Women still behind on property ownership, new report shows

Women continue to trail behind men in home ownership by 3%, according to Corelogic’s annual Women and Property Report for 2023.

The positive news is that since the snapshot taken in January of last year, there was a marginal decline (0.3%) in the gap between property owned by females and males.

This minor closing of the gap was helped by a decline in joint male-female home ownership and a slight increase in female ownership since last year.

Investment property results also show some cause for concern, with Corelogic finding that Aussie men own 7% more investment properties than women.

Corelogic says that despite a sharp fall in home values over the past 12 months, home ownership remains fairly consistent generally.

What has caused the gender gap in home ownership?

This latest report suggests that a large reason behind this inequality in home ownership is because of the gender wage gap - as of November 2022, the wage gap in Australia was 13.3%.

Corelogic used average weekly earnings data and the median Australian dwelling value (as of January 2023) to estimate how many months it would take a man to accumulate a 20% deposit for a home compared to the time taken for a woman – it came to 100 months of savings for a man, versus 113 months for a woman.

So that’s basically a year’s difference.

Why does property ownership matter?

It’s important to track rates of home ownership across different intersections of society to take note of patterns and see what can be done to reduce inequality.

The ways of accumulating wealth have been changing, for example.

According to Corelogic, “an extended period of low interest rates between 2008 and 2022 have seen substantial gains in asset values over wages and savings”, which means it’s become more important than ever to have concrete assets (such as property.)

Figures from the Reserve Bank from September 2022 point to 57% of household wealth being held in housing.

Unfortunately, buying a home is particularly hard in today’s economy with rising interest rates that can typically make it more expensive to secure a home loan.

Home ownership and building wealth

Home ownership is very often a source of wealth for funding costs later in life.

It’s one of those investment areas that tends to perform well over a longer period of time, based on figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The result of this is that older Australians who haven’t broken into property and retire as renters, are often faced with greater levels of economic stress.

This also can extend to women who haven’t broken into the market, with women more likely to end up facing economic hardship later in life than men.

The challenges can be overcome however. There are ways to build up your savings and start planning for a home purchase and we have a couple of handy guides on this, including one on how to buy your first home and one on how to save for a home deposit. 

Home ownership isn’t easy but the task can be made simpler with good research. At Mozo, we compare the best home loans on the market that can help you get started and potentially save money.