It is more difficult for single women to get on the property ladder, but older women will own a greater share of housing wealth.
Welcome to the bi-weekly update (#169) where we dive deeper into key topics, themes or issues specific to women and their lived experience.
Although it is more difficult for single women to get on the property ladder, according to research by Savills, a greater share of housing wealth will end up in the hands of women.
In early 2021, the Centre for Economic and Business Research said women already owned 48% of the UK's wealth and this is set to rise to 60% by 2025.
However, over the last ten years, the number of female mortgaged owner occupiers has barely changed, rising just 2.8% since 2011 (in the UK).
And data from Savills shows that only 33% of all mortgaged owner occupiers are women. By contrast, the majority of social renters are women at 58%, while private rentals to women come in at 40%.
The persistent gender pay gap at 16%, (which means that women save 35% less on average) plus the added cost of living crisis, means that buying (and maintaining) a property, may be too expensive especially for women.
Of all first time buyers who bought a home in 2015-2016, only 8% of women were buying on their own. While the figure doubles to 18% for unattached men. But 92% of first time property purchases involve men.
On top of earning less than and having higher poverty rates than men, women are also more vulnerable to having their home repossessed.
And their investments may not go as far: single women spend an average of 2% more than men to purchase a home and get 2% less return on their investment when reselling.
The authors of the research point out, that this may have less with women being less able negotiators, and more to do with discrimination.
It was estimated that women in the US may lose about $1,600 in housing wealth annually.
Meanwhile black women have been targeted for risky mortgages on homes in disrepair. Research also indicates that women and underrepresented groups were targeted with sub-prime mortgages leading up to the financial crisis 2008/9.
However, more recent US data suggests that the homeownership rate among women in America increased from 50.9% to 61.2% between 1990 and 2019 (while the homeownership rate among men dropped slightly).
And according to Savill’s research, the data shows that retired women tend to be more property rich, with 3.3m women over 70 owning their homes outright – approximately 40% of all outright ownership in the UK.Â
This may be a result of divorce or inheriting later on in life. And because women are earning higher salaries, in full-time employment, working for longer and investing in more assets which grow in value over time.
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