Posted on 03/29/2005 11:21:03 AM PST by qam1
Fewer single women are waiting for Prince Charming to sweep them off their feet before they buy their first home.
The Wall Street Journal reports single women are buying homes in record numbers.
"It's like a dream,” said MiMi. “You are just not really there yet. It takes a few weeks to settle in, and say, ‘OK, this is my house!’”
MiMi, 29, isn't wasting anytime securing her future. She recently bought her first home.
Mimi is a part of a growing segment of single women, armed with buying power, that are unwilling to wait around for Mr. Right before investing in a house.
“If you keep waiting around and you keep renting, you're throwing away thousands of dollars each year that could be going towards equity,” MiMi continued. “So I wanted to make sure I was building something rather than throwing money into someone else's pockets."
The National Retail Association reports in 2003 single women bought one in five homes. That's close to two million homes.
The share of homes bought by single women has increased about 33 percent over the past decade, making single women the fastest growing segment of the home buying population.
"When I was a little girl we used to sing, ‘First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes whoever your friend is with a baby carriage.” I don't think kids are singing that song anymore,” said Triangle Realtor Linda Craft.
Craft says over the past ten years she's seen more and more single women wanting to buy a home. She says part of the reason is more women are thinking like business professionals nowadays.
“And the business professional says, ‘I don't want to waste money on rent, I want to own my own home. I want to start having a leveraged investment that is going to grow and protect my future,'" she explained.
Craft doesn't see the trend slowing down anytime soon. “I’ve been in business 20 years. I think 20 years from now, and I will still be in business, we will see more and more women, who are not only buying real estate, but own the majority of real estate."
Meantime, MiMi is enjoying her newfound independence, but is still open to meeting her knight in shining armor when the time is right. “Absolutely! You just have to take your time and do the responsible thing. The responsible thing is to watch out after your retirement and, like I said, investing in homes. Realty is one of the best ways to have a retirement or fixed income in the end."
Mortgage giant Fannie Mae expects single women to head 28 percent of all households by the end of the decade.
wait a minute, are you American, because I believe Americans are allowed to deduct some or all of the house mortgage interest from their taxes, so if you can deduct your mortgage interest it makes even less sense to rent
do you know what Canadians would give to have that little benefit????!!!!! but then again we don't pay capital gains tax when we sell our principal residence, what's the score for you Yanks......
More room for cool toys...
The injuries will heal, but the pains sometimes linger. I call it the voice of experience.
We're thinking of adding on again. I'm practicing my check writing skills
honey you can sit in front of the TV whether you are renting or owning......and you can go out and party whether you are renting or owning too, imagine that.....
We don't have to pay capital gains on the first $250,000 ($500,000 per couple) of appreciation if the house was your principal place residence for atleast 2 years.
I'm hoping to get mine by the time I'm 30.
I'm aware of the situation and condos and townhouses. She can go 275, if she buys at 225 she'll be in good shape. If she stays long term she'll be okay and better than renting. We've talked this through.
I think you mean to direct this to bbell, not Ruckus. I'm taking your side :-)
I am single and live in a nice house with my mom. I have my own koi pond and nice backyard. I put up a sun tent and sunbathe out in my own yard. I have a little yapping dog... and everything is nice.
makes sense on one level, 65 per cent seems high, and I wonder what the stats are for men not married by age 30,
but by age 30, I think sheer demographics puts more females than males in the population starting at that age group which of course increases as men and women age, [I mean my granddaddy loved the nursing home because he was one of the few males, plus he was tall and had a full head of hair, well he was a primo catch and he loved all the ladies attention, oops too bad for my evil step grandmother who was in the hospital portion of the home......LOL] since males have a tendency to engage in higher risk activities which means more males die before age 30 than females, then you add the recurring phenomenon that men over 30 are chasing females under 30, especially if they are looking for trophy wives and/or breeding material
My dream house is on 20 acres, most of which is wooded(oak trees preferably). Must have a firing range too.
And all of it outside any city limits......
Uh oh...does that mean our feeding tubes are going to be yanked out faster than a worthy married woman?
LOVE your tag line....lol...
sorry, I forget to reply to the actual poster sometime, I need to remember to leave reply blank if I just post at the end of thread and I'm not addressing someone specifically.......fairly newbie freeper, many lashes of the noodle for my transgression
I just moved over the weekend. Meanwhile my BUYERS backed out on my previous house. So, Moleman has two houses. I would sell the first one to UBL himself to get it off the market !!
I'm a single chick who bought her first house last July. Congrats and good luck. Home Depot will become your friend :-) They know me on a first name basis there!
This is good news. The more people who own their own homes, the more conservative they become (taxes, etc).
Original statement: It said in effect that if a woman that married by the time she's 30, she has a 65% chance of NEVER being married. At 35 years old, the likelyhood that she will never marry jumps to 90%
My contention was that if she is already married by 30 how can she have a 65% chance of never being married?
Most of your money goes to nothing when you purchase on a mortgage too. It really depends on the area you live in. Around here, typical mortgage interest plus property taxes plus HOA is actually much higher than renting i.e. you are losing money versus renting and investing the difference, even when accounting for appreciation. And this area is not unique.
It is not automatically a financially sound idea to buy a house if you can't pay for most of it upfront. Depending on property taxes and the amount you are mortgaging, renting may very well be a wiser choice until you have enough money saved that it does make financial sense. The only time that it is always a good idea is if you can pay cash for a place to live, the rest of the time it depends.
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