1 A golden decade of household wealth creation is losing its lustre eclining interest rates over the past decade didn’t just make the cost of borrowing cheaper for households. $ DThey also had a hand in pumping up asset values 20,000 and household wealth in Canada. While it wasn’t shared by average annual gain everybody – far from it – net worth per household soared by in net worth over the 56% over that period, which represented an average gain of a little more than $20,000 per year per household in today’s past decade dollars. A booming housing market was a big factor, with homeowners’ equity in real estate (the value of households’ real estate assets less mortgage debt) rising by an average of $7,800 annually. Still, it was significant growth in financial assets that contributed most by adding $12,200 per year on average to households’ balance sheets. A strong economy certainly helped fuel assets such as equities and investment funds but so did low interest rates, especially for the valua- tion of future pension plan benefits. RBC Economics Research | Navigating 2019 - 9 big insights for the year ahead | January 2019 4