Do Women Have More Say In the Home Buying Process?
By Peter Sarmas on 7 Aug 2013
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“Man of the house” may be a thing of the past – recent data suggests that women are more likely than their male counterparts to be in charge of making major decisions in the home buying process.
The Ideas Exchanges Real Estate Program has released survey results which found that 25 of Australia’s leading real estate firm directors and chief executives agreed unanimously that women have “the greatest say in the choice of property” over men.
The survey illustrated that women were the ones in control during property negotiations, with claims that “at the end of the day in probably 90 per cent of cases the female is the key decision maker”.
According to Harcourts Victoria CEO Sadhana Smiles, “men and women don’t look at homes from the same perspective. Women look at the more emotional, lifestyle side of things — (and for) a home to live in. There’s an emotional part of it that plays a much bigger role.”
Karen Vogl from Hocking Stuart in Ringwood, voted the 2013 Australian Real Estate Conference‘s top performing female real estate agent, says that when it comes to both buying and selling property “women generally have the last say”.
“From a selling perspective, the woman is generally the sole decision maker and I find it very rare that the male partner gets too involved,” a trend that Vogl from has seen evolve, and one she believes will continue to grow in coming years. “In the past 10 years, I have seen a significant increase in the amount of women (young and older) buying property on their own.”
Not only do females in partnerships appear to have more choice in property over males, but Census data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) also shows that a higher rate of women now own their own home than men – with 65 per cent of females compared to 55 per cent of males having sole home ownership.
The evidence also demonstrates that women are more likely to pay off a mortgage. ABS figures show 48 per cent of single female households doing so compared with just 31 per cent of single male households.
