It Was a Bigger Deal Than I Realized

Why buying a house as a single woman is kind of a deal in the US.

When I bought my house, I didn't fully understand what I was doing. Not just in the logistical sense — though that was also very true — but in the historical sense. In the generational sense.

My mom and my grandmother were both so proud of me. More proud than I expected. More emotional than I expected. And honestly, at first it felt a little undeserved. Like I had stumbled into fulfilling some dream of theirs without quite earning it. I hadn't done anything extraordinary — I'd just bought a house. People do that every day.

But here's the thing I didn't know. Here's what I had to look up to really understand why it mattered so much to them.

Neither my mom nor my grandmother had ever bought a house on their own. They both got married, and then they owned a home with their husbands. And that wasn't just a personal choice. For most of their lives, that was essentially the only option.

The History Nobody Told Me

It was not until 1974 — fifty years ago — that women in the United States were legally allowed to obtain a mortgage without a male co-signer.

Before the Equal Credit Opportunity Act was passed in October 1974, banks could legally refuse to give a loan to an unmarried woman. Full stop. A married woman often couldn't even apply for a mortgage on her own — she needed her husband's permission and his signature. Women with steady jobs and excellent credit were routinely denied mortgages, credit cards, and loans simply because of their gender.

Even before that, the Fair Housing Act of 1968 had to be passed to make it illegal for banks to discriminate against women in real estate at all. And before that, women in many states couldn't own property independently in any meaningful way. Texas, for example, did not allow married or single women to buy real property without the permission of a close male relative until the 1970s. These weren't ancient laws — this was recent history. This was the world my grandmother grew up in.

My grandmother couldn't have bought a house alone if she'd wanted to.

And so when she watched me do it — a single woman, on her own, in Johnson County, Kansas — it meant something that I hadn't fully prepared myself to receive.

Where We Are Now

Here's what the data looks like today, and it's worth knowing.

In 1981, married couples made up 73% of homebuyers, while single women accounted for 11% and single men for 10%. Those numbers have shifted significantly.

According to the National Association of Realtors' 2024 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, single women now make up 20% of all homebuyers — purchasing homes at two-and-a-half times the rate of single men, who make up just 8%.

Among first-time homebuyers specifically, single women are even more prominent — comprising 24%, or nearly one in four, of all first-time buyers today, up from 11% in 1985.

Single women currently own roughly 10.9 million homes in the U.S., compared to 8.24 million owned by single men — and single women own more homes than single men in 48 out of 50 states.

None of that was possible before 1974.

And it still isn't easy. Women typically purchase a home for the first time with a household income of $71,300, compared to single men at $87,500. Forty-four percent of women made financial sacrifices to purchase a home, compared to 37% of men in similar situations — cutting spending on nonessential goods, canceling vacations, and sometimes taking on a second job.

Single women still tend to pay slightly more than men for comparable homes and earn slightly less back when they sell. The system wasn't built for us, and it still shows.

But we're doing it anyway. In massive numbers.

What It Meant

I bought my house in Johnson County, Kansas — a pretty conservative area, to say the least. I was a single woman, doing it completely on my own, and I didn't fully appreciate the weight of that until I saw it reflected back in my mom's face and in my grandmother's.

They were both so intentional about being part of it. They wanted me to have a beautiful home. They helped me pick out flowers and plants. My grandmother helped me make my first wreath for the front door and insisted we build a new one for every season. They showed up for the parts of homeownership that are soft and lovely and domestic, and they cheered loudly for the parts that were hard.

I think they saw something in it that I couldn't fully see myself — the distance between the world they'd grown up in and the world I was standing in. A single woman. Her own mortgage. Her own house. Her own wreath on her own front door.

Fifty years is not a long time.

What I did wasn't extraordinary. But the fact that I could do it? That part is actually kind of a big deal.

Here's to all the women who couldn't. And here's to all of us who can.

That is why I will be prioritizing single female buyers interested in my house.