Average Net Worth By Age (NZ) – Are You Behind?
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What does the episode introduce about comparing your net worth to other Kiwis?
Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy Podcast by Opus Partners. I'm your host, Steve McKnight. I'm Major Nickel. And this is the show that helps Kiwis go from zero to five investment property so you can be financially free. And stick around for the next 15 minutes because you're gonna learn how much wealth you should have by age, what it takes to be in the top 50%, top 20%, and top 5% at your age, and why the richest Kiwis actually get porn. Now, the question I think everybody wants answered, but sometimes we don't ask out loud, is Am I behind? I think everybody wonders that, right? Am I doing okay for my age? In fact, sometimes when I talk to investors, especially people talking to our financial advisors, a lot of the time people will say, Well, how do I compare to other
People that you might be meeting. And so we went and got the data. We had to pay Stats New Zealand to crunch the data for us. But the good news is no one else has this and you can't go download it on their website. So we are gonna walk you through the wealth you would need to crack into the top half or top 20% by your age. Tell us about the first age bracket.
So first age bracket's between twenty five and thirty four, so it just scrapes on in there. So
No, not just. I've got at least another year and a bit in this age group.
The median wealth here is fifty-three thousand dollars. That's it. So the clearest way to kind of imagine this I can think of is the best selling car in New Zealand is the Toyota Rav four. And a twenty twenty six model, so a new one, starts around kind of fifty-one thousand dollars. So what that means is half of all Kiwis, betwi in this age bracket, twenty five to thirty-four, have got less than a RAV four in their name. So to put that into property terms, if you want to buy a property and you want to save a 20% deposit on the median house, that's about $150,000 that you need to have. So you basically you you've got one of the three cars that you need to be able to buy a house.
How much median wealth does a typical Kiwi aged 25‑34 have, and what does it represent?
But we should say as well, that's per person, not per couple. So if you put the two together, you might have $106,000. If you're right at that middle line, you're right the average person age 25 to 34, you actually might be able to have a deposit for your first time. That's possibly why we're seeing so many people actually going out and buying. But what about to crack the top 20% for this age? Brecker.
So you need $222,000 to be able to get to that threshold. And if you want to be in the top five percent, you want to be really, really wealthy for your age bracket, that's almost six hundred thousand, five hundred and eighty-one thousand dollars. So if you're in this age bracket, say you're 13, you've already got a deposit saved for for a house, even if that's with a with a partner, you're still well ahead of of where most people are.
And look, I've been the top 5% of my age bracket now. But when I was 25% and still in this age bracket, based on these numbers, I would have been in the bottom 50%. And so some of this does depend on where you are within that age bracket, because between 25 and 35, your wealth is likely to grow because you are starting to maybe get some pay rises, get ahead in your Your career. And so if you're 25, 26 and you're in the bottom 50%, you got less than $53,000 to your name, maybe that's okay because you still might rocket up those ranks over the next nine years that you're within this age bracket. So don't be too discouraged, especially if you're younger. If you're looking at your late 30s to early 40s, so 35 to 44, to get into the top 50.
For your age bracket, you'd need $178,000. Now, interestingly, that's about three and a half times what you'd need to crack the top 50%, the top half in the previous decade, when you were aged 25 to 34, which again really does say something about age. When you are really young, you might not be able to see how your Your wealth might build into the future. And so when I'm talking to 18-year-olds or 20-year-olds who feel really discouraged about the housing market and say things like, I'm never going to be able to buy a house, I often try and say, I know that it feels that way right now because you might not be able to see how your wealth is going to grow into the future.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What does the episode introduce about comparing your net worth to other Kiwis?
0:08–2:13
2
How much median wealth does a typical Kiwi aged 25‑34 have, and what does it represent?
2:13–5:00
3
What net‑worth level puts you in the top 20 % for the 25‑34 age group?
5:00–6:52
4
How does median wealth change for Kiwis aged 35‑44 and why does it matter?
6:52–8:57
5
What does it take to reach the top 5 % of wealth for people in their late 30s‑early 40s?
8:57–11:06
6
Why does wealth growth accelerate between ages 45‑54 and what thresholds define the top half and top 20 %?
11:06–13:43
7
What are the wealth milestones for the 55‑64 age bracket (top 50 %, top 20 %, top 5 %)?
13:43–16:17
8
How does net worth plateau after age 65 and what does that mean for retirement planning?
16:17–18:30
Speakers
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