The majority of young owner-occupiers in Australia are women: Westpac Women's Markets

Recent US  reports show that more single women own their own home than single men, 18% of the homeowner market is made up of single women with single men taking up only 10%, reported Nina Bahadur for the Huffington Post.  

This shows that since the mid- 1990’s single women in the US have been buying homes at double the rate of single men, according to the National Association of Realtors.

It seems that single men are more likely to invest and prioritize good value to buy short sales and foreclosures, whereas single women buy a home merely because they like it and rely more heavily on emotions to evaluate the home, according to Real Estate operations at Redfin.  

54 per cent of single women look to buy a home between the ages of 25 to 34, compared with 53 per cent of single men in the same age bracket.

However the stakes change as the years pass with 21 per cent of single women and 29 per cent of single men looking to buy a home in their mid-thirties to mid-forties.

Melbourne is not far behind with recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures showing that overall more single women than single men own their own home.

“In a 2012 Westpac Report on Women’s Finances by Generation, we found Gen Y women to be more financially focused than previous generations. Many of them are highly educated, and waiting later to get married; and they want to experience financial independence and security now,” Larke Riemer the director of Westpac Women’s Markets recently noted.

“Almost a third of the Gen Y women we surveyed in the Westpac report had already entered the property market,” said Larke Riemer.

“65 per cent of single female householders own their own home compared with 55 per cent of single male households. SYFs have been buying for a while and they pay off their mortgages faster," she said.

Reports conclude that women win in Australia’s apartment sales as well, “Mortgage specialist Rams, reported in late 2012 that women account for 50% of the lender’s sole home applications,” said Larke Riemer.

So it’s not surprising that the majority of young owner-occupiers in Australia are also women.

“They’re better savers, which lenders say make them better able to cope with ‘mortgage stress’ – saving for the deposit, paying the mortgage effectively, etc,” said Larke Riemer.

Larke Riemer’s Westpac Womens Market also found that 35% of Gen Y women “saved 11% or more of their take home income compared to 23% of Gen X and 24 per cent of Baby Boomer women surveyed.”