The fall of property prices and a weak dollar has wiped more than 120,000 Aussie millionaires off the face of the earth

PHOTO: Falling Australian house prices dragged the country’s wealth off a cliff (Photo by Martin Hunter, Getty Images)

Australia is $US443 billion poorer this year after fallen house prices and a depreciating dollar wiped the country’s wealth, according to the latest Credit Suisse report.
This helped de-mint 124,000 Australian millionaires, as the country underwent the biggest wealth decline of any country this year.
Despite this, it has managed to retain the second-highest median wealth in the world, and the fourth-highest average wealth, well above countries like the US and China which led the world in wealth creation last year.

In an Australia that values the everyday bloke — see Scott Morrison’s strained impression of one for proof — it might come as a surprise we’re a nation of millionaires.

A sustained property boom largely helped elevate the status of many of our countrymen and women to millionaires, on paper at least.

However, as prices drifted towards earth over the last 18 months, so too has the net worth of Australians. In 2019, the country lost some 124,000 millionaires according to this year’s Credit Suisse global wealth report and it’s not like they simply pulled up sticks and departed our shores.