Women own more units and fewer investments properties

NEW research has revealed that affordability constraints and the gender pay gap are likely preventing women from purchasing houses, which historically appreciate in value more than units, as well as investment properties.

The information comes via CoreLogic’s 2022 Women & Property report for Australia and New Zealand and was released on International Women’s Day.

It suggested that women continue to have a less overall share of property ownership than men, making them potentially disadvantaged by recent wealth gains in real estate.

The report found that 26.6 per cent of residential property in Australia had female ownership, compared to 29.9 per cent male ownership.

That Men own 28.5 per cent of all the houses analysed versus women’s share at 24 per cent but women have a higher incidence of unit ownership at 35.2 per cent versus men’s 34.7 per cent share.

Meanwhile men own 36.4 per cent of all investment properties analysed while women own 29.1 per cent.

All this could be affected by the gender pay gap in full time ordinary earnings even though it rose from 13.4 per cent at November 2020, to 13.8 per cent in November 2021, according to ABS data.

Co-authors of The Female Investor – Creating Wealth, Security, and Freedom through property, Nicola McDougall and Kate Hill, said that the research highlighted the increasing disparity between wealth outcomes for men and women.

“As is mentioned in the report, given that most people’s wealth is tied up in their homes, this means that if you don’t own a property, or have to purchase a unit rather than a house due to affordability reasons, then you will forever be on the back foot financially,” Ms McDougall said.

“The report also found that it generally takes women one year longer than men to save a deposit for a property because of the gender pay gap, which reduces the potential capital growth that they can earn during ownership as well.”

Ms Hill said that the higher percentage of unit ownership by women was not surprising given the more affordable buy-in prices, however, they may struggle to ever upgrade to a house.

CoreLogic’s Hedonic Home Value Index as of January 2022 shows 10-year annualised growth rates in Australian house values was 6.2 per cent per annum, compared with 4.1 per cent per annum for units, the CoreLogic report found.

“This means that women who have managed to purchase a unit are not seeing the value of their properties increase by the same percentage as houses, which often prevents them from upgrading to a house and also reduces their overall wealth position at retirement,” Ms Hill said.

Another concerning finding in the report was the fact that men own 105,000 more investment properties than women in Australia, which reportedly accounts for nearly 70 per cent of the discrepancy between male and female property ownership.

“The new research highlights why it’s so important for women to take charge of their financial futures as well as improve their overall financial literacy so they understand the serious role that property ownership plays in their long-term financial security and stability,” Ms Hill said.