Why Aussie women are less likely to own a home: ‘Missing out’

Aussie women are trailing behind men when it comes to home ownership, a new report has found. (Source: Getty)

Aussie women are trailing behind men when it comes to the Great Australian Dream of owning a home.

New research by CoreLogic found 26.8 per cent of homes in Australia were owned by women, compared to 29.9 per cent that were owned by men - a difference of 3.1 per cent. The remaining 43.4 per cent was owned jointly.

The disparity was more pronounced for investment properties. According to the report, females owned 29.5 per cent of investment properties, while males owned 36.3 per cent - a 6.8 per cent difference.

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Men were also more likely to own houses, while women were more likely to own units. CoreLogic head of research and report author Eliza Owen said this meant women could be losing out on capital gains.

“Detached houses, and higher-value property more broadly, has been associated with higher longer-term value growth so women may be missing out on a chunk of capital gains from the Australian housing market because of the type of properties they are purchasing,” Owen said.

However, women also tended to own more properties in markets with relatively high price points. The top five regions for female-only ownership were Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, North Sydney and Hornsby region, City and Inner South, and Ryde, and Melbourne’s Inner region.

Year longer to save

The gender wage gap has potentially hindered home ownership among women, Owen said, along with the fact that women are more likely to take on part-time work.

The gender pay gap, which is currently 13.3 per cent, means Aussie women can take longer to save up a home deposit.

“Analysis of full-time earnings of males and females suggest it would take men around 8.3 years to save up a 20 per cent deposit for the median value in Australia for men, compared to 9.4 years for women – and that’s based on full-time wages,” Owen said.

Owen said shared equity schemes could help more women and low-income households get onto the property ladder.

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