Higher housing expenditure

Households are accumulating money that is becoming less valuable

Austrian households are putting more money on the high side. However, after taking inflation into account, it has become worth less every year since 2022. 23.4 percent of spending goes towards housing, federal government bonds are popular. The debt ratio is just under 25 percent.

Household financial assets reached a nominal record value of 872.1 billion euros in June 2024. Adjusted for inflation, however, the money was worth almost one percent less than in the previous year. Financial assets also lost value in real terms in 2023 (minus 5.1 percent) and 2022 (minus ten percent), according to National Bank data.

Income increased
While Austrians' consumption increased at the same rate as their nominal income in the previous year (7.8 percent each), it only increased by 3.4 percent in the first half of 2024, even though incomes were higher. Adjusted for inflation, this means that consumption remained virtually unchanged, although real incomes rose by 3.2 percent.

Savings rate rises
This is likely to be reflected in a significantly higher savings rate of 11.4 percent this year. "We are seeing that people are saving more," said Johannes Turner, Director of the Statistics Department at the OeNB, on Wednesday. In 2023, 8.7 percent of income was set aside.

Spending on food at 2019 level
On average, 23.4 percent of consumer spending now goes towards housing, compared to 21.8 percent before coronavirus. On the other hand, significantly less is being spent on transport, while spending on food and leisure is back at 2019 levels. The debt ratio of just under 25% is below the average for the eurozone countries (around 29%).

Federal treasury bills popular
Austrians are apparently still particularly happy to entrust their money to the state: The revived option of investing money in federal treasury bills at fixed interest rates and with very little effort has been well received. Two billion euros have already flowed into federal treasury bills since the instrument was relaunched.