South African women property residential buyers are outnumbering men, says Lightstone.
Hayley Ivins-Downes, Managing Executive Real Estate at Lightstone, says that female-only buyers account for 38% of stock owned, and co-owned another 33% of properties. Men-only owners account for 29% of all property.
Ten years ago, mixed gender couples buying property outnumbered both men-only and women-only buyers, but this has changed.
“In 2016, women-only buyers surpassed men-only buyers and the gap between the two categories has increased steadily since then as the men-only proportion has remained relatively unchanged”, she says.
However, while more women were buying property, they were doing so at lower values (including social housing) than the other two categories. “The gap between prices paid by women-only buyers and mixed gender couples has widened since 2020.”
In fact, Ivins-Downes notes that women-only buyers dominated the <R750k price band but trailed mixed gender couples in the R750 million to R1.5 million price band and came in third in the >R1.5 million price band.
Women as with men, are also buying property later in life than before.
