Advisors gunning for millionaire clients now have 1.3 million more prospects to choose from — and a blueprint for what they're looking for, according to a new survey.
Affluent Market Insights 2005, conducted by the Spectrem Group, a Chicago-based research firm, says that 1.3 million new American households became millionaires in 2004 — a 21-percent increase from 2003. This swells the ranks of millionaire households to 7.5 million nationwide. The number of households with a net worth of $5 million or more (excluding primary residence) grew by 38 percent, reaching a record total of 740,000. At the lower end of the affluent market, households with a net worth of $500,000 or more grew 25 percent, to 13.1 million, in 2004.
Unfortunately for advisors, many of these affluent seem eager to go it alone when it comes to managing their finances: 30 percent of all affluent households make all or most of the financial decisions without professional assistance — a figure that “is much higher than in the past,” according to Spectrem.