00:12 Good evening, welcome to the Deerwood Realty show.
00:14 I'm John Schink, founding managing broker of Deerwood Realty in St.
00:18 Louis, Missouri.
00:20 It's been a while since I've been on and doing videos, and I'm still trying to get used to it, get back in the swing of things.
00:26 Uh, saw a fascinating article today and I wanted to go over it.
00:30 I thought it'd be a good one for the first one, so let's get into it.
00:34 It's from realtor.com and it's about single women home buyers since 1981.
00:41 And so I want to go over the article a little bit with you.
00:44 I just want to talk about it.
00:46 I thought it kind of interesting.
00:47 So it starts off saying that when they first started doing the profile of home buyers and home sellers in 1981,
01:00 this is the National Association of Realtors, they found what they said was stunning at the time: single women outpaced single men in the housing market.
01:09 Now to me that's not stunning or anything like that.
01:12 I was born in 1977.
01:19 Um, and so then it goes on, it says what's striking about single women home buyers is that it was not until 1974 that women were legally allowed to obtain a mortgage without a co-signer.
01:31 And this gets interesting.
01:33 It says prior to the passage of the Fair Housing Act prohibitions against sex discrimination in housing related transactions and the protections of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, it was commonplace for a widow to need a male relative as a co-signer.
01:51 Under federal law, women had no legal recourse for this or any other lending discrimination.
01:56 And it's kind of interesting because um there it's looked at as it was commonplace for a widow to need a male relative, but there's also this age discrimination situation where a long time ago it wasn't okay to go get a mortgage if you were in your 90s.
02:23 They're like, no, you just can't get one.
02:26 Now that's total age discrimination.
02:28 You can get a mortgage for whatever age you are.
02:31 Um, so it's just a different world.
02:38 Um, it says among first-time home buyers, the share of single buyers is even more pronounced.
02:41 In 1985, 75% of first-time buyers were married, and that share is just 50% today.
02:48 Single women first-time buyers grew from 11% in 1985 to 24% in 2024.
02:56 In the most recent data, single men rose from 9% in 1985 to 11% in 2024.
03:03 And so here's a little bit of the breakdown: married couples gone down from 75% to 50%, single women up, unmarried couples up, single men up, other up, roommates.
03:18 It's very as a real estate agent when I meet first-time home buyers, I don't typically ask what their marital status is.
03:33 That seems wrong.
03:38 Um, I normally talk to my lender and if they apply with my lender then I know if they're married or not.
03:46 But I've had deals where I don't know if the people are married or not.
03:50 And there was this time when on a real estate contract you should write like so and so Jones, a married couple.
03:58 But I always thought that was weird and I didn't I don't want to pry into people's business.
04:02 It's just the way I've always been.
04:06 Like I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but it's just you know if two people can afford to buy a house then then buy a house or three people.
04:15 I don't doesn't make any difference to me.
04:17 It says using American Community Service Census Data from 1950, 23% of Americans aged 15 and up had never been married.
04:27 Well that's good.
04:28 I don't want a lot of 15-year-olds being married.
04:31 Uh in 2024 that share stands at 34% of Americans.
04:34 And so less people are getting married.
04:38 And then it says, but then why are women buying homes while men are not?
04:42 And I don't know that that's I mean single men are buying 11% of the homes.
04:47 Uh so I don't really think that's statistically massive.
04:51 But anyway, both men and women are most likely to say that they're purchasing because of the desire to own a home of their own, but significantly more women purchased to be close to friends and family.
05:02 And this is one of those things where you get in these huge generalizations over a tremendous amount of data.
05:09 And it's like it's just kind of this is a fascinating article for that reason.
05:22 So they have the top four reasons to purchase a home.
05:24 For a single man, it's desire to own a home, home of their own, desire to be close to friends and family, change in family situation or retirement.
05:35 And you can kind of see it's it's I feel like I mean pretty similar.
05:46 Change in family situation, 14% for women and 13% for men.
05:55 Retirement 7% from I mean it's like not that big of a deal.
06:02 So then it goes into finances and we have first-time buyers.
06:04 Single men seem to have more money or being made making more money than women.
06:13 Uh so fine.
06:13 And then it says given lower household incomes, women do make more financial sacrifices when purchasing.
06:16 44% of women made financial sacrifices in order to purchase a home compared to 37% of men in similar situations.
06:24 Common financial sacrifices include cutting spending on non-essential goods, entertainment, and clothes, canceling vacation plans, and even taking on a second job.
06:35 These sacrifices only underscore how important home ownership is to women as these sacrifices outpace those of male buyers.
06:42 Well okay, so what I mean here's the graph.
06:46 It says no sacrifices made.
06:47 So for men 63% made no sacrifices and 56% of women made no sacrifices.
06:55 So more than half made no sacrifices.
06:58 Uh cutting spending on non-essential goods is 30 to 22 women leading men there.
07:07 Cutting spending on entertainment, 24 to 19.
07:09 Cutting spending on clothes, 21 to 14.
07:16 Canceled vacation plans.
07:24 I mean we all make sacrifices.
07:26 That's although apparently not all of us.
07:29 And less than half because more than half made no sacrifices.
07:33 Anyway, I just thought this was funny.
07:36 Uh you get all this where women lead until you get to sold car, decided not to purchase.
07:42 And then 5% sacrifice that.
07:50 It says the median age of single women as first-time buyers is 40, while men have a median age of 34.
07:54 Now that is kind of fascinating.
08:04 I thought that was interesting.
08:06 I mean we have 15-year-olds in this survey having never been married, which is sloppy data in my opinion.
08:15 And then we have like we have this age here where it's 40 and 34.
08:24 Anyway, what is the point of this article?
08:30 Women single women buy homes, that's not really a shocker.
08:33 Single men buy homes.
08:35 Everyone buys homes.
08:37 I don't know.
08:39 I thought it was kind of interesting.
08:42 Tell me what you think.
08:44 Put it in the comments below.
08:47 Give me show ideas.
08:50 Maybe this wasn't the best one to start off.
08:56 Anyway, that's all I have for you tonight.
08:58 Thank you for watching.
08:59 I will catch you on the next one.