Local millionaires’ on the rise

Posted by Arizona Real Estate

July 3, 2007

How much are you worth?

As it turns out, global economic growth and stock-market rallies have been good for many Valley residents: A new report by financial giant Merrill Lynch has found that there are now more than 53,000 households in the Valley with a net worth of at least $1 million.

That’s a 7.4 percent increase over the previous year and is in line with an even larger 8.3 percent uptick in millionaire households worldwide.

Globally, millionaire households held 31 percent of their wealth in the stock market and other business-ownership interests. Investment real estate was second at 24 percent, followed by bonds and fixed-income assets at 21 percent.

Millionaires boosted the value of their non-home real estate holdings last year by a notable amount, while reducing the proportion of their portfolios in currencies, commodities, hedge funds and other assets.

The Merrill Lynch report found that of 9.5 million high-net-worth households around the world, 3.2 million are in North America, mainly in the United States.

Russ Wiles
The Arizona Republic

Share it: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.