Unmarried women a growing force in housing market
While married couples are still 60 percent of homebuyers, their market share has dwindled from 70 percent 12 years ago. Meanwhile, statistics from the National Association of Realtors show unmarried women like Braziel, a consultant for employment services giant Manpower Inc., accounted for 22 percent of sales last year, up from 14 percent in 1995. Single men, on the other hand, accounted for just 9 percent of home sales in 2006 -- unchanged from the mid-'90s, the Realtors association says.

SINGLE BUYERS
Unmarried women a growing force in housing market

By JIM WASSERMAN
McClatchy Newspapers

SACRAMENTO - Kim Braziel bought her first town house three years ago when she was 26 and a single, working woman in Los Angeles. She recalls the move when she was just four years out of college as a stand for financial independence.

"I just didn't want to pay anyone else's mortgage," Braziel says. "I wanted to invest in my own future."

Last month, arriving in Sacramento for a new job, she bought her second house -- a townhouse in Sacramento's North Natomas neighborhood.

Homebuilders and real estate agents are starting to pay more attention to people like Braziel. At 29, she represents a significant -- and growing -- segment of the nation's home-buying market: single women.

While married couples are still 60 percent of homebuyers, their market share has dwindled from 70 percent 12 years ago. Meanwhile, statistics from the National Association of Realtors show unmarried women like Braziel, a consultant for employment services giant Manpower Inc., accounted for 22 percent of sales last year, up from 14 percent in 1995.

Single men, on the other hand, accounted for just 9 percent of home sales in 2006 -- unchanged from the mid-'90s, the Realtors association says.

Experts say the trend is ripe with opportunities for condominium builders and sales agents who specialize in the smaller, low-maintenance houses that agents say single women prefer. Builders already target women when decorating many model homes, emphasizing the lighter colors they believe women favor and showcasing upgrades in rooms such as the kitchen. Real estate agents say that they emphasize a neighborhood's safety and the security of attached garages when talking with single women interested in buying a home.

But the recognition of the role single women play in the housing market also has its negative side. At least one consumer group contends single women often are charged higher mortgage interest rates than men.

Analysts say this home-buying phenomenon is rooted in societal changes, including the fact that women are waiting longer to get married. Married women who get divorced also are less likely to remarry -- and remarry less quickly than men, according to a 2006 study by Rutgers University's National Marriage Project. Another factor is the economic gains college-educated working women have achieved.

"They are a solid majority of the college students in America today, and for several years now they've been taking home a solid majority of the bachelor's and master's degrees earned in this country," said demographics expert Peter Francese. "They have substantial money-making capabilities and will do so far into the future."

New Hampshire-based Francese says women are 58 percent of U.S. college students and slightly more than half of managerial and professional workers.

"It should be no mystery at all that the first time in history that women have sufficient economic power on their own to buy homes that they go out and buy them," he says.

A Harvard University study last summer found that unmarried women are buying about 1 million houses yearly, and between 2002 and 2003 they spent $550 billion on residential real estate.

The study, from the university's Joint Center for Housing Studies, said single women prefer homes in the city to the suburbs and tend to shy away from new construction. Most buy smaller homes or less-expensive condominiums that give them a stronger sense of safety while requiring less maintenance.

But they don't shy away from repairs, the report says, a fact not lost on hardware giants such as Lowe's Home Improvement. The company says its stores and the tools it buys from suppliers are designed to appeal to them. Stores are brighter, tools are lighter and more ergonomically built, says Lowe's spokeswoman Karen Cobb.

None of this surprises Francese.

"One does not need a Ph.D. in demography to know that women are far more interested in a home, in a nest, than men are," he said.

Most unmarried men just want a place to live and often live with friends until marriage, he says, while women see homeownership as both desirable and a ticket to financial security.

That places them squarely in the sights of mortgage companies, the Consumer Federation of America said in a study released in December.

The federation said women are 32 percent more likely to be charged more for loans and refinancings even though women and men generally have similar credit profiles.

The study, based on 2005 federal data on mortgages from around the country, reasoned that many women may have less confidence in their knowledge of financial products, which puts them at a disadvantage in negotiating with lenders. But the California Mortgage Bankers Association disagrees.

"The industry supports fair, non-discriminatory lending, and any suggestion otherwise is unfounded," says CMBA spokesman Dustin Hobbs.

Nationally, women outnumber men by 5.8 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Divorce and separations, too, are factors driving more women to purchase residences on their own. Nationally, between 40 percent and 50 percent of marriages end in divorce or separation, according to the 2006 Rutgers University report on marriage.

The bottom line for homebuilders and real estate agents: It pays to pay attention to the trend.

Henry Ung, a real estate agent in Elk Grove, Calif., says nearly 25 percent of his clients are women looking for houses after divorce. Ung calls them "a very cautious group of buyers" who often have a household income of about $50,000 and want a two-bedroom home.

Homebuilder Regis Homes of Sacramento says its models are decorated to appeal to single women.

"The single female house has more bright colors, lighter cabinets and lighter color on the wall," says associate marketing director Trisha Thomas. "It's a more feminine feeling."

KB Home doesn't design models specifically for single women, but it builds condominiums with them in mind, says Barry Grant, Sacramento-based president of the builder's North Bay territory.

"Many of our women tend to look for the higher-end kitchen options, nice flooring, hardwood flooring and upgraded cabinetry," he says.

For many unmarried women the goal is also simple companionship, says Sacramento real estate agent Barbara Frago. Frago works the older spectrum of the market from personal experience, having bought her own condominium after her husband died.

She says there is time for the first condo, then the single-family home with a yard and "then there comes a time when you don't need all that."

Campus Commons, the Sacramento neighborhood where Frago bought her condo, has "a lot of single ladies," she says.

"A lot are single through aging and being widows, as I am." Frago says. "A lot scale down from the family home. They see they can be in an area they're used to and feel safe, and have other women around that they can join."

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