Pod Insights The Property Academy Podcast Average Net Worth By Age (NZ) – Are You Behind? About this episode Am I behind? It's the question everyone wonders, and almost nobody can answer.
So, we paid Stats NZ to crunch the net-worth-by-age data that no one else publishes.
In this episode, Ed and Andrew reveal the median wealth at every age and what the numbers really mean.
You'll learn:
What the typical Kiwi is worth in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyondWhy whatever you build by 60 is roughly what you retire onHow a single good asset can move you two decades up the tableThe honest takeaway? You're probably less behind than you think, but the early decades matter most.
Let us know your thoughts by leaving us a voice message on the Property Academy Hotline https://www.speakpipe.com/PropertyAcademy
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Transcript 0:08 Speaker 00 Hello and welcome along to the Property Academy Podcast by Opes Partners. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.
0:12 Speaker 01 I'm Andrew Nichol.
0:13 Speaker 00 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 going to 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 poorer after this specific age. 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
0:53 Speaker 00 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 going to 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.
1:19 Speaker 01 So first age bracket is between 25 and 34. So it just scrapes on in there.
1:24 Speaker 00 No, not just. I've got at least another year and a bit in this age group.
1:29 Speaker 01 The median wealth here is $53,000. 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 RAV4. And a 2026 model, so a new one, starts around kind of $51,000. So what that means is half of all Kiwis in this age bracket, 25 to 34, have got less than a RAV4 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're basically, you've got one of the three cars that you need to be able to buy a house.
2:13 Speaker 00 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 aged 25 to 34, you actually might be able to have a deposit for your first home. 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 bracket?
2:39 Speaker 01 So you need $222,000 to be able to get to that threshold. And if you want to be in the top 5%, you want to be really, really wealthy for your age bracket, that's almost $600,000, $581,000. So if you're in this age bracket, say you're 30 and 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.
3:02 Speaker 00 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 career. And so if you're 25, 26 and you're in the bottom 50%, you've 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.
3:46 Speaker 00 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 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,
4:30 Speaker 00 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. In fact, when I was 22 years old, I didn't think I was going to be able to buy a house either, right? I remember saying on video, I think a lot of millennials don't think they'll ever own a house. And then 10 years later, I'm here yabbering on, owning-
4:55 Speaker 01 In your house?
4:56 Speaker 00 Uh, in my house, owning quite a few investment properties. And, you know, I've realised like, oh, I didn't see how this would happen 10 years ago, but I was able to find a way to make it happen, right? And I think this statistic really shows that out, that if you're 25 to 34, average wealth $53,000, get up to 35 to 44, average person's $178 grand. So it really does start to grow, especially after the 100K mark. Now, to get into the top 20% for this age bracket, late 30s, early 40s, to get into the top 20%, you need $565,000. So that's basically the median house with a lot of the mortgage paid off.
5:39 Speaker 00 But also to get into the top 5%, this is where we get the first millionaire milestone, because one in 20 individuals aged 35 to 44 are worth $1.25 million. That's amazing, isn't it?
5:57 Speaker 01 That's more than I would have thought.
5:58 Speaker 00 Well, what about if you're a little bit older? What if you're in your late 40s to early 50s?
6:04 Speaker 01 So between 45 and 54, the top 50% starts at $376,000. So that's roughly half a median house. And what I find most interesting about this particular band is the median climbed almost $200,000 in 10 years. So from $178,000 to $376,000. So that works out to be just under $20,000 in net worth growth per year. That's pretty significant. And just to be clear, that's $20,000 worth of net worth, not $20,000 that you've saved. So it's a combination of your mortgage going down, potentially your house going up in value. Most of that wealth, it's not cash in your pocket and so you can't just spend it.
6:49 Speaker 00 Similarly, it might be a Kiwi Saver as well. So if you're, if you're earning a decent wicket, maybe $90,000 per year, you're saving three and a half percent of your income, add in your employer contributions, maybe that's five grand per year, add in some compounding in your investments, maybe if you're invested in, in shares and managed funds through your Kiwi Saver, there we go, we get a bit of a return as well. Then on top of that, got your mortgage being paid down. You can see how it might add up to 20 grand a year, but you'd be, you'd feel pretty good about that, wouldn't you?
7:20 Speaker 01 Yeah. And the top 20%, that's almost a million dollars, $942,000. Now, just bear in mind, the median house in Auckland is, is $940,000 as of July. So people that have got properties in some of these more expensive areas might find that they fall into that top 20% easier than people that live in cheaper places. And the top 5%, it's pretty grunty now, it's $2.5 million.
7:47 Speaker 00 It is grunty. This also reminds me of the concept of the scale of capital. And what I mean by that is if you've got $100,000 and your next door neighbour's got a million dollars and both of you double your money over 10 years, well, you've now got $200,000 while your neighbour has $2 million. They started out with 10 times more money than you. So even though you've got the same investment returns, they end up with two times as much money with you 10 years later. But the numbers, when you start out with, with more money, it's easier to make even more money. And so even if we compare the, the 35 to 44 year olds, the median was 178K.
8:30 Speaker 00 Once you move into your late 40s, early 50s, that basically doubles to 376K, you know, roughly doubling or so. If we look at the top 5%, you go from 1.25 million all the way up to 2.5 million, that basically doubles as well. And that reminds me of something I recently talked about on YouTube, where when I was about 23 years old, I've told you this story probably 10 times, Andrew, but I'd keep banging on about it because it was so fundamental to me, where I was lying in bed-
8:59 Speaker 01 Always your stories start like this, either that or in the shower.
9:02 Speaker 00 Oh, yes. No, I've got great, great, great shower stories, but, but this time I was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking, how do you get rich? And I was very poor at the time. I was in a lot of debt and I was thinking, how do you get rich? And I realised that it wasn't ever going to be by my income alone. It was going to have to be through assets because the definition of rich isn't necessarily that you've got a million dollar income. And let's face it, not many of us have a million dollar income. The definition of riches, do you have lots of assets? And so I was lying there in bed thinking, I need to figure out, how do I get myself some more assets? So in my mind, I see going and investing in property and being able to take out mortgages to go and buy those more expensive assets.
9:48 Speaker 00 That is just another way that I can get access to the scale of capital, using a lot of the bank's money to go and buy more assets that potentially might go up in value in the future. Now, if we come across to the late 50s, early 60s, so if you're 55 to 64, to get into the top half, you need $572,000. Just over half a mil, just under $600,000. It's pretty good, eh? If you're, if you're worth almost $600,000 at 55 to 64, you go, oh, that's actually, that's, that's not a bad living. Now, if we talk about top 20%, it's $1.35 million. But to get into the top 5%, over $3 million is what you'd need.
10:33 Speaker 00 It starts to get very, very grunting. And the reason I kind of like talking about these numbers as well, is sometimes we think that New Zealand's quite a poor country and that it's quite hard to get ahead. And looking at these numbers makes you realise, wow, 1 in 20, 55 to 64 year olds, are worth $3 million on their own, add in their partner, and they might be worth $6 million, depending on how they've grown their wealth within their household and how it's reported. But thinking, God, 1 in 20 people, 3 million bucks. They must have made some quite good decisions to get into the position where they are worth that amount of money.
11:18 Speaker 00 And one of the things that I'd really encourage you to think about, if you're like, oh my God, well, I'm 40 today, I'm 35 today, I'm not sure how I'm ever going to have $3 million by the time I'm 55 to 64. I think what I'd encourage you to think about is that your future wealth will be a reflection of the decisions that you make today. You're not just going to turn up at age 55 or 64 and magically have made more money if you don't do anything about it, right? The people who are worth $3 million or more in the top 5% at 55 to 64, they are the people that will have made some good decisions back in their 30s, back in their 40s,
12:00 Speaker 00 and would have kept on making investment decisions, whether in property or their business or their share portfolios, in order to get there. So I see this as relatively aspirational. Oh, wow, that's actually quite a lot of people who are worth a lot of money. Maybe if I make some decisions, I might be able to get there too. Even though you might not be able to see the exact path forward today for how you will get there, just like how at 22, I never thought I'd own my own home. But if we come to our last age bracket, Andrew, 65 to 74, what does that look like?
12:35 Speaker 01 So this is the top of the mountain for people. And to get to the top 50%, you need to have just over $600,000. But here's the part that I find most interesting here. From your late 50s to your late 60s, the median only grew by $41,000, so $4,100 a year. So it's, it's slowing down at that stage and, and it's probably an indication that what you've built by kind of age 60, that's roughly what you're going to be retiring on. So if you, if you haven't made some of those decisions that Ed mentioned before, kind of in your 30s or 40s or, or maybe 50s, you're probably not going to move the dial much more by the time you get into your 60s.
13:15 Speaker 00 But do you think as well, because this is 65 to 74, is this not a reflection as well? That you're going to stop building your wealth and you're going to start spending your wealth in this age bracket? Because now you're giving up work, you want to go on some holidays, you're like, gosh, if I make much more money, I'm just going to be giving that to my kids through their inheritances. Bugger that, I'm going to start living up life myself.
13:41 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think there's a combination. And people obviously at this stage are liquidating assets and, and unless they're using the golden goose strategy, where they're living off the returns, they are going to be eroding that capital. Now, the top 20% in this age bracket, they're at 1.4 million. And for the top 5%, you're $3.4 million. So again, an increase, but not as drastic an increase.
14:04 Speaker 00 And that brings us to what if you are aged over 75? Well, the median wealth basically stays flat from being 65 to 74 through to 75 plus. And that could be because a lot of Kiwis still have their wealth tied up in a house. And so if you haven't sold your main home, you've still got that equity available. But what's interesting is if you're at the top end, if you're in the top 10%, the top 5%, the amount of wealth you need drops by about half a mil to 850K. So this is the age where we really do see people at the top end, either starting to spend that or maybe passing that on early, drawing that down, gifting it to family,
14:47 Speaker 00 spending it on their own healthcare, doing the things that they want. The median person though, isn't necessarily doing that. We don't see that in the numbers. And that probably makes sense if most of their wealth is within their house, because they might not have sold that yet. But if we look at all of these numbers, Andrew, what do we take from all of this?
15:06 Speaker 01 Well, I think as Ed said before, sometimes this can be quite motivating to either drive people in a direction they want to go, or to help them understand that maybe they're not as far behind as, as sometimes we kind of think we are when we read the, you know, newspaper articles about the doom and gloom of the world and, you know, people not having enough money. Maybe we're actually a bit further ahead than when we compare to, to others. But I think one of the other messages is if you haven't built your wealth before you get to kind of roughly 60, that is going to be kind of how much you're going to retire on. You're not going to have the time to be able to change your, your kind of wealth trajectory in a meaningful way at that stage.
15:44 Speaker 00 Well, that's the median, but there are, I mean, there might be some people who really can. Sometimes you, you see people who are 60 years old, who have really left it too late. And then once they pay off their mortgage, they really hunker down and save, save up lots and lots of money. But at that point, you're not going to get the benefit or much benefit of compounding returns over the long term. Because five years from 60 to 65 is not really long term, is it? But I think the most surprising thing here is even how the average moves over the decades. And I'd just encourage you, if you are 20, 25, thinking about like, oh God, I don't know how I'm going to make a life for myself. Sometimes you can't see that path going forward.
16:28 Speaker 00 But just seeing that the average person's wealth does go from $53,000 to $600,000 by the time they are in their 60s, 12 times more wealth than you've got right now if you're 25 to 34. It might just give you some encouragement to stay the course and think, okay, I haven't had time to build my wealth, but once I've had that time, maybe I'll be able to get there. If you think about your own wealth journey, Andrew. I know that 19 year old Andrew, when he started investing, had a lot of faith in himself, just like you do now. But do you think he would have thought that, what is that, 23 years later, you'd be where you are today with 40 houses?
17:08 Speaker 01 No, no, I, I think that I always knew that I was going to build my wealth, but probably not to the quantum that I have. And, and, and that's just because it happens over time, like you say.
17:17 Speaker 00 And if you do want to build your wealth, as I said before, it all comes down to your deliberate choices that you make. And one thing that can start to tip the scales in your favour is there was this amazing Canadian study that people who use financial advisors, after 15 years, end up with about four times as much wealth as the people without a financial advisor. And if you're a property investor looking for one and you want to talk about how to grow your portfolio, you might look to book a free portfolio planning session with one of our financial advisors, who are property investment specialists. If you want to do that, the link is down in the description, or just go to opespartners.co.nz and click that big orange button. Because over the last 15 minutes, you've learned how much wealth you should have by your age,
17:58 Speaker 00 what it takes to be in the top 50%, top 20%, the top 5% at your specific age, and why the richest Kiwis actually get poorer after that age at 75. Right, let's wrap it up there. But please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. It really does help us get the message out to more people.
18:19 Speaker 00 Thanks for listening to the Property Academy Podcast. I'm your host, Stephen Knight.
18:22 Speaker 01 And I'm Andrew Nichol.
18:23 Speaker 00 We're going to be back here tomorrow with even more daily strategies, tactics and insights to help you get the most out of the New Zealand property market.
18:29 Speaker 01 Until next time.
Previous NZ's 6 Biggest Infrastructure Projects – What They Do To House Prices Next Never Say These 5 Sentences To A Real Estate Agent Page updated November 14, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
