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WASHINGTON, Feb 15, 2006 (UPI via COMTEX) -- Single U.S. women bought 1.5 million homes last year -- more than double the rate of single men, the National Association of Realtors says.
Twenty-one percent of 2005 home buyers were single women vs. 9 percent who were single men. That's a major change since 1981, when single females bought 11 percent and single men bought 10 percent of homes sold nationwide.
"Women have access to the same resources men have always had -- money, social status, power," Temple University psychology professor Donald Hantula told USA Today.
A 1974 amendment to the U.S. Fair Housing Act, which forbade sex discrimination, aided women's home-buying efforts.
Today's mortgage lenders are doing more to help women qualify for loans as the building industry adds features with more female appeal.
"There have been so many advances and innovations in the market to respond to them," Regina Lowrie, the first female chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association, told the newspaper.
URL: www.upi.com Copyright 2006 by United Press International
