Rising property prices continue to fuel growing household wealth in Australia.
The latest Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) statistics, released today, show household wealth rose for a sixth straight quarter.
ABS Head of Finance Statistics Dr Mish Tan said $431 billion was added to household balance sheets in the March quarter of this year, a rise of 2.7 percent.
Dr Tan said total household wealth was $16.2 trillion in the quarter, which was 10.2 percent, or $1.5 trillion, higher than a year ago.
He said residential land and dwellings was the largest contributor to quarterly growth in household wealth, adding 1.3 percentage points.
“Rising asset values continued to drive growth in household wealth in the first quarter of 2024, with house prices continuing to increase.”
Dr Tan said superannuation assets contributed 0.9 percentage points to growth in the quarter and was driven by strong investment performance in both domestic and overseas markets.
“Households’ direct ownership of shares and other equity contributed an additional 0.4 percentage points.”
Household deposits grew by 2.0 percent ($32.9 billion) in the March quarter, and 7.1 percent over the last year.
This was driven by a $11.2 billion increase in transferable deposits and $21.7 billion increase in non-transferable deposit accounts like savings and fixed-term deposits.
“Growth in household deposits since March quarter last year has slowed compared to the higher rate of growth seen from 2020 to 2022,” Dr Tan said.
