According to the Federal Statistical Office, every German has assets of 162,600 euros. The debt has already been deducted. Other studies arrive at different numbers. What’s right now? And where are you with your assets?
The figure from the Federal Statistical Office dates from 2018 and includes the average financial and real estate assets of every German citizen. There are clear differences. West Germans came to 182,000 euros per capita, East Germans to 88,000 euros. These are also average values.
Other experts sometimes come to completely different numbers, as the “Wirtschaftswoche” explains.
In its study “Private households and their finances (PHF)”, the Bundesbank takes a close look at the financial circumstances of German citizens. Every three years, the German central bank surveys private households about their assets and debts – most recently in 2017. Almost 10,000 people disclosed their financial situation in personal interviews. The update that was actually due in 2020 could not take place as planned due to the Corona crisis.
According to the survey in 2017, every German household had net assets of 232,800 euros on average. That’s the average debt of 29,700 euros already deducted.
These are average values in each case. Many citizens have fewer assets, some significantly more. The median value in 2017 was 70,800 euros. This means that exactly half of all those surveyed had assets of less than 70,800 euros, the other half more. The median is the value that is exactly in the middle of a data distribution.
Anyone who wanted to be among the ten percent of the wealthiest households had to have net assets of at least 555,400 euros in 2017.
Apartments, houses and commercial properties
In its PHF study, the Bundesbank cites one important reason for the different wealth distribution. According to this, “property ownership is a good indicator of household wealth”. And it goes on to say: “The median net wealth for owner-occupied households was 277,000 euros in 2017.” Tenant households, on the other hand, only have a median value of around 10,400 euros. So just a fraction. It follows from this: Anyone who wants to create a fortune in the course of their lives should take a closer look at the subject of real estate.
The German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) surveys a good 25,000 people in around 16,000 households every year for its “Socio-Economic Panel” (SOEP). An important difference to the Bundesbank’s PHF study: Here the researchers determine the personal assets of each individual participant, not the households.
For the year 2017, the DIW study authors came to an average individual net worth of 108,449 euros per citizen. They determined the median to be 26,260 euros. Each inhabitant of the richest ten percent of the population owned more than 275,000 euros.
The European Central Bank (ECB), together with all national banks in the euro zone, is conducting the international study “Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS)”. The euro is currently the legal tender in 19 countries, and Croatia will be added on January 1, 2023.
A good 91,000 households took part in the last survey in 2017. The international composition of the participants allows asset comparisons to be made between the euro countries.
This showed that the average net wealth per household in Germany was EUR 232,800, slightly above the euro-country average of EUR 229,100. Households in Luxembourg were the clear frontrunners with EUR 897,900 each. Eastern European countries rank at the lower end.
The major Swiss bank Credit Suisse publishes a global wealth report every year, the “Global Wealth Report”. The last one is from June 2021.
This report also has special features – they consist in the definition of the concept of wealth. The Global Wealth Report describes household net worth as the value of all financial assets plus valuable assets such as real estate. The liabilities are deducted from this. Future claims to the statutory pension are left out.
According to data from Credit Suisse, every adult in Germany had an average of 268,000 dollars (as of June 2021, around 265,000 euros today). The median wealth was $65,374. The values determined put Germany in 16th place worldwide.
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