When talking about homeownership, many couples are waiting until later on in life or living with their parents or roommates.
However, a new report from Compass and Better.com says that an increasing amount of women are taking hold of the housing market.
According to Urban Institute, women are denied mortgages more often than men are. Despite this disadvantage in the housing market, more women are buying homes on their own than ever before.
“Women are often dissuaded from participating in the home purchasing process,” said Sarah Pierce, head of sales at Better.com. “When applying for a mortgage a few months ago, I personally had brokers asking me presumptuous questions about my job – and I even had a few who didn’t believe me. These types of questions and others like it are as outdated as the phone book and make women feel like they are not welcome to participate in the home purchasing process.”
The study found that not only are women buying more homes, but they also have higher credit scores. Of the Compass agents who were surveyed, 58% said that a majority of their clients were women, who were primary or sole buyer/seller.
Better.com reported that 23% of its borrowers were females over the last year, with an average credit score of 770.
And across the industry, the number of homebuying women has grown from 15% in 2017 to 18% in 2018.
More single women are also opting for mortgages over marriages. Of the surveyed Compass agents, 71% said that single women are entering the housing market earlier than their single male counterparts.
Switching to the other part of the market, the marrieds, 80% of agents said that they saw a rise in women as the primary source of income in relationships when buying a home.
Last year alone, Better.com reported that the majority of women who are married co-borrowers made more than their spouses. Women earned an average monthly salary of $5,666 vs. $3,035 for men.
And, one in three women who secured a loan from Better.com last year didn’t put their spouse on the application.
Per the National Association of Realtors, in the 1960s, more than seven in 10 American homeowners were married.
Two decades later, in the 1980s, a peak of 75% of first-time homebuyers entering the market were married couples. Today, only 53% of first-time homebuyers are married.
