Credit Suisse report finds Australians are now richest people in the world

Australia is the world’s richest country after a surge in property prices, with the average resident now worth more than $400,000, a Swiss bank has stated.

Credit Suisse’s annual Global Wealth Report for 2022 revealed that Australia is the richest country in the world, based on the average or average wealth of each adult.

The typical Australian adult was worth $273,900 ($A409,075), the bank found — making them wealthier than residents of Belgium, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Denmark, Switzerland, Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France.

The report noted that median wealth – as opposed to average wealth – was higher in countries with less income inequality, and that Australia had particularly benefited from a wave of pandemic response measures and a record-low interest rate of 0.1 percent.

When it came to another measure – average wealth – Switzerland was ranked #1 with $696,000 ($A1,041 million) – making it the only nation of Australian dollar millionaires.

On this measure, Australia ranked fourth with average net worth of $550,110 ($A822,316) behind the United States at $579,050 ($A865,768) and Hong Kong at $552,930 ($A826,969).

The Credit Suisse report covered 2021, when Reserve Bank interest rates were still at a record low of 0.1 percent and national real estate prices were up 22.1 percent, the largest annual increase since 1989.

Sydney’s average home price rose 29.4 percent to $1.375 million last year, while Brisbane’s equivalent value rose 30.4 percent to $782,967, CoreLogic data showed.

Credit Suisse noted that property prices in Australia were up 31 percent, up from 25 percent in New Zealand.

Housing markets were initially subdued during the peak of the pandemic, but recovered in the second half of 2020 and continued to thrive in 2021.

‘Low interest rates were probably one of the factors responsible for the buoyant housing market.

“No country registered a decline in house prices in 2021.”

By comparison, stock prices rose 5.9 percent last year, with the Australian Securities Exchange’s benchmark S&P/ASX200 peaking in August 2021 before pulling back.

The report also found a large rise in after-tax disposable income in Australia, following more than $300 billion in pandemic social spending measures, as family savings increased during the lockdowns.

“Like most of the other high-income countries we discuss here, Australia’s disposable income rose significantly by 4.8 percent as a result of pandemic aid payments,” it said.

‘The increased savings had a positive effect on financial wealth and also led to some debt repayment.’

Wealth inequality in Australia was low by international standards, with the top 1 percent of adults owning 21.8 percent of the assets.

By comparison, in the US, the top 1 percent has a 35.1 percent share of the wealth.

So despite second in the median wealth bet, the United States was ranked 18th in the median wealth ranking.

This put it in 16th place behind oil-rich Qatar.

Credit Suisse predicted that interest rates around the world will rise in 2022 and that high inflation resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine will hamper wealth creation in the coming years as government debt, as a percentage of gross domestic product, at the highest level since World War II. .

“Higher inflation is likely to lead to lower real global wealth in 2022 and beyond,” it said.

The United States added the most family wealth last year, followed by China, Canada, India and Australia.