Equity release and recessions...

Does the demand for equity release go up in a recession?

I haven't seen any data on this but I would suspect that it does go hand in hand, that those who need money and when times are tight there is less in a recession may look to things like equity release to give them that money that they need.

However it is generally not a good time as house prices tend to be surpressed in a recession which means that you are selling that portion of your home (depending on the scheme you use) at a time when it is worth less than perhaps it was a few months before and would be a few months later.

Therefore doing equity release when the market is strong is the best way to get the maximum value out of your home that you can under equity release.

Re : Equity release and recessions

That is an interesting question.

I would imagine that it is indeed the case that there are more people looking to release equity in their house during times of recession in order to get money when it is hard to come by, but I also see that ironically this is probably the worst time to do it as house prices are also suppressed at that time!

Re : Equity release and recessions

General when money is harder to come by, then people will look for more creative ways to get access to money.

With the loan market being depressed due to the fact that bad loans are what caused, or at least contributed, to the economic crisis, then that standard avenue has been closed off to a lot of people.

Therefore one of the other ways of still being able to access money is through equity release, so I also would expect logically that there has been increased demand and activity in equity release since the recessions started, though I don't know if this is recorded or reported anywhere, I'm not particularly aware of having seen much about this in the press for instance of late.