Australians are becoming wealthier – and it’s thanks to property

This means household wealth levels are now sitting at a record $13,433.7 billion.

Averaged out by the Australian population, wealth per capita has also risen to a record-high of $522,032.

It was the rising value of residential property assets that contributed most to the increased figures, at 4.5 percentage point.

In comparison, superannuation balances and directly held shares only contributed an extra 1.1 and 0.3 percentage points respectively to wealth figures.

The head of finance and wealth at the ABS, Katherine Keenan, re-iterated that the growth in household wealth is continuing to be driven by residential property prices.

Over the same period, the ABS reported Australian property prices as recording their strongest quarterly growth on record, at 6.7 per cent.

According to Ms Keenan, “the strong property price growth reflected record-low interest rates, rising consumer confidence, and demand being greater than the levels of housing stock on the market”.

It is important to note that this data does not take into account property market activity during the widespread lockdowns that have impacted many of the east coast property markets.

Any knock-on effects from these lockdowns and/or tighter restrictions will be evident in the September quarter reporting period.