Single women have different buying and financing strategies

Research and studies have recently shown that single women are the fastest growing force in the real estate world.

Unmarried women now compromise a huge sector of the home buying market, and there are a variety of reasons for this. For the most part, women are marrying later or not at all, and have children later in life as well.

In an article from the Mortgage News Daily on July 26, 2006 entitled, “Single Women employ different strategies in buying and financing a home,” the author looks at this dominating force in terms of their differences from married couples or single men.

“But what might be most interesting about single female home buyers is that they buy different kinds of houses, approach the process in distinct ways, and even finance them differently than other buyers. As we mentioned in the second part of this series, women are more likely to buy condos or to purchase two bedroom units than other groups and they spend less. They are also more likely to buy newer homes yet still own a greater proportion of substandard housing than single males or married couples.”

This article points out many differences between the buying strategies of single women and other groups.

Some of the most notable differences are that this group of women tends to have lower incomes, more minorities and buy smaller homes. These characteristics of course are a reflection of a very large group of women.

One of the most interesting facts about single women homebuyers is that they are more likely to buy their homes with a cash payment instead of refinancing.

This fact ties in with the fact that many of these women are buying homes that are smaller and cost less than married couples or single males who finance their homes through a mortgage.

“28 percent of the unmarried women studied purchased their homes outright. This is less startling, however, when that information is combined with other statistics in the survey. First, of course, they are more likely to buy smaller and less expensive homes. Still it takes a chunk of cash to purchase even the most humble home without a mortgage.”

Although these figures represent single women, one thing that must be taken into account is that a lot of these women were not first time home buyers. This new demographic of single women homebuyers probably contains many women who have been married before, and had already owned a home.

“But only 41 percent of the females were first-time home buyers compared to 48 percent of single men. Thus, many probably had equity from earlier homes and, since nearly two-thirds reported being previously married, divorce settlements, life insurance, and other forms of household wealth no doubt enabled many cash purchases. Among the oldest home buyers, lingering memories (even if second-hand) of the depression still discourage indebtedness. Indeed, 70 percent of senior women bought without mortgage financing and of those that do finance, the majority put down more than half the purchase price.”

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