 33% is located in Northern and Central England. Only 12% of the value of housing stock comes from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, though those regions account for 16% of UK population.

Halifax also points out that the recent surge in housing wealth has massively outpaced the rise in overall consumer prices: the underlying retail price index (RPIX) is up by only 12% over the past five years, against a 73% surge in the value of our homes.

Says Halifax Group Economist Tim Crawford: "The household balance sheet is in good shape, with housing asset values rising faster than debt levels.

"We estimate the value of housing assets exceeded the total value of outstanding mortgage balances by '2.4trillion in 2005. Additionally, the total value of private sector housing assets was equivalent to about 3.5 times the value of housing secured debt last year.

"Ten years ago, the ratio was 2.8 times."

In its calculations, Halifax regarded a trillion as 1,000 billion, and a billion as 1,000 million.



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