Home prices are the highest they’ve been since July 2006, appreciating 5.5 percent annually in September 2016, according to the recently released S&P Case-Shiller Index. Sellers are enjoying ideal conditions: rising prices, limited home inventory and low mortgage rates, all of which are combining to create healthy competition for available properties. Buyers rarely secure their preferred home, and sellers have little to do in the way of renovations to ensure their house is promptly purchased.
How long will this seller’s market last?
A recent Zillow survey reveals that experts forecast the present seller’s market to become a buyer’s market by 2019. As the market develops, creating more favorable conditions for buyers, women homebuyers are a market poised to grow.
In 2015, the homeownership rate of female householders in one-person households was 24.56 percent higher than the homeownership rate of male householders in the same category, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Despite earning less, single women are becoming homeowners in formidable numbers.
Supported by college educations generating higher incomes, the approaching buyer’s market will only strengthen the already commanding purchasing activity of women homebuyers. Consider the following:
- According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in 2014, female full-time wage and salary workers ages 25 and older with only a high school diploma had median weekly earnings of $578; women with a bachelor’s degree or higher had a median weekly income of $1,049.
- In 1940, 3.8 percent of women held a college education; 2014 U.S. Census Bureau data reveal that 30.2 percent of women had a bachelor’s degree or higher.
The presence of women in the labor force will also allow more of them to enter homeownership. The BLS reports women in the labor force are steadily increasing. From 2014 to 2024, women’s participation in the labor force is projected to increase 5.8 percent.
How can you raise your bottom line by working with women homebuyers? You have to know what they want and market to them.
Women buyers may prefer working with a female agent, and convenience to family and friends is a significant consideration for women when buying. Age is an influencing factor, as well; older women hoping to downsize will differ from younger generations looking to live independently or set the foundation for a family. As your understanding of this market grows, your marketing needs to be fashioned accordingly.
Attract women buyers by accurately depicting today’s women. Marketing content portraying women as only mothers or wives is a thing of the past. Women are changing, and your business must recognize these changes. Allow your knowledge to influence your advertising, and your advertising to be inclusive of all generations. Diversify your representation of women and maximize your mortgage applications.
Desirée Patno is president and CEO of the National Association of Women in Real Estate Businesses (NAWRB).
For more information, please visit www.nawrb.com.
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