Earlier this year, the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) published the 2024 results of its home-buyer-profile tracking study. "Single women first-time buyers grew from 11% in 1985 to 24% in 2024," said the NAR report. "In the most recent data, single men rose from 9% in 1985 to 11% in 2024."
Of course, most home buyers are still couples, accounting for 62% of purchases in 2024. Among first-time buyers, 50% of homes were bought by couples that year, down from 75% in 1985, according to the NAR.
Why Single Women Buy Homes More Often
Various reasons are suggested for why single women buy more homes than single men.
Demographically, women live longer: on average, more than 5 years longer, according to the CDC. They may buy homes to downsize or move closer to their children, friends or better medical care after the husband's death.
However, that's only part of the story, and doesn't explain at all the high percentage of single, never-married women who are first-time buyers. That's especially curious when you recall that, on average, women earn 83 cents for every dollar a man makes.
In 2023, CBS News asked various experts to account for this phenomenon. "Younger women who are approaching the peak of their careers earn salaries nearly equal to men their age. They're well aware of the wage and wealth gap that persists between genders, and buying a home is one way they try to counter it," said University of Southern California professor Dowell Myers.
Another academic suggested a different reason. "More women today are college-educated than men, which gives more of them the opportunity to buy a home on their own, since college degrees translate to earning more money later in life," Rutgers professor James Hughes told CBS News. "'Women have more wherewithal now than, say, 20 years ago, even though that (wage) gap exists.'"
Lackluster Homebuying by Single Men Could Be Due To Higher Unemployment
Yesterday, The New York Times reported an analysis of the latest official employment data. It showed a sharp rise in the number of long-term unemployed: 26% of the jobless had been without work for six months or more.
There was more: "But just as surprising as the rise in long-term unemployment is the subset of workers who are increasingly driving it: the college educated," said the Times. "The fraction of long-term unemployed people with a college degree has grown from about one-fifth a decade ago to about one-third today, according to government data compiled by Matthew Notowidigdo and Jingzhou Huang of the University of Chicago."
This is likely to affect the pool of potential home buyers, many of whom rely on their high incomes as graduates to afford their purchases. But why might it be happening? Well, some of it may be down simply to growth in the number of graduates. However, the Times suggested other possible causes:
"Employers also appear to have less need for college-educated workers, driven by technological change, automation and, most recently, ... cuts to federal workers and funding, which have disproportionately affected the college educated."
On Sunday, Dr. Torsten Sløk, Apollo's chief economist, revealed a gender gap within the unemployment rate for college graduates aged 22-27 years. "The unemployment rate for recent college graduates is rising for men and falling for women," said Sløk. Between March 2024 and July 2025, that rate had been rising for men but falling for women. It was well below 4% for women this July, but slightly above 6% for men.
Of course, the Chicago academics were looking at all long-term graduate unemployment, while Sløk was analyzing all graduate unemployment by sex within a limited age range. So, you need to be careful drawing conclusions.
But men who dream of homeownership might see grounds for concern. This might be a moment when the tough get going.
