Redfin Report Finds That Middle-Aged Women Are Fastest Growing Group Of Single Female Homeowners

SEATTLE, July 23, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Redfin (www.redfin.com), the technology-powered brokerage, today released a study reviewing trends in homeownership among single females. The report compares behaviors among different age groups of unmarried women as well as with those of single men. The study is based on U.S. Census data from 1982 and 2012, as well as data collected from active homebuyers in Redfin's 2013 second quarter homebuyer survey.

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Among unmarried homeowners, women have outnumbered men since at least 1982 when the Census began collecting this information. While the number of single female homeowners has grown over the past three decades, in both 1982 and 2012 there were 15 percent more single men than single women owning homes before age 35. This outlying statistic is probably due in part to increasing social and professional options for women in this age group, causing them to be more transient as they prioritize building a career and delay starting a family and owning a home.

For New Yorker Rachel Musiker, a 28-year old Cornell graduate and Senior Public Relations Specialist at Redfin, her focus is on building her career and staying flexible. "I have already relocated several times for work and am considering going back to school, so buying a home just doesn't make sense right now."

Other key findings of the report include:

• The number of 45 to 54 year-old single female homeowners is the fastest growing cohort with a 120% increase from 1982 to 2012. Probable causes for this phenomenon include the large baby boomer population entering this age group over the last several decades and the prevalence of divorce leading to the creation of more female-headed households.
• Women ages 65 and older have made up the largest proportion of single female homeowners since at least 1982, but their share fell from 45% to 40% from 1982 to 2012, also likely due to the increasing share of baby boomer homeowners.

To read the full Redfin report on homeownership among single females, click the following link. http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/07/single-females-leaning-into-homeownershi.html.

Redfin also published a list of the top US cities for single, successful women, ranked by percentages of single women ages 25 to 39 with high incomes and college degrees.

Ranking Methodology
The top cities for educated, successful, single women was generated using the US Census 2007-2011 American Community Survey data. The ranking is for US cities with greater than 100,000 people. The ranking is calculated based on a combination of: percentage of women with four year college degrees, percentage of women with a salary greater than $65,000, and the percentage of women who are single and between 25 and 39 years old. The single men surplus is not used in the calculation.

To view the full ranking of the top 25 cities for successful single women, click http://blog.redfin.com/blog/2013/07/top-cities-for-successful-single-women.html.

About Redfin
Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate broker that represents people buying and selling homes. Founded and run by technologists, Redfin has a team of experienced, full-service real estate agents who are advocates, not sales-people, earning customer-satisfaction bonuses, not commissions. Redfin's online tools feature all the broker-listed homes for sale, as well as for-sale-by-owner properties that don't pay brokers a commission. Because Redfin is a brokerage and a member of the multiple listing services (MLSs) in each market it serves, Redfin's website and mobile apps show all the agent-listed homes for sale, and does not show any homes as active that are already off the market. The company serves 22 U.S. markets and has closed more than $8 billion in home sales. In 2012, Redfin was named one of The DIGITAL 100: World's Most Valuable Private Tech Companies by Business Insider. Follow us on our blog (blog.redfin.com), Twitter (@redfin), and Facebook (facebook.com/redfin).

SOURCE Redfin