Women have returned to the workforce in near
pre-pandemic numbers, but homeownership remains elusive for those
who are single
- The homeownership rate for young single women declined in 2022
for the first time in six years, after peaking in 2021.
- The top three metros with the highest share of listings
affordable for single women are Pittsburgh, St.
Louis and Detroit.
- Women face the largest gender-based housing affordability
disparities in Cincinnati,
Kansas City and Oklahoma City.
SEATTLE, March 24,
2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Single men have long been more
likely than single women to own a home, but that gap narrowed
sharply in recent years, nearly closing in 2021. However, a new
Zillow® analysis shows that it widened again last year,
shining light on the homebuying challenges single women face,
including lower salaries and a more volatile workforce
experience.
In 2016, 19.4% of young single women owned a home, compared with
29.6% of young single men — a gap of 10.1 percentage points. The
gap shrunk throughout the next five years as more and more women
entered the workforce — leading to record-high numbers in 2020 —
and women's incomes began to rise. By 2021, that gap was a mere 1.8
percentage points.
But that progress was wiped out in 2022. The first year of the
pandemic saw an outsize share of women leave their jobs to take on
caregiving responsibilities, as child-care and eldercare options
were in flux. Women also continue to earn significantly less than
men on average, receiving approximately 82
cents to every dollar earned by men. As a result, young
single women have fewer options when it comes to affordable home
listings than young single men.
"Single women had made great strides in narrowing the
homeownership gap, but the pandemic reminded us that progress is
not always linear," said Skylar
Olsen, chief economist at Zillow. "Despite women showing
remarkable resilience in returning to the workforce, single women's
homeownership rate took a heavy hit in 2022. With rising and
volatile mortgage rates furthering affordability challenges, the
road to affordable homeownership remains an uphill battle, and it
may take creative solutions or even doubling up in a home to
achieve that dream."
After growing to 28.6% by 2021, the homeownership rate for
single women dropped to 24.5% last year, wiping out almost half the
gains made since 2016, when single women's homeownership was at an
all-time low of 19.4%. At the same time, the homeownership rate for
single men increased 2.7 percentage points in 2022 to 33.1%.
Single women looking to buy a home in Pittsburgh, St.
Louis or Detroit — which
are among the nation's 50 largest metro areas — will find the
highest share of affordable listings. Single women in Atlanta, Baltimore,
Washington, D.C., and Raleigh are most able to compete with single
men in the for-sale market; single women in those metros, on
average, can afford at least 2% of all active listings and at least
90% of the listings single men can afford. On the other hand,
Cincinnati, Kansas City, Oklahoma City, Minneapolis, Jacksonville and New
Orleans see the largest gender-based disparity in housing
affordability, with single women able to afford fewer than 70% of
the homes that single men can afford.
As the market changes, Zillow has gathered tools for
first-time buyers to make the leap into homeownership on one
easy-to-navigate web page. Here are five quick tips for aspiring
buyers:
- Affordability: Use Zillow mortgage calculators and
affordability tools to understand what you can afford, including
hidden costs of homeownership, such as property taxes, insurance
and HOA fees.
- Financing: Get pre-approved for a mortgage to gain a
competitive edge, as most sellers prefer buyers who have been
pre-approved rather than pre-qualified.
- Hire the right agent: Hire an experienced agent who
knows the local market and can help make strategic decisions, and
use Agent Finder on Zillow to find the right one.
- Shop smarter with tech: Use real estate technology like
Zillow's multi-location search filter, Homes to Compare, virtual 3D
Home tours and interactive floor plans to shop more confidently and
make faster decisions.
- Contingencies: Include important contingencies in offers
to potentially save money in the long run, such as an inspection
contingency to identify costly repairs and financing or appraisal
contingencies to protect earnest money.
Metropolitan
Area
|
Total Share
Listings Affordable
for Women
|
Median Salary
for Women
|
Median List
Price
|
Share of Listings
That Single
Women Can Afford Compared
to Single Men
|
Pittsburgh,
PA
|
32.6 %
|
$25,000
|
$184,652
|
80.20 %
|
St. Louis,
MO
|
31.5 %
|
$22,984
|
$172,838
|
85.13 %
|
Detroit, MI
|
30.3 %
|
$22,000
|
$187,179
|
82.05 %
|
Buffalo, NY
|
25.1 %
|
$24,642
|
$219,580
|
87.32 %
|
Cleveland,
OH
|
24.4 %
|
$22,000
|
$185,704
|
71.81 %
|
Memphis, TN
|
21.0 %
|
$25,000
|
$274,247
|
89.13 %
|
Baltimore,
MD
|
20.8 %
|
$30,000
|
$298,209
|
91.89 %
|
Birmingham,
AL
|
16.5 %
|
$21,000
|
$272,068
|
89.13 %
|
Milwaukee,
WI
|
14.3 %
|
$24,000
|
$262,124
|
71.84 %
|
Philadelphia,
PA
|
13.8 %
|
$28,000
|
$286,526
|
83.92 %
|
Cincinnati,
OH
|
12.7 %
|
$21,000
|
$271,930
|
67.56 %
|
Kansas City,
MO
|
12.6 %
|
$24,000
|
$292,364
|
58.40 %
|
Louisville,
KY
|
10.8 %
|
$21,156
|
$277,539
|
78.45 %
|
Indianapolis,
IN
|
10.6 %
|
$25,000
|
$278,183
|
75.76 %
|
Chicago, IL
|
10.2 %
|
$26,000
|
$323,134
|
70.94 %
|
Columbus, OH
|
9.0 %
|
$25,000
|
$332,039
|
78.87 %
|
United
States
|
8.9 %
|
$22,000
|
$394,625
|
84.51 %
|
Atlanta, GA
|
7.3 %
|
$25,000
|
$361,553
|
95.83 %
|
Hartford, CT
|
6.9 %
|
$25,000
|
$346,729
|
89.19 %
|
Charlotte,
NC
|
6.0 %
|
$19,600
|
$362,830
|
83.05 %
|
Oklahoma City,
OK
|
6.0 %
|
$25,000
|
$348,208
|
67.25 %
|
Richmond, VA
|
5.8 %
|
$21,000
|
$339,783
|
88.46 %
|
Minneapolis,
MN
|
5.5 %
|
$27,336
|
$357,564
|
62.10 %
|
Washington,
DC
|
4.8 %
|
$36,187
|
$568,404
|
100 %
|
Virginia Beach,
VA
|
3.3 %
|
$25,500
|
$331,457
|
78.22 %
|
Houston, TX
|
3.0 %
|
$26,000
|
$355,174
|
80.21 %
|
Jacksonville,
FL
|
2.9 %
|
$26,243
|
$376,322
|
63.35 %
|
San Antonio,
TX
|
2.8 %
|
$23,000
|
$344,112
|
92.44 %
|
Raleigh, NC
|
2.7 %
|
$30,000
|
$432,565
|
100 %
|
Portland, OR
|
2.7 %
|
$25,409
|
$581,543
|
86.25 %
|
New Orleans,
LA
|
2.3 %
|
$25,000
|
$317,097
|
56.10 %
|
New York, NY
|
2.1 %
|
$33,700
|
$669,538
|
73.48 %
|
Dallas, TX
|
1.8 %
|
$27,000
|
$413,042
|
86.34 %
|
Tampa, FL
|
1.7 %
|
$25,000
|
$404,936
|
90 %
|
Miami, FL
|
1.6 %
|
$23,800
|
$580,509
|
84.26 %
|
Providence,
RI
|
1.5 %
|
$25,000
|
$532,966
|
68.18 %
|
Riverside,
CA
|
1.4 %
|
$21,000
|
$554,862
|
80.83 %
|
Orlando, FL
|
1.1 %
|
$24,000
|
$430,506
|
75.68 %
|
Denver, CO
|
0.8 %
|
$30,000
|
$652,984
|
72.73 %
|
Nashville,
TN
|
0.6 %
|
$36,000
|
$496,901
|
83.33 %
|
Boston, MA
|
0.6 %
|
$24,800
|
$861,672
|
81.82 %
|
Phoenix, AZ
|
0.4 %
|
$28,000
|
$489,734
|
80.30 %
|
Salt Lake City,
UT
|
0.3 %
|
$38,000
|
$593,708
|
100 %
|
Austin, TX
|
0.3 %
|
$26,805
|
$536,625
|
62.50 %
|
San Francisco,
CA
|
0.3 %
|
$28,044
|
$991,699
|
53.33 %
|
Los Angeles,
CA
|
0.2 %
|
$30,000
|
$960,134
|
94.44 %
|
San Diego,
CA
|
0.2 %
|
$25,000
|
$955,776
|
75.00 %
|
Las Vegas,
NV
|
0.2 %
|
$29,000
|
$448,550
|
62.50 %
|
Seattle, WA
|
0.2 %
|
$25,000
|
$752,947
|
54.55 %
|
Sacramento,
CA
|
0.1 %
|
$26,000
|
$639,262
|
100 %
|
Sources and Methodology
Labor force
participation rates for working age adults (ages 16–64 years) are
produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and pulled from
the FRED API. Annual homeownership rates
of households headed by 25- to 35-year-olds (annually from 1980 to
2022) and broken out by employment, marital status and living
arrangement were estimated by Zillow Economic Research
using individual records from the Current Population Survey
provided by IPUMS CPS, at the University of Minnesota,
www.ipums.org. Information regarding gender pay equity was
obtained from the Pew Research Center,
www.pewresearch.org.
The number and share of active listings on Zillow that are
affordable for single women and single men (limited here to
employed singles between ages 18 and 44) were estimated using all
listings ever active on Zillow during February 2023 and median individual incomes by
gender, estimated by Zillow Research using individual responses to
the American Community Survey, also provided by IPUMS at the
University of Minnesota. A home is
considered "affordable," in this case, if the estimated mortgage
payment on the listing takes up no more than 30% of income. We set
the mortgage rate for this analysis at the average weekly mortgage
rate, reported by Freddie Mac, for February.
About Zillow Group
Zillow Group, Inc.
(NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is
reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life's
next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in
the United States,
Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an
on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing
with transparency and ease.
Zillow Group's affiliates and brands include Zillow®;
Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans℠; Zillow Closing
Services℠; Trulia®; Out East®;
StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+℠,
which includes ShowingTime®, Bridge
Interactive®, and dotloop® and Listing Media
Services. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS
#10287 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org).
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