Estates Gazette Rich List 2009

2009 was never going to be pretty for property's super rich. What is clear in this latest - and perhaps most revealing yet - Estates Gazette Rich List is that it was a financial bloodbath for most of these industry titans.

Last year was no picnic. A collective wealth of £98bn in 2007 dipped to £90bn in 2008. But that single-digit decline has turned into a 25% plunge over the past 12 months as the wealth of the top 250 people in property dived to £69bn.

And it's not just the numbers that have turned. The make-up of the list has also undergone substantial change. Depleted asset values and increased reliance on borrowing (which tells its own story) have cost many their places on the list.

Winners - and fewer than one in 10 of those on the list have grown wealthier - include the big five aristocratic London landlords and two of property's most colourful characters.

As members of the Rich List themselves will be thinking: here's hoping for a better 2010.

Damian Wild, Editor
Estates Gazette

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Images from Rex Features