According to John McGrath, Chief Executive Officer of McGrath Estate Agents, there has been a slight increase in the number of women homeowners in Australia over the past 12 months.
There has been a slight increase in the number of women homeowners in Australia over the past 12 months.
That’s according to CoreLogic’s third annual Women & Property report, which found that 26.8% of Australian property is solely owned by women, up from 26.2% a year ago.
The percentage of properties owned solely by men remained the same at 29.9%. There was a very slight decline in male-female joint ownership from 43.5% in 2022 to 43.4% in 2023.
The research also found that more women than men own apartments. About 35.7% of apartments are owned by women compared to 34.6% by men. Joint male-female ownership is 29.7%.
So, why are more women buying property, and why are they tending to buy apartments? Well, there are a few reasons.
Firstly, women are increasingly concerned with attaining their own independent financial security.
Over the past two decades, single career women have become an influential buying force in the property market.
When I started in real estate 40 years ago, it was very rare to conduct an auction and have a 28-year-old female on her own buy the property.
Nowadays when you put a well-located, beautifully designed apartment block on the market, it is very likely the first 10 apartments will be sold to single career women.
Clearly, women are seeing real estate as a good path to take in creating long-term financial security.
This is smart, especially when you consider the sad statistic that the fastest-growing cohort of homeless people in Australia is women aged over 55, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission.
That’s just one reason why it’s great to see young women attaining home ownership as early in their lives as possible. It’s not just about financial security, but also health and wellbeing. Of course, that goes for men, too.
We also know from recent government research that home ownership is the absolute key to a comfortable and financially secure retirement in Australia. This is another very good reason for young women and men to aspire to property ownership as early in life as possible.
Once you’re in, you can move up the price ladder as your needs change.
Notice I said ‘property’ ownership there, not ‘home’ ownership. That reference was in recognition of the fact that many young people are getting around affordability challenges by ‘rentvesting’.
That’s where a young person will buy an investment property before they buy their first home. They typically target affordable areas with good growth prospects, then rent a home for themselves where they want to live for lifestyle reasons (usually close to capital city CBDs and beaches).
Over time, as their investment gains value, they can make new decisions and potentially buy a home using the equity that their investment delivers.
Now let’s talk about apartments, and why women own more of them compared to men. I think there are a few factors here.
The obvious one is that apartments offer security due to their elevation, with most new buildings these days providing secure parking with internal access and video intercom entry to the building. In my experience, women highly value security features.
Secondly, apartments are more affordable.
The markets with the highest percentage of sole female owners give us some interesting insights.
One of them is that in the major East Coast capitals, women favour blue-chip inner city areas.
In Sydney, the areas with the highest percentage of female-only property ownership are the Eastern Suburbs 37.3%, North Sydney-Hornsby 36.6%, City-Inner South 36.1%, and Ryde 34.7%.
In the NSW regional markets, women particularly like Newcastle-Lake Macquarie 33% and the Central Coast 32.4%.
In Melbourne, the trend toward blue-chip inner city areas continues, with Melbourne-Inner 34%, Melbourne-Inner East 33.6% and Melbourne-Inner South 32.6%.
In regional Victoria, the highest rates of female ownership are in Ballarat 28.7% and Bendigo 28.3%.
In Brisbane, women prefer the Inner City area 30.5% and South Brisbane 28.2%. In the regions, they favour the Gold Coast 27.2% and Toowoomba 26.6%.
The report also highlights something very important for both men and women. And that is that owning property is a more effective way of growing your wealth over working. This is because growth in property values has been outstripping wage growth in Australia for two decades.
Over the past 20 years, Australian dwelling values (that’s houses and apartments combined) have increased by 140% while wages have increased by 81.5%.
That’s something to think about.
The views expressed in this article are an opinion only and readers should rely on their independent advice in relation to such matters.
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