Houses: On A Solo Woman’s Buying Mind
There’s more to the topic of housing than meets the eye.
Smaller houses, multi-family dwellings, condos and townhouses, built from more environmentally-friendly building materials are IN. Why?
The fact that solo women are driving the market may be key. According to "The State of the Nation’s Housing 2005" published by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University: "Households headed by unmarried women with or without children have accounted for nearly a third of the growth in homeowners since 1994."
- Single women are now the second-largest group of home buyers, behind married couples.
- Single women bought houses at twice the rate of single men, who represented only 8 percent of all buyers in 2004.
- The median age of those single female home owners is 42, according to the National Association of Realtors.
Concerns for all home buyers these days:
- Energy efficiency. There are a host of Katrina-driven, and international relations-related effects on oil and natural gas prices, and home buyers are paying a lot more attention to insulation, furnace efficiency, windows and more.
- Overall environmental impact/footprint. The consideration of renewable building materials, how much square footage the household really needs and where to site the house for most responsible land use/tree cutting all add a whole other layer of concerns. The homebuilding industry is taking this market so seriously, they’ve just launched a new magazine focused on it: GreenBuilder (the first issue is January 2006).
Solo women specifics:
- New definitions of family. These women can be mothers or not, live with other solos in group houses, or live alone but in a tight community of other women like them (in condos or townhomes, for example) where they share chores or childcare. "Family" for these women could include friends, neighbors or pets, as well as their parents and perhaps their kids.
- Safety. Women who live solo (by choice or not) have to be that much more aware of the safety of the neighborhood, complex or communities they are considering, as well as the structure and security features of any dwellings they buy or build.
Things are different today. Homes have to be designed and communities planned with more thought and awareness of societal and environmental changes. Solo women make up a large portion of the settlers in this new housing frontier.
Do the realtors, builders, and hardware stores on down to tool manufacturers know they have a huge opportunity to demonstrate their relevance to the lives of these women? As I sit in my small house dreaming of better windows, doors and more insulation (oh.. these killer Vermont winters…), among other things, I am one solo woman who will be keeping her eye on it.
