Kids – don’t count on inheriting the family home.

Children across the UK, who thought they were going to inherit their parent’s home, had better think again.

A report published by Prudential and Datamonitor reveals that property is expected to play a key role in funding retirement. A staggering 12.9 million people expect to use their property to fund at least part of their retirement, and 1.8 million will rely on it to make up over 50 per cent of their retirement income. What’s more, property is now seen as more important than savings and investments in retirement planning.

For full details read the press release.

I have to say that the conclusion that lots of people expect there home to help fund their retirement doesn’t come as a great shock.

What this research does not cover is what happens to the housing market if lots of the 50-plus want to sell their homes to raise some cash. How will this increasing supply of homes impact house prices?

One outcome might be that as streams of the 50-plus head to the estate agents, the price of property falls and they do not generate anything like the amounts of money they expect. Let’s hope that is an overly pessimistic prediction. Whatever, it is good news for the Equity Release business.Dick Stroud