Agents and advisers who work with women say current conditions have steeled women’s resolve to solidify their grasp on homeownership.
Licensed real estate broker Amy Olson, left, details the amenities of a home to potential homebuyer Johanna Lara, of Chicago, as homebuyers arrive on March 30, 2022, to an open house in Northbrook.It’s a vintage Cape Cod, solidly built in the 1940s of brick, in a Skokie neighborhood bordering Chicago.
That is in line with data collected by the National Association of Realtors. The NAR’s 2021 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers found that single women comprise 19% of buyers, up by 73% since 1981. Meanwhile, the share of single male buyers has edged down from 10% to 9%. Homeownership is integrated into women’s deep desire to provide sustainable security for their families, said Emilia DiMenco, chief operating officer of the Women’s Business Development Center, which equips women with entrepreneurial skills and tools from its base in the Loop.
Meanwhile, two-career couples are finding that it takes every nickel of their combined incomes to capture that rarest of suburban properties: spacious, modern houses that can accommodate home-based work without any renovation.