Australians' household wealth has been steadily increasing over the past decade, rising almost half a percentage point (0.5 per cent) in the previous quarter.The newly released "Finance and Wealth" publication from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed that at the end of September quarter 2017, total household net worth was A$9,868 billion, comprised predominantly of $6,751 billion of land and dwelling assets, $4,936 billion of financial assets and $2,466 billion of household liabilities. During the quarter, Australians' household net worth increased by $48.5 billion, or 0.5 per cent.In per capita terms, CommSec estimated that national wealth rose to a record $399,571 in the September quarter, up by $405 over the quarter and up around $22,136 over the year.CommSec's senior economist, Ryan Felsman, noted that in the September quarter, 21.6 per cent of all household assets were held in superannuation - well above the long run average of 16.3 per cent while, in real terms, household financial liabilities fell by $5.2 billion.Another measure tracked by the ABS is the interest payable to income ratio, which is relatively volatile in the short term, although long term trends may be observed. This ratio decreased to 9.9 per cent in September, on the ABS numbers, a decline from the June quarter 2017 ratio of 11.0 per cent. "This indicates that the proportion of household gross disposable income required to meet interest payments decreased slightly in the September quarter," the ABS observed.The mortgage debt to residential land and dwellings ratio increased 0.2 percentage points in September quarter 2017 to 26.4 per cent, indicating that the value of residential real estate owned by households grew at a slower pace than mortgage debt.In a similar manner to super funds, which have built up cash holdings, on CommSec's analysis households held a record $1,083 billion in cash and deposits at the end of September. Cash and deposit holdings represented 21.9 per cent of financial assets, up from 21.6 per cent in the June quarter and above the long-term average of 21.5 per cent.Households also held $910 billion in shares, or 17 per cent of all financial assets, which was below the 18.4 per cent average since the global financial crisis, Felsman noted.