Single women all over the country are snubbing tradition and entering the homebuying process without a diamond on their left hand or a partner by their side.

Single Women now purchase 24% of all homes being sold in the United States, so for the ladies who haven't yet took the leap it's now time for you to jump on the bandwagon!

Yep, it's time for you to get yours, a home of your own!

According to the National Association of Realtors single women were responsible for buying approximately one out of five homes purchased in the country - a total of 1.7 million homes - and that was in 2005.
There are a lot of factors that have contributed to this growth in women buying and owning homes. Increased wages

 have boosted female homeownership as the gender gap in pay continues to slowly narrow. Another major factor is the increased availability of financing for women. Not so many years ago a woman seeking to buy a house faced formidable obstacles to obtaining a mortgage - or any kind of credit for that matter.

Young women in today's workforce would be appalled at stories their mothers, if they were at all financially proactive, could tell about trying to even obtain a charge account from Filenes or Sears as late as the 1970s. Give credit (pun not intended but there is no other suitable word) where it is due to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac; their outreach programs intended for first time homebuyers and minorities have done much to propel women along the path to homeownership.

For example, divorced women are frequently given first time buyer status even if they owned a home in the marriage, making many low down payment or subsidized loans available to them.

Child support payments can now be counted as income, bolstering many newly single parent's ability to qualify for a mortgage.

These factors may account for the ability of women to increasingly enter the home buying market, but there must also be motivation. The reasons that single women purchase homes probably doesn't deviate much from the motivation of married couples. The crazy real estate market of the last few years has enticed many women into buying a home as an investment.

13 percent of Americans buying second homes (which could also be recreational but still allow for rental income) are single women and the more adventurous are increasingly buying older homes, renovating, and reselling them as a mechanism for asset growth. More traditional types of primary residence purchases also offer financial appreciation as well as many emotional security benefits.

And women, in case you haven't noticed, no longer view themselves as helpless when it comes to maintaining or even improving a home. They are painting the walls, installing new chandeliers and other fixtures.  Home improvement clinics at the big box home improvement stores are filled with DIY
homeowners without a Y chromosome in sight. Likewise all of those home improvement shows on television have attracted a wide audience of female viewers, a fact not lost on advertisers who are reaching out to them with new products especially designed for handywomen.

Gone is the fairy tale, a young girl grows up, gets married and then buys a home with her husband. In this day and age, single Women are stepping up to make their own down payments and secure their own mortgages.

My goal is to educate the consumer on one of the largest purchases they will ever make. Please feel free to submit all your mortgage questions and I promise to respond within 48 hours.
 

Carla Barnes aka The Motivational Mortgage Diva
 
Direct (678)548-9466