Australia nudges Switzerland off top of global median wealth list

Discussion in 'Property Market Economics' started by Illusivedreams, 23rd Nov, 2018.

Join Australia's most dynamic and respected property investment community
  1. berten

    berten Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    12th Jul, 2018
    Posts:
    600
    Location:
    Melbourne
    Not live in. But I had a Gardner who came once a week to mow, weed, collect clippings. 70$ per month
     
  2. berten

    berten Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    12th Jul, 2018
    Posts:
    600
    Location:
    Melbourne
    The main hubs, New York and Cali, typical office jobs pay way better than Aus. Yes, unskilled kids working service industry are not making good money, but NY and L.A are not good places for unskilled labor.

    Food and clothes are cheaper, houses cheaper.

    Graphs and medians are one thing, but they can be distorted by the top/bottom end swings among other things. Experience on the ground tells the real story.

    In L.A I had a modern pool house near Mullholand drive, view over the valley, big block, good schools, 20 mins drive to work.

    Same price in aus would by you a ****** workers cottage in Melb or Syd, in a decent area.

    I love Australia, but IMO it's an academic sleight to claim we're the richest in the world.
     
  3. JDP1

    JDP1 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    19th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    4,244
    Location:
    Brisbane
    Of course...
    ALL on PC bought 1000 CSL shares when it was 10c , has 8 properties, worldwide, London, Paris, HK etc..and a gulfstream jet.
    I pity the fools out there not on PC who do not have this ..:)
     
    The Falcon likes this.
  4. Buynow

    Buynow Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    22nd Oct, 2018
    Posts:
    189
    Location:
    Sydney
    You are thinking of means not medians. Medians are not distorted by top or bottom end. Means can be distorted.
     
  5. KinG3o0o

    KinG3o0o Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    17th Jul, 2017
    Posts:
    1,075
    Location:
    Sydney
    dont most sydney have cleaners coming to clean their property ?
     
  6. KinG3o0o

    KinG3o0o Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    17th Jul, 2017
    Posts:
    1,075
    Location:
    Sydney
    u need to compare apples with apples tho.

    that ****** workers cottage in america is half the price of the one in sydney.

    Sydney is the san fran prices.

    The one bedroom i lived in was going for about $1.5m

    similar to barangaroo prices.

    thats more of a fair comparison.

    if you want a 400k 4 bedroom 400 sqm house like those in jersey you can still get them here in places like brisbane.

    hey dont get me wrong.. if i had the choice i pick the usa anytime.

    you mean they dont ?? i thought everyone does.!
     
  7. berten

    berten Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    12th Jul, 2018
    Posts:
    600
    Location:
    Melbourne
    The ****** workers cottage is in Australia. Melb/syd.

    My last ppor was in L.A. Brisbane is not a fair comparison :p
     
  8. Andrew Allen

    Andrew Allen Well-Known Member Business Member

    Joined:
    20th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    368
    Location:
    Brisbane
    From what I have seen world wide I would rate Australia very highly in terms of places you would choose to live, ideally everyone would have a villa on Lake Como and spend summer in the south of France but for a single country Australia has to be an excellent choice :)

    I think the countries that have got what might be viewed as socialist systems working well, Scandinavia and Australia for examples (high taxes and high levels of government support) seem to be on to a good thing. Nowhere is perfect and there's plenty to complain about here but I wonder if there is one single country that is just clearly better than Australia for a majority of it's people?
     
  9. icic

    icic Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    16th Dec, 2016
    Posts:
    1,109
    Location:
    sydney
    I did fair bit of traveling in the past 10 years and have been to US, Most of the developed cities of China, HK, Japan, Taiwan NZ, most of northern Italy, Across Switzerland, France, Amsterdam, Germany, Austria and UK. I would have to say the median Wealth ranking really does reflect the reality on how well the local population is living. For e.g. US has a high average wealth but bad median wealth which indicated high level of poverty and it really shows as you travel or live long enough there. Switzerland on average is very high and median is similar to ours which is quite accurately reflecting in the overall wellbeing of the society. I think we all need to be very grateful to live here for this reason.
     
    orangestreet, craigc, Angel and 4 others like this.
  10. Big Will

    Big Will Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    18th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    2,517
    Location:
    Melbourne, Australia
    I am sure if we did a poll majority of people on PC we would be raising the median wealth.

    As I know I sure am and I am just in my early 30s and what I have done hasn't been hard but had to be disciplined. I know I could have more wealth but at the same time I also could have a lot less wealth especially when I compare to others in my workplace/social life.

    For those who are saying we also have the highest debts, that could be true however we also have the most wealth so the assets are worth more than the debt at present. If it went negative then yes we would lose our top spot but same would happen to people lower than Australia they would lower their position unless everyone moved a the same %. Yet same could be said to countries where maybe they have invested in the share market - if it tanks they will slide down the scale... However this is the current ranks taken as a snapshot today and I don't think we will fall from one to outside the top 10 next year unless something drastic happens... We might even still be number one and by even more if others tank... who knows?
     
    Illusivedreams likes this.
  11. Illusivedreams

    Illusivedreams Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    3rd Oct, 2017
    Posts:
    2,454
    Location:
    Sydney
    San Fransisco Median house price = $1.6 million
    Sydney median house price $1.1million
     
  12. Waterboy

    Waterboy Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    29th Aug, 2015
    Posts:
    2,802
    Location:
    Denial is Not a River in Egypt
    Umm, I travel to Europe and North America at least once a year.
    Admittedly I don't travel to Third World countries.
     
  13. Waterboy

    Waterboy Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    29th Aug, 2015
    Posts:
    2,802
    Location:
    Denial is Not a River in Egypt
    It would be more sensible to recalculate the "wealth" of nations using Purchasing Power Parity than Nominal Dollars. And also a studio apartment in Sydney might be more expensive than a mansion in Budapest.
     
  14. marmot

    marmot Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    23rd Jan, 2018
    Posts:
    1,215
    Location:
    N.S.W , W.A
    If were such a "wealthy country" why all this talk about the RBA possibly lowering rates even further than 1.50% or QE to save us from a recession.
     
  15. Indifference

    Indifference Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    30th Jul, 2015
    Posts:
    977
    Location:
    Banana Republic
    PPP is often overlooked but crucial to the discussion IMO.

    Our median wealth may be higher in nominal terms BUT a lot of that wealth is tied up in property & superannuation AND the cost of living here is comparatively high. Therefore our real level of wealth may not necessarily translate into higher living standards as the data may indicate.

    Australia does however have a relatively low disparity between percentiles compared to most, which is the other factor pushing us up the league table.....
     
  16. hash_investor

    hash_investor Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    11th Oct, 2015
    Posts:
    2,439
    Location:
    Sydney / Canberra
  17. hash_investor

    hash_investor Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    11th Oct, 2015
    Posts:
    2,439
    Location:
    Sydney / Canberra
    Nice... before you make that choice make sure you realize that Australia can choose to pay half its population $2 an hour and bring in a lot of illegal immigrants to make living cheaper for the other half. You may end up in the better half of the population for now but it doesn't take even a single lifetime to move to the worse half. And if you or your generation ended up in the bad half it takes multiple lifetimes to make it back.

    Good luck
     
  18. Cimbom

    Cimbom Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    19th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    1,566
    Location:
    Back in Canberra!
    Whinging is one of the best things about living in a democracy. In many countries it can land you in jail or worse.
     
  19. MTR

    MTR Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    19th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    27,784
    Location:
    My World
    I was thinking exactly the same, now it would be interesting to see how the numbers look in 2 years time.
    Australia today, wealth reversal
     
  20. MTR

    MTR Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    19th Jun, 2015
    Posts:
    27,784
    Location:
    My World
    Wont argue with you, I also love Australia.
    Quality of life in Oz, is pretty damn good

    Pros and Cons
    Health system in Australia pretty damn good - US does not hold a candle
    Education system pretty damn good - spend your life in US paying College fees
    Australian pension - I think we are number 3, Germany first, last time I looked
    US Insurance - don't bother claiming unless your houses burns down