By Greg Peel<\/p>\n
US recession? Who cares? High interest rates? Not my problem. Soaring petrol prices? James always fills up the Hummer for me. Pop another Dom for me will you? There’s a good chap.<\/p>\n
According to statistics just released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Federal Treasury, Australians are currently as wealthy as they ever have been, with the latest survey revealing a new record high. The average Aussie now has the equivalent of $254,000 tied up in assets of one form or another, up by $22,000 in 2007. Continually rising housing prices have been credited for most of the gain, given the share market hasn’t cooperated much of late.<\/p>\n
CommSec notes that not only have wealth levels increased, but average debt levels have fallen. Per capita debt has fallen from $27,500 to $27,400 in the December quarter. That should keep Mick Gatto off our backs for now. Private sector debt fell by 1.1%.<\/p>\n
In real terms, CommSec suggests private sector wealth rose by 2.9% in the December quarter, and 8.2% for the year. It has risen 58.8% in five years, and 116.9% in ten. That’s the biggest decade gain in the four and a half decade history of the survey.<\/p>\n
I might just order that second bottle of wine after all.<\/p>\n
The good news, as CommSec points out, is that the increase in wealth over the year has been double the increase in debt. This puts Australians as a whole in a great position to weather any economic headwinds, stock market falls, or property slumps. The consumer, in theory, will not waver.<\/p>\n
But the common theme remains that the property market will only drift slightly before rising again later in 2008. Higher interest rates have taken a temporary toll, but rates will now be held steady and further data today show that rental vacancy rates remain entrenched at near 40-year lows. Vacancy was steady at 1.43% in the December quarter.<\/p>\n
Higher rental yields will encourage investors back into the investment property market, which will in turn push prices of existing dwellings higher.<\/p>\n
God must truly be an Australian.<\/p>\n
Excuse me while I saddle up my pushbike. I hear the Salvos are handing out free bread today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australians are now as wealthy as they have ever you been, didn’t you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54133\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.fnarena.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}