To think it’s unlikely £300k is the median household wealth in the UK

[Justacigarette]

saw this on Facebook: apparantly the telegraph are saying that median UK wealth is £300k per household.

From who I know personally, i find this so unlikely. Sure; some people do have wealth over this amount; no doubt about it. But I know many many more people who have a lot less

Does it include the value of the house people own?

It does say less than though, and including property… I don’t think it’s totally unrealistic

It's probably accurate, if you include equity in property

If it includes property then yes considering a wheelie bin probably costs about £300k now

It includes properties and pensions. So yeah, I can believe it. It varies massively by age.

I think it includes equity in a property (ie what you have paid off on the property: not what it’s worth)

Including property, cars, pensions it sounds about right. It’s not money you have access to but it’s still “wealth”

As the median/midway point of wealth makes perfect sense

Median means the midpoint, not that most people have that amount, and not the average. Older people who paid off a mortgage are more likely to have more, younger people who haven't saved much yet will have less.

It's based on ONS data. What's your criticism of their methodology?

If everyone actually fully owned their homes then I'd say its about right. But until the mortgage is paid you can't count the entire value of the property as your wealth so I'm not convinced.

Sure; some people do have wealth over this amount; no doubt about it

Well it's not "some", it's 50% of the population. Just because most of the people you know are (so you think - how do you know how much equity they have in their house and pension wealth?) in the below-median half, that doesn't make the figure incorrect.

It's the median. The actual ONS data breaks it down by age group too. There's significant variations obviously.

Are you clear on what 'median' means @Justacigarette ?
I don't think the ONS are likely to be far out on this?

But it's the median, so you don't need everyone to have paid off the mortgage for the figure to be correct.

Between houses and pensions this sounds like it is achievable.

£150k in housing and £150k in pensions… probably not that unusual to have accumulated that.

Particularly given how much people have made on property!

Sounds about right if you include pensions and equity.

Probably more likely that the people you know are not typical of the entire population or you don't understand statistics, rather than the data is inaccurate.

If it includes property then it is so dependent on the area that you live in. I own my property outright and if I use it's value to calculate my wealth then I fall well short of the £300k mark. But I am relatively wealthy in the area I live in by the very fact I own outright a three bedroom property in decent nick.

I don’t think it is at all wrong if you include equity in property and pension wealth.

The top 10% is 1.2m bottom 10% under 16,500

then there are regional differences SE median is 490 NE 180

Pensions will be a big proportion of this, I imagine. A defined benefit pension of 10k per year is probably valued at 200-250k. Most people will have a smaller pot than that, but most will have something.

You don't need much of a pension for it to be worth the £300k alone, and it would only give around £10-15k pa pension income. Many average earners who have been paying into a pension for a couple of decades will have more than that.

UK median age = 40
UK median house price = £273k

I would expect the median 40 year old to have accrued a fair chunk of equity, have some pension and perhaps some savings including a possible inheritance or two to make the total 300k

I couldn’t find median savings but estimates seem to be 7-10k ish

Must be pensions. We are in our mid 30s and together our pensions are probably worth over 500k