I found this NYT article in their new free subway paper yesterday and thought it was interesting…
[A]s single women have grown to be an indisputable force in the housing market, a compelling question about single men has arisen: why are single women twice as likely to be home buyers?
A study published last month by the National Association of Realtors shows a continuing disparity, with single women accounting for 21 percent of recent home buyers and single men accounting for 9 percent.
there seems to be a consensus among brokers and buyers who have witnessed the trend that single men, even those whose college diplomas are yellowed with age, gravitate to a lifestyle not unlike that enjoyed by fraternity brothers: relatively free of commitments and rife with male companionship.
They consider buying a home detrimental to their independence, as it tethers them to one location, squelching any youthful fantasy of a nomadic existence. Indeed, for many single men without children, buying a home is a commitment akin to getting married — and they are content to put it off.
Single women on the other hand seem more interested in establishing a sense of security, or “nesting,” as several brokers and buyers put it. They consider buying a home an act of independence. It is an asset, a symbol of their financial strength and proof that they need not wait for a man of means to provide them with the security they crave.
This is not a battle of the sexes. It is a battle of semantics. Both men and women view their decision to buy or not buy as a declaration of independence, though they have cultivated very different definitions of “independence.”
I def. know many more female than male homeowners…
UPDATE 2/5: Link fixed.
This is because women see living alone as success, a triumph against overbearing parents, no-good boyfriends, difficult careers, lousy dating pools and whatnot. Yes, settling down with a spouse, 2.5 children and a dog would be nice, but purchasing your own home is a statement that you can manage and dictate your life on your terms.
Men see living alone as failure. They have not attracted a woman and created a family they can support. There is no comfort in knowing that you can manage and dictate your life on your terms, because that is a man’s job in the first place.
I’ve oversimplified here, and am drawing on stereotypes about male and female roles in society that may not resonate with everyone and may not hold true in 50 or 100 years’ time. But those stereotypes– that women want to settle down with a good man; a man wants to win and support a good woman; that women find a sense of self-actualization in independence; that men are raised to expect it– do still hold sway in society today. I’m not at all surprised by these homeownership statistics.
Frankly, one of the reasons why single men don’t buy a home is that they figure that their eventual wife will be the one who dictates things like where they live and what type of home is acceptable. I have thought about buying a place, but now am not considering it. If I buy a place and then settle down with a girl, the place I can afford now is going to be too small for the two of us anyway. So I’d just have to sell and buy another place anyway. So why go through the hassel and potentially loose a chunk of money in buying and selling costs with a place that I’ll probably have to flip in less than five years. (Of course that is assuming I’ll settle down with someone in the next five years, but that seems like a pretty safe assumption considering I’m in my 30s.)
Buying a home was mega-important to me. It would be great to get married again at the right time and to the right person, but there are no guarantees that that’ll ever happen. It doesn’t make sense to me to put my life on hold in the meantime.
I’ve never regretted buying, not for a single moment. I would have been priced out of the market if I hadn’t bought when I did, and although I don’t think the dizzying heights of the real estate market are sustainable in the long term, I also don’t think the market will give back all the gains it’s made since I bought. Instead of paying rent to a landlord, I’m living in a great apartment that I would probably not be able to afford if I was renting, and I’m building equity month by month. That’s a good feeling.
Besides, if I do end up in a situation of having to sell my home to be with someone else – well, so what? People deal with these things as they happen. Buying was still the right decision for me.
Of course I regret not cashing out those Internet stocks and buying a place five-odd years ago … but looking forward, I’m not sure that owning a place would offer me any security. You can never know what the market will do.
There was an interesting quote in the story: