17. Jon Hunt
£660m
Foxtons
2008: £662m (-£2m)
Jon Hunt reckoned the time to start buying property again would be "when there's blood on the street, but it's drying, it's stopped flowing".
He is an expert at timing, having sold the London-based Foxtons estate agency at the height of the boom in early 2007 for £375m. Foxtons, under its new private equity owner, has had a tough time in the downturn.
Thus far, Hunt does not seem inclined to buy it back even for a fraction of the original sale price. But he is starting to dip his toe into the market again.
Hunt, 56, has come a long way since his days at Millfield, the private school in Somerset to which he won a sports scholarship for tennis and rugby.
He left after O levels and tried his hand in the army, but did not see it as a long-term career.
He had a stint of part-time employment, including one job as a car washer in California, but his talent for business came through when he joined an independent estate agency in Woking, Surrey.He worked there before striking out on his own.
A formidable estate agent, Hunt also took Foxtons into America but the business folded as the American housing market collapsed.
Hunt has also built up his own residential and commercial property portfolio, which includes London homes and a Suffolk estate. He apparently turned down an unsolicited offer of £200m for his seven-storey townhouse in Kensington Palace Gardens in May 2008.
With personal assets added, these are worth £335m. Adding in his Foxtons proceeds, Hunt is now worth around £660m.