Rising house prices mean average adult is worth £82,400

The average adult in Britain is worth £82,400, twice as much as a decade ago, according to a researchers.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research, in a study, The Personal Wealth Report of Britain, published this week, says net wealth has risen by £9,000 a person in the past two years.

Rising house prices, showing an 18 per cent increase over the past 12 months, and the recovery in the stock market, up more than a third in the past year, have been the main factors behind our growing personal affluence, according to the study, published by IBM.

The report's author, Tim Blaxall, said: "While on average we are getting wealthier, it is in a highly fixed form, as many people have their wealth tied up in homes. For the vast majority of UK adults in the middle and higher wealth brackets, property is far more important, influential and understood than other assets."

The figures for individual wealth take into account all borrowing and factor in savings such as pension plans. And while average wealth is set to rise by nearly £5,000 in the coming year as the rich get richer, there is bad news for those with below-average assets - they are going to get relatively poorer.

The report says that while 41 per cent of the population have an average net wealth above £50,000 - much of it tied up in property - the other 59 per cent, who are worth less than £50,000, are heavily in debt or do not own property.

The report says there is little likelihood of the crash in house prices that some analysts have predicted.

Oliver Guirdham, an analyst at the research firm Datamonitor, said: "People are increasingly seeing the paper value of their homes turning into available wealth that can be released by remortgaging or taking out other loans."

Regional variations in property prices mean that those in the South have the highest average assets. But the areas with the highest house price rises last year were all outside the Home Counties, so northerners are catching up.

According to the Inland Revenue, 1 per cent of the population owns 23 per cent of the nation's wealth, and the top 5 per cent possesses 43 per cent. The poorest half, by comparison, has just 5 per cent.