Single Women Own 2.6 Million More Homes Than Single Men

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A Monday show

Welcome to Mortgage Mom Radio. I’m Debbie Marcoux, the Mortgage Mom, and today is Monday — I usually come on live on Wednesday. I didn’t send a text message out for this one, because I’m still doing my regular show on Wednesday and I’ve promised over and over that I won’t text you more than once a week. I didn’t do a show last Wednesday, so I feel like I owe you a little information. This is the fun one; Wednesday is the serious one.

If you want to catch at least one show live every week, text the word MOM — nothing else, not “subscribe,” not “opt in” — to 844-935-3634, that’s 844-WE-LEND-4, and you’ll get one message a week with the link.

The tools app

I want to talk about my phone app, because a lot of people don’t know it exists and it’s the best toolbox you can have at your fingertips if you’re thinking about financing anything.

There are actually two apps. The one in the App Store and Google Play under “mortgage mom” is for clients already in process with us — in escrow, moving through a purchase or refinance. The tools app is completely separate, and you get it by text. Quite a few people tried this weekend and texted “phoneapp” as one word, which doesn’t trigger the automated reply. It has to be two words: PHONE space APP, to 844-935-3634.

Here’s why I care about it. It’s a principal-and-interest calculator that also factors in your taxes, your homeowner’s insurance, mortgage insurance if you’re under twenty percent down, the funding fee on a VA loan, the upfront mortgage insurance premium on an FHA loan, the guarantee fee on a USDA loan. Knowing your actual monthly payment is how you decide whether a house works. If it’s on your phone and you’re walking a property with a realtor, you can tell in a minute whether this is the house for you at that payment.

When you’re out on the weekends looking at Zillow or realtor.com or Redfin, the payment those sites show you is usually not accurate, because it isn’t accounting for everything that belongs in it. This gets you far closer to the real number.

You can also strip all of that out and run a plain principal-and-interest loan — thirty thousand dollars at six percent over five years, and it gives you the payment. I use it that way myself. If you’re sitting at a car dealership and they’re telling you the payment, the rate and the term, you can check on the spot that nothing extra has been slipped in there to be financed. That is a big deal with car dealerships.

There’s an affordability calculator too: put in your monthly income and your monthly debts and it gives you a rough estimate of what you might qualify for. That’s for the people who are a little shy, not quite ready to pick up the phone, and just want to know what their price range looks like. There’s a refinance calculator on the same lines. And you can call us or email anyone on the team straight from the app, and watch my past home buyer workshops through it — the ones that take you from what the terms mean, through which programs fit whom, credit, pre-approval, documentation, all the way to closing and getting your keys.

Just understand what it is and isn’t: it gets you into the ballpark. For an actual rate quote we still need to talk to you, take an application and know your real credit score. Heidi says the loan calculator is the piece she uses all the time, for herself and for clients. Mine might be the call button — when I’m out running errands I don’t want to look up a number, I want to press a thing.

Go ladies: single women outpace single men

Heather on my team is a licensed real estate agent and a member of the California Association of Realtors, which means she gets material I don’t — I’m not a licensed agent, so I can’t tell you what your house is worth. I can search Zillow and Redfin, pull title, look at what neighbors closed at and how their square footage compares to yours, and give you a decent anticipation of where an appraisal lands. But Heather has the MLS and she gets these articles, and she shares them with me.

This one I loved. Single women outpace men in homeownership. Historically women have faced more financial hurdles than men and earn 83 cents for every dollar a man makes — and yet single women own roughly 10.7 million homes compared with 8.1 million for single men, according to a recent LendingTree analysis of 2021 Census data.

So ladies, a huge round of applause: you are not making the same income, and you are 2.6 million homes ahead. Boys, you and Mom need to talk, because we need to get you out there looking. We need it fifty-fifty.

The article makes the serious point too: the trend has long-term financial implications, because homeownership is one of the most effective ways to build personal wealth. A typical homeowner who bought in 2011 had accumulated $225,000 in housing wealth by 2021, on average, according to a National Association of Realtors analysis from 2022. Don’t take my word for any of it — go look it up and check that Mom isn’t giving you faulty information.

Why I keep pushing ownership

Owning is part of your financial plan and part of your retirement. Think about it this way: buy a home while you’re single, and if your partner has done the same, then when the two of you join finances you own two pieces of real estate instead of one. You can live in one and rent the other. Then you put your money together and buy a third, and you’ve immediately started a portfolio.

Diversity matters. You should have money in retirement funds, in a 401(k), in the market, and in real estate — in many places, and you should be using all of the tools.

And if you call us and you’re not ready, we do not tell you no. Ever. We give you a game plan. Maybe you just started your business and you need a second year of tax returns filed. Maybe your income is where it is because raises are coming. Maybe it’s pay off this card, or get the score to this number. If you don’t know what you need, you never get there — you just sit and wonder, maybe I could, probably I can’t. But if you make the call and hear that it’s X, Y and Z, or that you’re already ready, you get motivated and you go do it. The consultation is free and we don’t bite.

Where the market stood

This is a good time to be considering it. Prices have come down a little, rates came down a little, and we’re seeing more mortgage applications, which means more activity and more sales starting to happen. Homes have been listed longer than usual, sellers are more willing to negotiate, and you aren’t bidding against thirty or forty offers — getting an offer accepted is far easier when you’re the only one, or up against one other contract.

I know many of you don’t believe it. Two years ago I said if you’re thinking about buying or refinancing, now is the time, because rates next year will be higher. I was not wrong. In 2021 I said the same thing about the following year. I was not wrong. People kept telling me they’d wait for rates to come down, and by September of 2022 we hit seven and a half percent.

Things dipped again after that, and I kept saying take advantage of that sweet spot. We’ve already given some of it back — rates have ticked up since the Federal Reserve’s quarter-point increase two weeks ago. Mortgage rates aren’t directly tied to the Fed; it’s what happens in the market afterward, in mortgage-backed securities and where investors put their money, that moves our rates. Every analyst I’m reading expects seven and a half to eight and a half percent by year end. Right now we can still get people into the fives. I don’t have a crystal ball and I can’t promise you what year end brings, but hear me: if I’m telling you it’s a good time to buy, go buy a house.

Homeownership creates a rising tide of personal wealth

Here’s the other piece Heather sent, again from the California Association of Realtors. The typical net worth of homeowners is about forty times greater than that of renters, with home equity often the largest component, according to the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances. But the benefits go deeper than the numbers suggest: moving into the ranks of homeowners requires planning, saving and prudent management of personal finances, and those habits pay dividends across the rest of your finances, not just the house. They let owners accumulate assets and better withstand financial shocks — a bout of unemployment, a large unbudgeted expense. And as a homeowner with predictable, perhaps declining housing costs compared with renting, more income becomes available for saving and investing, which boosts overall wealth apart from home equity.

So: if you don’t own, work out what you need to do to become an owner. If you own and you want to move up, you need a plan. Are you selling? Keeping it? Renting it out and buying another? Do you have the down payment, and how much do you need for a second property? There’s a lot of planning in real estate, and most people do it backwards — they see a home they love, call the agent, get asked whether they’re pre-approved, say no, and only then call a lender, by which point they’ve already fallen for the house and may find they need more money than they expected. Start at the first thought, not at the open house.

One more thing: a collection can be your down payment

If you have real value sitting in a collection — sneakers, comic books, Hot Wheels, Funko Pops, anything you can validate and verify that you own and what it’s worth — that can become your down payment. We did exactly this recently. A gentleman had stacks and stacks of comic books and needed money down. He had them appraised, sold them, and we could trace the cash from where it came from, so we could use it. If you’ve been assuming you can’t buy because you don’t have the funds, look at what you already own.

Wrap-up

Call the office at 844-935-3634 — 844-WE-LEND-4. Text MOM to the same number for one message a week when I go live, or PHONE APP, two separate words, for the tools app. Go to mortgagemomradio.com and get the education, get the game plan, and start building your real estate portfolio. I’ll be back again on Wednesday. Talk to you all real soon.