Single Women Rocking Homeownership

A recent report from the National Association of Realtors — the “2018 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers,” to be exact — yielded some interesting statistics and trends about who buys homes these days in the United States.

Among those info nuggets: 2018 marked the second consecutive year that single women buyers totaled 18 percent of all buyers. Single women also ranked second only behind married couples (65single women owning homes percent) and ahead of single men, who ranked third (7 percent).

What does this mean? A lot of single women are rocking homeownership and becoming a demographic force in the home-buying market. That’s good for consumers, builders and all the industry entities in between.

It represents a growing pool of home buyers that likely will continue influencing those statistics for years to come. So, let’s take a little closer look at the why and what of how single women are rocking homeownership.

The survey says…

Per the NAR’s “2018 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers,” married couples led the percentage of home buyers overall, and in all five age categories surveyed.

BUT, single women ranked second in four of the five age categories, and were a close third (12 percent) in the age 37 and younger category. Unmarried couples (15 percent) ranked second in this category.

Here are the four age categories where single women ranked second in the overall percentage of home buyers: ages 38 to 52 (18 percent), ages 53 to 62 (21 percent), ages 63 to 71 (22 percent) and ages 72-92 (25 percent).

The baby boomer influence

Notice that single women ranked second in the four older age categories surveyed by the NAR?

There’s a solid statistical explanation behind this. Baby boomers —people born between 1946 and 1964 — have long been the U.S.’s largest population group. Per U.S. Census data, there were approximately 77 million boomers in 2011.

Naturally, many of these were women. And, again, per U.S. Census data, men have higher mortality rates than women, who outnumber men in older boomer populations. So many single older women are achieving homeownership in their later years, whether for the first time or as repeat buyers. That’s substantiated by the ages 72-92 category, which boasted the highest percentage of single women home buyers— 25 percent.

Single women as homeowners

Reasons vary for any homeowner’s decision to purchase a home. It’s no exception for single women, many of whom simply want to own their home, either for the first time or as a sole buyer after a major life change such as divorce.

Many single women also want to buy homes for the same reasons as any buyer — to build equity, and to own rather than chase rising rents.

There’s also the opportunity to create a more permanent living situation, and a sense of community.

The latter is where today’s master-planned communities can really shine. Many of ICI Homes’ communities and the communities that we build in are master-planned and geared to all ages. They’re a superb place to start for house-hunting, single-women homebuyers.

Go, girls!

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