AS I SEE IT
BY MARIANNE HERON
There’s an advert on TV which shows a couple who are first-time buyers looking for a mortgage. Several of the mortgage brokers they contact get their pitch all wrong before one gets it right. But now it seems all of them may be off trend.
There are more single home buyers out there and more of those single buyers are women, going solo as they get their foot on the property ladder. This appears to be a growing situation according to recent reports, where one Dublin property agent Owen O’Reilly found that last year women accounted for 55% of single buyers compared with 53% the previous year.
A sign of changing times maybe, but it’s the kind of statistic which begs questions. Is this a sign that the gender pay gap is finally closing? Or perhaps that the traditional pattern of couples marrying and buying together is starting to fade?
This is against a background where many first-time buyers are being priced out of the market and either ending up back home with their parents or else leaving the country in search of affordable homes or rents. House prices are rising exponentially due to lack of supply, with prices expected to rise by 5.3% this year but by as much as 10% in some areas. Intense competition may mean that second-hand homes sell for well over the asking price. The number of homeless have reached record crisis levels with 17,112 in emergency accommodation and increase of 10.6% over previous years. It has been proposed that the 8,000 workers building the MetroLink could be housed in prefabs, given the housing crisis.(Pity that hasn’t been suggested as a solution for the homeless).
Statistics bear out the answers to the questions above. The gender pay gap has shrunk down to 3.5% in favour of males, but there is still a shortage of women in senior management and women are still more likely to suffer poverty and deprivation compared to men, according to the CSO. There are fewer wedding bells in Ireland too. In 2023 there were 21,159 opposite and same sex marriages, a drop of 8.7% on the year before and in 2024 the number of marriages fell by 4%. Accord’s marriage service attributes some of the decline to the way that unaffordable house prices are causing couples to delay marriage and home ownership.
First-time buyers are older now and those with good salaries want to escape the rental trap.
Single women buyers seem to be more of a Dublin trend though. Martina Savage, agent and auctioneer with Sherry Fitzgerald McCreery, Kilkenny says couples are the main purchasers there. “Last Saturday I must have seen about 40 prospective purchasers and they were all couples,” she said and confirmed the way that second-hand houses sold above the asking price in a county where the average price is €350,000 for second-hand homes. One at that price, new to the market had already had an offer of €355,000 by the end of the first day. “It’s difficult for buyers,” says Martina.
One explanation for the trend in solo women buyers may be that their nesting instinct is stronger, whereas men are likely to wait until they have a partner before thinking about buying a home. ”Women tend to take the lead when selling and buying homes,”says Martina.
“We are seeing more single buyers,” says Ronan Crinion of Move Home estate agents, Dublin, while men are in the majority women are catching up.”Single buyers are focussing on apartments in the city centre with older homes as the second choice in the €400,000 to 500,000 bracket. Dublin 7 and 8 are greatest areas of growth.”
While percentage of single women are now outnumbering men in the single buyer market which represents about a third of all buyers according to Doddl, on- line mortgage brokers, is small in numbers it’s still a significant change.
Back in the day when I first moved here, the marriage bar, where women in the Civil Service had to leave work when they married, was still in place. It didn’t end until 1973 and married women still had to get their husband’s signature in order to open a bank account until around 1976.
It may be a small step in terms of numbers but it is a giant step for womankind towards equality.
