It’s Official! Single Women Own More Homes than Single Men

Although the gender wage gap in the United States is still frustratingly real, it seems like single women have managed one major win over their single male counterparts: home ownership. A recent study by LendingTree found that single women own more homes than single men, to the tune of a nearly three million home difference, proving that buying a home as a single woman continues to be a worthy and killer accomplishment, especially amid the wild real estate market of the past several years.

According to the study, single women homebuyers have 10.95 million homes, while single men own 8.24 million, with roughly 13 percent of those women holding the titles to their homes, compared to around 10 percent of men. Given that women still earn, on average, 82 cents to every dollar a man earns for the same exact work, these stats are no small potatoes when zooming out and looking at the bigger picture.

And while single women are scooping men across the country, some states show a larger homeownership gap than others. For instance, 15.34 percent of owner-occupied households in the state of Delaware are owned by single women — 5.89 percentage points higher than the share of homes owned by single men. After Delaware, Louisiana and Mississippi have the highest single-women homeownership rates, at 15.19 percent and 14.84 percent, respectively. For comparison, single men own 10.71 percent and 10.85 percent of owner-occupied households in the same states.

There are a few states where men have the edge over women, though. The homeownership rate is highest among single men in New Mexico, North Dakota, and Alaska, with single men owning 12.85 percent, 12.74 percent, and 12.44 percent of all owner-occupied housing units in these respective states, which Jacob Channel, senior economist at LendingTree and author of the report, credits to the prevalence of male-dominated industries in those states.

Still, the stats for women overall are nothing to sneeze at, as Channel told CBS MoneyWatch. “A home for most people is going to represent the biggest portion of their overall net worth. Owning a home helps you access considerably more wealth.”

As for how they landed on these numbers, LendingTree analyzed microdata from the U.S. Census Bureau 2022 American Community Survey, focusing on owner-occupied housing units whose owners were living by themselves. The researchers divided the number of homes occupied by either men or women homeowners who lived by themselves by the total number of owner-occupied homes in a state, taking into account homes with multiple owners and occupying residents. They then subtracted the percentage of homes owned by women who live alone in a state by the percentage of homes owned by men who live alone in that same state.

Put simply: Let’s hear it for girl power! For more info, check out the full report here.