The 2017 Russell Investments/ASX Long-Term Investing Report confirms what most people are likely to know already – that Australian residential property is the best-performing asset class over the past 10 years.

Australian bricks and mortar has produced an average annual compound return of 8.1 per cent.

That's the return on a population-weighted average return across major capital cities.

The report gives the return of the major asset classes on the basis of "total" returns, which means changes in the value of the investment, but also any income it produces, such as rents from property or dividends from shares.