About

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About this dashboard

  • Title: Housing, Income and Wealth
  • Number: 1/2019
  • Date: 20 September, 2019 (updated version, original version: 04 September, 2019)
  • Author: HFCS Team, OeNB (Austrian Central Bank)
  • Data: HFCS Austria 2017


What we do

  • This dashboard is the first in our series of Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) dashboards.
  • Each dashboard is designed to provide concise information on a specific topic.
  • All information displayed - be it figures, tables or text - is based on HFCS data.


Who we are

  • We are the HFCS team of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB).
  • As such, we are tasked with collecting and analyzing data on Austrian households’ finances and consumption.
  • For more information on the HFCS in Austria, visit our website for the HFCS Austria.
  • For general information on the Eurosystem’s HFCS, visit the website of the ECB’s Household Finance and Consumption Network (HFCN).


How to contact us

Find out more by clicking on the Question tab!

Question

Question

Column


Question

How is Austrian households’ tenure status related to income and wealth?


Main definitions

Tenure status

  • Owner: A household that owns its home (at least partly).
  • Renter: A household that rents its home, which is owned by somebody else.
  • Free user: A household that enjoys free use of its home, which is owned by somebody else.
  • While there are few free users, there are slightly more renters than owners.

Net wealth = real assets + financial assets - debt

  • Examples: Real assets include real estate, land or vehicles; financial assets include sight accounts, savings accounts, stocks or bonds; debts include mortgages, overdraft debt or credit card debt.

Income = combined income of all members of a household

  • Examples: Income includes gross labor income, non-labor income, public transfers or private transfers.


Main background facts for Austria

  • Wealth is distributed much more unequally than income.
  • The value of owner-occupied housing is the most important asset (by total volume) of Austrian households.
  • The home households own is often used as collateral for debt.
  • Loans collateralized by homes are the most important liability (by total volume) of Austrian households.
  • Owner-occupied housing and debt are both part of net wealth.
  • Households accumulate net wealth by saving part of their income and/or inheriting wealth.
  • Owner-occupiers do not have to pay rent for housing services.
  • Owner-occupiers have a higher incidence of inheritances.
  • Owner-occupiers are able to save more.
  • In sum, households’ tenure status is of key importance for both, the wealth distribution and wealth accumulation.

For detailed information on the methodology, please refer to the methodological notes and the results for Austria.

Column

Renters

Owners

Free Users

Find out more by cklicking on the Answer tab!

Answer

Answer

To what extent are income and wealth jointly distributed across Austrian households?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

We first take a look at where Austrian households are located in the income and wealth distribution.

The graph shows that low-wealth, low-income households are located in the lower left, while high-wealth, high-income households can be found in the upper right.

One can clearly see the positive correlation between income and wealth, as most households are located along the 45 degree line. The more income households earn, the more wealth they have accumulated. However, this correlation is far from perfect, as households with high wealth but low income and households with low wealth but high income do exist.

Note that there is a tendency toward more high-income households with little wealth, and less low-income households with great wealth, especially in the lower half of the wealth distribution. Our research question on Austrian households’ tenure status sheds more light on this finding.

How is home ownership distributed across Austria?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

The map shows the rate of owners across Austrian federal states. The corresponding values are as follows:

Federal states Share of owners
Vorarlberg 62.2
Tyrol 50.3
Salzburg 44.8
Upper Austria 49.6
Carinthia 50.5
Styria 55.4
Burgenland 71.6
Lower Austria 59.7
Vienna 17.5

Home ownership rates differ strongly between federal states - even more than between European countries.

Generally, urban areas show higher rates of renters and free users and therefore lower rates of owners.

What is the mean net wealth and the median net wealth by tenure status?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

In Austria, the shares of households owning their home (owners), renting their home (renters), and using their home for free (free users) are as follows:

Tenure status Share in % of households
Owner 45.9
Renter 46.8
Free Usage 7.2

The graph presents the means and medians of net wealth for owners, renters and free users. One can clearly see that the owners are those with the highest net wealth. The corresponding values are as follows:

Group Mean Median
Owner 476 279
Renter 57 14
Free Usage 64 19
Note:
Values in EUR thd.

Where are owners, renters and free users located in the joint distribution of wealth and income?

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

The graphs show the location of owners, renters and free users in the joint distribution of income and wealth.

Again, owners, renters and free users with low income and low wealth can be found in the lower left corner, those with high income and high wealth in the upper right corner of each panel.

Owners are mostly located in the upper half of the wealth distribution, but all across the income distribution. The owners who are located in the bottom of the wealth distribution are mostly those who recently bought a home with a mortgage.

Renters are mostly found in the lower half of the distribution of wealth, but all across the income distribution. The renters who tend to have a very high income, also tend to have very high wealth, even though they do not own their home. There are hardly any renters with high income but low wealth.

Free users are mostly located at the lower end of the low-wealth and low-income spectrum. This is particularly true for young single-person households that are likely to live in homes owned by their parents.

Bonus material:
Interactive wealth-income 3D figure

plotly

Source: HFCS Austria 2017, OeNB.

The graph displays the joint distribution of income and wealth in three dimensions.

The third dimension shows the (kernel) density estimate for every income-wealth combination.

The higher the peaks in the graph, the more households are found to exhibit the corresponding wealth-income combinations.