Women take ownership: Single home buyers seek beauty, comfort in building nest egg

Jul. 9--Ann Baumer wanted a safe neighborhood for evening walks with her dog, a back yard, community pool and large grass play area for her grandchildren.

"My whole thing was . . . on looks and comfort," she said of the town home she purchased near Center Street and Brown Road in Mesa. After owning three homes on the fringes of the Valley, Lori Holdaway recently bought a town house in Old Town Scottsdale and she's remodeling it.

"The latest one was for location," she said. "It's right there by Fashion Square Mall so what more do you need to say? This one was just convenience to get back in town. It's just neat. It's old. It was built in 1968 and it's just got so much potential and it's just different. It's a happy house."

Baumer and Holdaway are part of growing number of single women who are buying homes.

According to recent survey of 7,800 home buyers and sellers by the National Association of Realtors, single women are at record rates in terms of market share and raw numbers.

In 2005 they made up 21 percent of the real estate market, a larger share than single men and second after only married couples. In 2004, the share of single women was 18 percent. In 2005, 1.76 million single women purchased homes, up 22 percent from the year earlier when 1.44 million single women bought a house.

Since 1997, single women have purchased roughly 1 in 5 homes, said Walter Molony, who follows industry trends for the association.

"But if you look back at the earliest data, back to 1985, they're only 10 percent of the market, still bigger than men at only 6 percent," he said.

There are two major reasons for the increase, Molony said.

"If you think back in (the) 1970s, it was very difficult for women to get credit of any kind," he said. "They couldn't get credit cards, much less a mortgage. Access to credit has increased over time. Wage disparity has narrowed over time and, in recent years, we've had an explosion of mortgage products targeting entry-level buyers."

Single women have always purchased at a much higher rate than single men. In most surveys, it's been roughly double the rate, Molony said.

"It could be that women have a sense of home ownership as building a nest egg, building wealth over time," he said. "The home has frankly always been kind of the woman's domain from the huntergatherer days on. It could be too when you think about young guys, many of them are more interested in consumption than buying a home. It may be as simple a fact as most guys don't get serious about real estate until they meet the right woman."

Even in married couples, there is some evidence women may have more than an equal share when it comes to making the decision on buying a home.

"We had a demographer speak at the association's midyear meetings about Baby Boomers," Molony said. "He kind of hinted at when you get right down to it, the house is really the woman's house."

It's a trend Kaira Sturdivant Rouda hopes to capitalize on. She's chief operating officer of Real Living, a real estate company that markets mainly to women.

In 2001, she and fellow managers combined three longtime Ohio-based companies that were traditional real estate brokerages.

"When you looked around at all the real estate companies, they were all very square and just unfriendly," Sturdivant Rouda said. "They all looked like banks. They were all marketing like banks. Knowing that women control 80 percent of consumer purchases, and that rises or that falls depending on who you're citing, and 70 percent of real estate agents are women, we started thinking maybe it's time for the a company to acknowledge all of those facts and start being more female-focused."

The company went so far as to create a company logo that is round, which is more welcoming to women, Sturdivant Rouda said.

"There's studies out that will tell you women focus on the attributes of a home and men are more honed in on the price of financing part," she said. "If there is a traditional couple involved, the woman will drive selection of the real estate agent, selection of the actual neighborhood or community as well as the property. The man gets involved more in the negotiations part of it."

When it comes to the Web, women and men use information differently, Sturdivant Rouda said.

"What she wants is more of the big picture so that's why she'll look at information about community and neighborhood and the context," she said. "Women are really into building relationships. Also, they like to be engaged and entertained."

The company's site uses quizzes to ask women about home and decorating styles and it contains numerous resources so women can get closer to what they're looking for. It allows women to line up houses they've selected and resort or re-categorize them. Pictures of homes can easily be shared with friends or family.

Like couples, single women look for affordability and location, but they're also after a house in a safe neighborhood that makes an emotional connection, said Daphne Entenmann, a Realtor with 1st USA Realty Professionals who specializes in the East Valley.

"If they're younger, they tend to want to go into things are more fixed up," she said, adding they usually don't have a partner they can rely on for odd jobs.

"If they're a little bit more, let's just say 30 and above, if they're at all handy . . . a couple of improvements doesn't scare them off. Location is important but it's neighborhoods that make them feel good about where they're living."

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