Far fewer people are planning to use property as their sole pension arrangement, as house prices fall further and experts warn that diversification of assets is key.

There has been a 73 per cent drop this year in the number of people who say they intend to use property to fund all of their retirement, research from Baring Asset Management shows. Last year, 3.2m investors were using property as their only pension – this year, the figure has fallen to 878,000.