Booming property prices have pushed Australia’s household wealth to record levels, despite hundreds of thousands of people remaining unemployed.
The value of Australia’s residential property jumped by roughly $250 billion in the last three months of last year.
It followed an increase in property values of more than $200 billion in the September quarter.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the combination of rising property prices and a recovery on stock markets saw total household wealth grow by $501 billion in the December quarter — the largest quarterly growth since December 2009.