# How much is average household really worth?



## goingforgold (5 Jan 2014)

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/...sh-households-fell-in-first-quarter-1.1493117

Latest CSO figures on net worth state that every man, woman and child is worth an average of €101k each and therfore average household is worth €281k (€464 billion divided by 1.65 Million households).

This would imply that we are very well off indeed and all the talk of negative equity etc may not be painting a totally accurate picture of how wealthy we all are. Of course these are average figures but would anyone have median figures for this? I assume this is much lower? Any other comments?


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## goingforgold (5 Jan 2014)

We all know that the country is awash with savings (more than in history of state), so these figures largely make sense. I believe the media commentary that the country is screwed etc is very inaccurate, and that in fact a lot are actually not too badly off at all?


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## Protocol (5 Jan 2014)

Note that wealth is more unequally distributed than income, so expect the median to be well below the mean.

A huge amount of wealth is concentrated into the richest 10% or 1% of people.

A woman living near me has 600m in wealth.

But thousands of people have zero wealth.


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## Protocol (5 Jan 2014)

http://www.centralbank.ie/polstats/stats/qfaccounts/Pages/releases.aspx

CB data here.


Latest release:
[broken link removed]


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## Protocol (5 Jan 2014)

My parents are fairly typical retired couple.

They would have 250k house + maybe 400k financial assets = 650k wealth.

They would have somewhat above average income for retired people, maybe 900pw gross.  But there are thousands of people like them.


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## goingforgold (5 Jan 2014)

Protocol said:


> Note that wealth is more unequally distributed than income, so expect the median to be well below the mean.
> 
> A huge amount of wealth is concentrated into the richest 10% or 1% of people.
> 
> ...


 
Agree Protocol...I just feel that things are not as bad as they once were. Mortgage debt is being addressed (Bank negotiations, PIA/Bankruptcy), employment is rising, things stabilising etc.

I was out with a group of friends recently and we discussed this. We agreed that while we all know people in some difficulty, we know far more who are doing ok. Room for optimism I think...


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## goingforgold (5 Jan 2014)

Protocol said:


> My parents are fairly typical retired couple.
> 
> They would have 250k house + maybe 400k financial assets = 650k wealth.
> 
> They would have somewhat above average income for retired people, maybe 900pw gross. But there are thousands of people like them.


 
Yes, obviosuly wealth distribution is the key...I think most people under 30 and over 50 are ok. In between some are doing well and some have difficulties...but the point is that most are ok?

PS Congrats to your parents...although I think their assets and not just their income is above average or certainly mean (if my parents are anything to go by)


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## twofor1 (5 Jan 2014)

goingforgold said:


> This would imply that we are very well off indeed........
> 
> Any other comments?




Admittedly, some are very well off, but far more are not in that position.


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## Brendan Burgess (6 Jan 2014)

goingforgold said:


> This would imply that we are very well off indeed and all the talk of negative equity etc may not be painting a totally accurate picture of how wealthy we all are.



This raises a valid point. 

No one goes on the radio to talk about the fact that they are meeting their mortgage repayments comfortably,  much less that they have paid off their mortgage and have savings.  So we get a distorted picture of reality.

But it's the same in all walks of life. Our health service gives a great service to thousands of people every day , 365 days a year. But they don't go onto Joe Duffy to say how well they were looked after. 

Brendan


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## goingforgold (6 Jan 2014)

Brendan Burgess said:


> No one goes on the radio to talk about the fact that they are meeting their mortgage repayments comfortably, much less that they have paid off their mortgage and have savings. So we get a distorted picture of reality.
> 
> 
> Brendan


 
Couldn't agree more Brendan. 

I think there is far more of an appetite for doom and gloom stories than there are other ones. Of course there are people struggling but there are many, many others doing very well for themselves and we don't here anything about that.


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## TRS30 (6 Jan 2014)

goingforgold said:


> Couldn't agree more Brendan.
> 
> I think there is far more of an appetite for doom and gloom stories than there are other ones. Of course there are people struggling but there are many, many others doing very well for themselves and we don't here anything about that.



If you were to go on the radio/TV and start saying how you are paying your mortgage comfortably, saving etc you would seen to be gloating and probably get a lot of stick. 

Same if you say that you got great service in a hospital, you were lucky, shouldn't be rubbing peoples noses in it and just be grateful etc.

I think it is just one of those things.


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## goingforgold (6 Jan 2014)

TRS30 said:


> If you were to go on the radio/TV and start saying how you are paying your mortgage comfortably, saving etc you would seen to be gloating and probably get a lot of stick.


 
Yes, but the point is that we as a country are doing ok, very ok, and the media are still largely portraying the opposite. As I said earlier in this thread there is a relatively small demograph that have been majorly impacted by this recession, but most are doing ok. 

And I'm in that age group (I'm mid 30's) and I don't personally know anyone that is really struggling anymore. There are people of course in big trouble but as the figures show there are far, far more who are not and maybe we should highlight this a bit more, rather than completely focusing on the doom and gloom.


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## cormacol (7 Jan 2014)

Of course there are people doing well but this is surely only one side of the picture though - what about the government debt and all the billions of unfunded liabilities. Unless all the wealthy peoples assets are appropriated via wealth tax/bank bailins etc this country is in trouble...


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## amgd28 (7 Jan 2014)

"appropriate"
You mean stolen? Yes that'll really sort out the economy


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## goingforgold (7 Jan 2014)

cormacol said:


> Of course there are people doing well but this is surely only one side of the picture though - what about the government debt and all the billions of unfunded liabilities. Unless all the wealthy peoples assets are appropriated via wealth tax/bank bailins etc this country is in trouble...


 
Separate issue...point of this thread is household wealth...and my point (in summary) is that the vast majority of households are in "positive equity" and doing ok, as opposed to negative equity we keep hearing about in the media.

The country is awash with savings and maybe if we focused more on the positive and get people to spend some money, then we won't need to hike taxes as you suggest


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## cormacol (7 Jan 2014)

Fair enough i thought the question was how much is the average household really worth. In which case when you allow for the state (i.e. all households) the position is definitely not rosy....

Obviously certain sectors of the economy have continued to do well and as you noted the average is surely being skewed by the very wealthy and presumably is skewed towards dublin (given property is included). However, that doesn't take away from the truth that lots of people are really struggling and that combined with the basketcase state of our state finances will obviously skew the news coverage (Although there have been plenty of upbeat stories from various vested interests talking up the economy/property in recent times). 

One other point, half the wealth seems to be in property which means the position net of property is approx 50k per person - if that includes accumulated pension provision that doesn't sound like a lot of money to me.


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## Gerry Canning (8 Jan 2014)

Question was (How much is the average household really worth) 

Take the Debt of Ireland, including Anglo/Aib etc including national debt ,divide it by households and we are not in a good place and up to our necks in long /hard debt.

Life though does not work in such neat %,s .

If we check the Deposit/saving threads in Askaboutmoney the number of savings ie well off queries is staggering.

On balance I am on the glass half-full brigade .Those that arn,t sinking are Ok ,and those in trouble make up an inordinate amount of funds owed.
As a sample Eg .Man in bother owes K800 
                 Eg . Man not in bother has k200
So nett debt = 300 for each.
Means the people in trouble are in Dire Straits .
The rest are ok.


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## goingforgold (8 Jan 2014)

Gerry Canning said:


> Question was (How much is the average household really worth)
> 
> Take the Debt of Ireland, including Anglo/Aib etc including national debt ,divide it by households and we are not in a good place and up to our necks in long /hard debt.
> 
> Life though does not work in such neat %,s .


 
I was using CSO data (as stated in original post) and this is based on individual welath and debt to get net worth...this is an international method to determine net worth.

I am not taking into account the national debt as although we've all had increased taxes etc, it's not an individuals "direct" debt and thus excluded from my original post and the data in CSO figures.


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## goingforgold (8 Jan 2014)

Gerry Canning said:


> On balance I am on the glass half-full brigade .Those that arn,t sinking are Ok ,and those in trouble make up an inordinate amount of funds owed.
> As a sample Eg .Man in bother owes K800
> Eg . Man not in bother has k200
> So nett debt = 300 for each.
> Means the people in trouble are in Dire Straits .


 
I agree...as stated previously welath distribution is anything but evenly distributed...but as you say there are a lot of people doing ok and I think they far outweigh those who aren't (as outlined in my posts above).


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## Dermot (8 Jan 2014)

I am not taking issue with anyone here but I am very sceptical of some CSO figures.  I cannot see how the CSO know how much my nett worth is or anybody else's for that matter.  They statistics maybe collected in accordance with international rules but that still does not make them valid.  Remember all the billionaires that we had 10 years or so ago and  all the multimillionaires we had.


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## goingforgold (8 Jan 2014)

Dermot said:


> I am not taking issue with anyone here but I am very sceptical of some CSO figures. I cannot see how the CSO know how much my nett worth is or anybody else's for that matter. They statistics maybe collected in accordance with international rules but that still does not make them valid. Remember all the billionaires that we had 10 years or so ago and all the multimillionaires we had.


 
Totally agree Dermot...guess it's all we have to work off though. 

I actually believe the net worth could be higher per individual in Ireland. For instance we have 140k farms in Ireland with an average of 81 acres. That means that c. 140K households have 810K (10k per acre) of net worth (excluding other assets)! I know this is very crude but not far off the mark. I doubt the CSO figures account for that...and as we all know, farmers are broke!


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## Protocol (8 Jan 2014)

goingforgold said:


> I was using CSO data (as stated in original post)



Please note that the OP incorrectly refers to the CSO.

If you read the Irish Times article, you will see that it's the Central Bank that publish the Household Net Worth data.

See here:

[broken link removed]


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## Protocol (8 Jan 2014)

Dermot,

it is not CSO data, it's compiled by the Central Bank (CB).

They do not know individual net worth.

They don't know my wealth or yours.

But they do know the *aggregate financial wealth.*


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## Protocol (8 Jan 2014)

[broken link removed]

Here is a CB article from 2006 on the Net Worth of Irish households.


Here is an update from 2007:

[broken link removed]


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## Protocol (8 Jan 2014)

[broken link removed]

This is a 2010 CB article on the impact of the severe 2008-2010 recession on Households and their Net Worth.


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## goingforgold (8 Jan 2014)

Protocol said:


> Please note that the OP incorrectly refers to the CSO.
> 
> If you read the Irish Times article, you will see that it's the Central Bank that publish the Household Net Worth data.
> 
> ...


 
Correct protocol...my mistake


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## Protocol (8 Jan 2014)

goingforgold said:


> We all know that the country is awash with savings (more than in history of state), so these figures largely make sense.



CB data on Irish Private Sector deposits by households:

2006 = 77bn 

2007 = 83bn    (peak of bubble)

2008 = 85bn

2009 = 99bn

2010 = 95bn

2011 = 91bn

2012 = 92bn


See Table A1 of CB Money and Banking stats

[broken link removed]


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## Gerry Canning (9 Jan 2014)

Dermot said:


> I am not taking issue with anyone here but I am very sceptical of some CSO figures. I cannot see how the CSO know how much my nett worth is or anybody else's for that matter. They statistics maybe collected in accordance with international rules but that still does not make them valid. Remember all the billionaires that we had 10 years or so ago and all the multimillionaires we had.


.............................................................................

Dermot ;

Touche!!

I suppose the best marker is observation in your own area, but that is flawed as well in that it shows a perception of confidence as distinct from debt ie if times appear good millionaires magnify!in bad timesmillionaires melt away.!


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## goingforgold (9 Jan 2014)

Gerry Canning said:


> .............................................................................
> 
> Dermot ;
> 
> ...


 
Think Previous poster (Protocol) clarified this one though...ie CB data may not know the exact net worth of each individual, but it can estimate average net worth by aggregating the total wealth and debt and taking the average.


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