In 2017, the average British house cost £1.32 million. That figure seems impossibly high until you realise it represents the total value across all properties, not individual homes. But what happened next tells the story of how COVID-19 created two entirely different Britains.

The trajectory was steady for years. Property values crept upward: £1.34 million in 2018, then actually fell slightly to £1.33 million in 2019 as Brexit uncertainty bit. Then 2020 arrived, and everything changed.

By 2020, total house values had climbed to £1.37 million. But that was just the warm-up. In 2021, as lockdowns ended and the stamp duty holiday kicked in, values exploded to £1.46 million. That single year added £92 million to Britain's housing wealth.

This wasn't gradual inflation. This was a wealth transfer on an unprecedented scale. Homeowners watched their biggest asset surge in value while doing absolutely nothing. Renters watched their dream of ownership slip further away with every passing month.

The 6.7% jump between 2020 and 2021 dwarfs anything in the previous decade. It happened while furlough kept wages flat, while young people moved back with their parents, while first-time buyers faced deposits that grew faster than they could save.

Consider what that means in human terms. A couple who bought in 2019 for £250,000 saw their home's value climb past £280,000 by late 2021. Meanwhile, another couple still renting watched that same property move permanently beyond their reach. The gap between the two Britains has never been starker.

The government's policies accelerated this divide. The stamp duty holiday was meant to help buyers, but it mostly helped existing homeowners trade up. Low interest rates were meant to boost the economy, but they inflated asset prices instead.

Property became a casino where only existing players could afford the stakes. First-time buyers found themselves competing with buy-to-let investors flush with cheap credit. Cash buyers swooped on family homes, turning them into rental income streams.

What started as pandemic support became the greatest expansion of housing wealth inequality in modern British history. The winners were those who already owned property. The losers were everyone else. (Source: ONS, House prices by local authority)