Low-income elderly people are more likely to own property in neighbourhoods and on land of lower value with less chance of appreciation over time. They consequently have dimmer prospects of selling their homes or releasing housing equity. In this regard, the 2012 report of the European Mortgage Federation (EMF) suggests that the year-on-year price-increase registered in France in the first quarter of 2012 was related to the rise in housing prices in Ile-de-France, the Greater Paris area, while in the rest of the country they decreased (see EMF, 2012). Large regional variations in house prices ranging from 4% rises to 8% drops in property prices were also observed in Poland and the United Kingdom.