Marketing to Single &

Professional Women

A Place to Call Her Own

Today’s Objectives1. Demographics

2. Market Trends and facts

3. Financing

4. How S&PW select a home

5. Tips and Resources Useful Websites Books, eBooks and more Do It Herself Repair & Construction Ideas

6. Next Step

1. Demograhics The U.S population has reached 300 Million. Around 51%

are Women.

More women (15.5 million) than men (11.8 million) lived alone. Among these, women were more likely than men to own their homes (56% vs. 47%).

About one-quarter of the nation's nearly eight million single mothers spend more than half of their incomes on housing, compared with one-tenth of households headed by single fathers.

Over the time period of 1994-2002, the number of unmarried females owning homes climbed from 13.9 million to 17.5 million.

Source: 2006 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, (Chicago, IL: National Association of REALTORS®, 2005).

Demographics cont…. One-fourth of all recent first-time home buyers were single

women. Single women also represented 20% of all home buyers, up 2% from 10 years ago while 9% were single men, a decrease compared to 11% from 10 years ago. (Source: NAR Nov, 2007 Profile of Home Buyer & Sellers)

The biggest group of home buyers by far is still married couples, accounting for 61% of all homes bought, according to the National Association of Realtors.

The prime years for first-time home buyers are between ages 30 and 35, the years when many professional women are beginning to hit their stride and have the financial ability to buy a home.

S&PW are buying..

  SINGLE WOMEN ARE BUYING

1 — survey based only on partial year's data. Source: National Association of Realtors

9%   21%2005 8%   18%2004 11%   21%20031 7%   15%2001 9%   18%1999 11%   14%1997 9%   14%1995

10%   16%1993

10%   14%1991

10%   13%1989 7%   10%1987 6%   10%1985

10%   11%1981

Single men

Single women

The percentage of home buyers who are single women has more than doubled since 1981, while the percentages of home buyers

who are single men have fallen.

2. Market Trends and Facts Social and economic trends have given women a more

powerful presence in housing markets. Between 1980 and 2000, the number of households headed by unmarried women increased by almost 10 million.“

Part of the reason why women have become so big a buying bloc is that more women are single than ever before. The New York Times recently concluded, after an analysis of Census Bureau data, that 51% of all American adult women now live without a spouse.

Women are more financially independent than ever before, too.

All this has changed not only circumstances for women but attitudes as well.

Source CNNMoney.com, Feb. 13, 2007

Facts Women (and men) are marrying later. On average,

women now wait until they're nearly 26 to walk down the aisle, about six years later than in 1960, according to Census data. On average, men today marry at age 27, an increase of five years in that same period.

Divorce. A Census study showed that 73% of women who married between 1980 and 1984 reached their 10th anniversary, compared with 90% of women who married between 1945 and 1949. Still, as many as half of new marriages end in divorce.

Women tend to live longer than men. The average man will die at 74, giving the average widow (who'll die at 79) five more years to buy a home on her own.

Unmarried women have more money than ever.

More Facts….. In part, that's because more women than men are going to

college. Men have been the minority on college campuses since the 1970s, and they now make up just 44% of the student body. Source: NewsHour Extra, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec02/college.html

There are more women than ever on the job — 46% of the workforce — and the pay gap with men is closing. Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment and Earnings, 2007 Annual Averages and the Monthly Labor Review, November 2007. http://www.dol.gov/wb/stats/main.htm

The rush of single women to buy homes is impressive, coming after decades of sex discrimination by banks and real estate agents.

If a woman was married, income was usually discounted on a loan application.

Those days are gone. Today, mortgage companies offer products to help low-income applicants qualify for loans.

Financing Women are more confident and

financially savvy than ever before, plus there are good mortgage products out there that work well for them.

Women benefit from many of the nontraditional mortgage choices they have today. These include small cash-down loans that enable recent graduates and divorcées, who may not have a big nest egg available, to achieve homeownership sooner.

Single women home buyers often need help because their median income is $47,315 a year — 20% less than for single men buyers.

 

Single women Single men

Median income $47,315 $58,936

Median age 42 41

Purchase price $159,966 $167,884

Type of home purchased    

Detached 60% 62%

Townhouse/row house 17% 17%

Apt./condo large building 14% 11%

Duplex/apt./condo 4% 5%

Other 6% 5%

Source: Natl Assn of Realtors 2006

Financing continued…… Low-interest mortgage rates have drawn more women into

homeownership. Women also have been helped by a change in banking technology. In the mid-1990s, lenders began using automated underwriting systems to provide quick, objective data.

Special programs that specifically target divorced and single parent women. Many of these programs assist women with their closing cost, obtaining a low-interest mortgage and down payment giving them the opportunity to only come with three or five percent of the total.

Financial assistance programs can be private lenders or sponsored by the government. Fannie Mae® a lender that provides financial products and services that make it possible for low-, moderate, and middle-income families to buy homes of their own.

Freddie Mac® a federal mortgage company that provides a continuous flow of funds to mortgage lenders, ultimately helping homeowners and renters get lower housing costs and better access to home financing.

Financing continued…… There are also non-profit organizations that help single women

with buying a house by offering them grants.

Some non-profit organizations; AmeriDream® Inc., a public service charity helping to expand affordable housing opportunities for underserved groups and, promote the value of homeownership as the foundation for building strong communities and individual prosperity.

Down Payment Assistance Program, an organization that helps homebuyers with the necessary cash at for their down payment and closing costs that they do not have to repay.

Homebuyer Funds website for a list of other non-profit assistance .

4. How S&PW select a home

Statistically, women spend much longer on-line, sourcing information on potential new homes, than her male counterparts, and women are more likely to extensively network with their friends and colleagues about products, finance and ideas.

A woman will gladly include a couple of open houses on her way to and from the gym or the coffee shop and will fastidiously build a profile of how her home will look.

Women are also more likely to be encouraged by their family and friends in this decision .

The design of a home should now be more than the sum of its parts. It is not just defined by square footage and crown molding. It should be a human space. This home has to be almost maintenance-free, energy efficient and aesthetically pleasing.

Selecting the home continued……

According to NAR three out of every ten single females, purchase either a condominium or townhouse because of the low maintenance costs.

However, many do go for houses that need a lot of maintenance because they know it will be a good investment if the value of their home increases.

One-fifth of women are single-family homebuyers. Women also take their time to look at houses because they want to buy in safe neighborhoods and live in proximity to family and work. They are looking to purchase a home where they can live at least five to ten years and resell or rent out as they move up the economic ladder.

For a stress free way to shop for a home, check out Handling House Shopping Stresses.

Source: The National Association of Realtors 2003 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers Mathew Greenwald & Associates for Sears, Roebuck and Company, Release July 2004 Women and Homeownership Fact Sheet

5. Resources and Tips

• Women Associations• Books and Videos• Organizations• Websites• Do it Yourself Repair and

Construction

Women Associations & Club

National Association of Home Builders, http://www.nahb.org

Business & Professional Women USA, http://www.bpwusa.org

America Oldest Women Association, The National Association of Coloured Women’s Clubs, Inc.

Financial Women Association, http://www.fwa.org

American Association of Universities Women, http://www.aauw.org

U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce, http://www.uswcc.org

Women’s Bar Association of the State of New York, http://www.wbasny.bluestep.net

Women Associations/Club

Concerned Women of America, http://www.cwfa.org

Country Club, Women’s sport such as Golf, Basketball, Volleyball, Tennis, Swimming e.t.c.

Women’s associations of different ethnic groups such as Korean’s Women Association of America, http://kwaoutreach.org

Books, Videos, Research Reports & More

The resources below are available for loan through Information Central. Up to three books, tapes, CDs and/or DVDs can be borrowed for 30 days from the Library for a nominal fee of $10. Call Information Central at 800.874.6500 for assistance.

Buying solo: the single woman's guide to buying a first home, (New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2005). HF 5438 Su6 2004 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, (Chicago, IL: National Association of REALTORS®, 2004). HD 1341 N21hs

Redesigning the American dream: Gender, housing, and family life, New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Co., 2002). HD 7293 H39

10 tips for selling to female buyers, (Communique, Apr. 2000).

Americans and their homes: demographics of homeownership, (Ithaca, NY: New Strategist Publications, 1998). HD 1341 R91

Don't overlook single women buyers!, (Today's Buyer's Rep, May 1998).

Assisting women head of households to own more homes, (California Real Estate, May 1997).

Home of her own, (Georgia REALTOR®, Jan. 1997).

Useful Websites

Fair housing laws and presidential executive orders, (US Department of Housing and Urban Development, 2003).

Women and housing: A status report, (Silver Spring, MD: McCauley Institute, 2003).

State of the nation's housing, (Cambridge, MA: Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, 2004).

The material on this page is presented byNAR's Information Central.

Updated Nov. 2005

Need Help?

Visit the Realtor.org Customer Support page, chat with us online, or call NAR's Information Central at 1-800-874-6500.

Do It Herself Repair & Construction

Home Depot, which on May 15 held its first nationwide Do-It-Herself home improvement workshop for women, says 55 percent of its noncontractor customers are women.

A recent survey of Oak Brook, Ill.-based Ace Hardware's smaller franchise stores estimated 42 percent of customers are women, but they spend 30 percent to 40 percent more than men do per visit.

Self-assurance rises: Women's confidence levels are increasing as well, according to the Lowe's study. Women initiate 80% of all home-improvement projects and represent half of Lowe's customer base, according to the company. Compared to a year earlier, women characterized themselves as intermediate or advanced as opposed to beginners, says Lowe's. 94% of all female homeowners have completed a home-improvement project on their own at least once, the survey says.

One reason for this turnabout is all the information on the Internet, Lowe's Web site alone has 600 illustrated projects for the do-it-yourselfers.

There are the television shows on home improvement .

6. Next Steps

• It’s Up to You• Introduce the presentation to

customers and prospects• Learn to make the presentation or

invite the MMP Team to do it for you