The share of single female home buyers in the last three years has increased from 15 percent to 18 percent, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. Single women outpace single men when it comes to home purchases, Jessica Lautz, NAR’s vice president of demographics and behavioral insights and research, told ABC News. “When I tell people, they are surprised,” she says about the data. Women are “feeling confident you don’t need a wedding ring to purchase a home. They want the stability of purchasing a home but don’t need the marriage.”
While single women purchase homes more often than single men, they tend to buy multigenerational properties that are less expensive, Lautz said.
Nuria Rivera, 34, told “Good Morning America” that she decided to buy a $420,000 three-bedroom home in Salt Lake City because she sees homeownership as a critical component to long-term financial health. And Denise Dmuchowski, 37, said she purchased a $340,000 two-bedroom condo in Arlington, Va., on her own because she was tired of wasting her money on rent. “For me, the thing I struggled with the most when buying as a ‘singleton’ is you don’t know if your situation is going to change,” Dmuchowski said. “I would make excuses that kept me from buying, like, 'Oh, well what if I meet someone and he already owns a place?' or 'What if I want to take a new job in a different city?' Thinking too much about what could happen kept me from committing, and I was afraid of feeling trapped because I owned. Finally a friend simply said, 'If something changes or if you want to move, then you rent it out or sell it. You figure it out,' and I thought, 'You know what, you’re right!'”
Source: “Single Women Are Killing the Real Estate Game: Here’s How 4 Women Did it on Their Own,” ABC News (April 1, 2019)
