The median net worth of households has reached $529k. (File photo) Photo: 123RF
New Zealand households are now 33 percent richer than they were in 2021, Stats NZ says.
But the increase has not been felt by everyone.
Stats NZ released its latest household net worth data for the three years to June 2024.
It shows the median net worth of households had reached $529,000, compared to $399,000 in June 2021.
This is calculated by taking the value of household assets such as housing, retirement savings and other investments, and subtracting debt.
Stats NZ said the median increase was driven by a lift in the value of real estate.
House prices boomed post-Covid but have been on a steadily declining track since.
Owner-occupied housing and other real estate was just under half of all household assets in the year to June las year.
Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen said the timing of the data removed some of the pandemic housing market swings.
"The year ending June 2021 really comes just before you saw a lot of that big pickup in the housing market.
"On average you're going to be seeing activity that was happening more sort of the end of 2020 before you saw house prices that really hit their peaks towards the end of 2021, start of 2022.
"And so looking through all of those figures you had during those periods about a 30 percent pickup at some points in house prices.
Infometrics chief executive Brad Olsen. (File photo) Photo: RNZ / Samuel Rillstone
"Given you've seen house prices that have then pulled back - let's call it 20 percent just to keep the numbers round, you're still seeing a good uplift in the value of houses."
New Zealand's wealthiest 20 percent of households had their wealth increase by 24 percent in the period, to a median $2.4 million.
The median net worth of households in the two quintiles below the top increased by 40 percent, to $500,000 and $1 million, respectively.
But Stats NZ said there was no statistically significant change in the two lowest income groups.
"In the year ended June 2024, the wealthiest 20 percent of households held approximately two-thirds of New Zealand's total household net worth," household financial statistics spokesperson Chris Pooch said.
"This reflects an uneven distribution of wealth in the country."
Individual net worth increased with age.
Those aged 15 to 24 had the lowest median, at $4000.
People aged 75 and over had the highest median, at $590,000.
After standardising for the different age profiles, Europeans had the highest median individual net worth at $222,000 up 44 percent from the year to 2021.
Māori had a median net worth of $52,000 which was no statistically significant change from 2023 and Pacific People had median net worth of $26,000.
The top 1 percent now hold 14.1 percent, which was slightly down on previous years.
The top 10 and 5 percent also hold slightly less of the wealth overall, but the top 50 percent is relatively constant.
Westpac senior economist Satish Ranchhod said that was an interesting development for the economy.
He said the lower net worth quintiles were where increases were typically slower.
"Those will often be people who are earlier on in their working careers as well and they wouldn't have had the chance at this stage to have built up a wealth level."
He said it was interesting that the upper quintile had more of their wealth in assets outside real estate.
"Even as we've moved beyond the statistics of 2024, the lower interest rates we've had over the past year will certainly be adding to that wealth portfolio for a lot of them."
Olsen said it was likely that household wealth would continue to increase over coming years, but potentially at a slower pace than when house prices were booming. "I think there's just a bit of general consolidation going on,:"
A third of households reported receiving an inheritance.
The median net worth of those households was $984,000.
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