Women more likely than men to own a home by themselves
BY Teresa Auch Schultz tauch@post-trib.com February 8, 2012 11:02PM
Carrie Adelman Ledyard, a realtor with Ginter Realty, owns her own home, photographed Tuesday February 7, 2012 in Hobart, Ind. | Stephanie Dowell~Sun-Times Media
Women Home Owners
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, more women owned homes than men in 2010 in almost all communities in Lake and Porter counties. The numbers do not include people who owned a home as part of a couple.
Beverly Shores — Women owned 23 percent of the homes, men owned 18 percent
Burns Harbor — Women owned 22 percent, men owned 25 percent
Cedar Lake — Women owned 19 percent, men owned 20 percent
Chesterton — Women owned 22 percent, men owned 14 percent
Crown Point — Women owned 25 percent, men owned 14 percent
Dyer — Women owned 21 percent, men owned 13 percent
East Chicago — Women owned 35 percent, men owned 21 percent
Gary — Women owned 42 percent, men owned 22 percent
Griffith — Women owned 25 percent, men owned 17 percent
Hammond — Women owned 30 percent, men owned 22 percent
Hebron — Women owned 21 percent, men owned 17 percent
Highland — Women owned 28 percent, men owned 15 percent
Hobart — Women owned 25 percent, men owned 17 percent
Kouts — Women owned 19 percent, men owned 13 percent
Lake Station — Women owned 29 percent, men owned 23 percent
Lowell — Women owned 22 percent, men owned 14 percent
Merrillville — Women owned 29 percent, men owned 17 percent
Munster — Women owned 24 percent, men owned 12 percent
Portage — Women owned 23 percent, men owned 17 percent
Porter — Women owned 21 percent, men owned 17 percent
St. John — Women owned 14 percent, men owned 17 percent
Schererville — Women owned 25 percent, men owned 14 percent
Valparaiso — Women owned 25 percent, men owned 15 percent
Whiting — Women owned 29 percent, men owned 20 percent
Winfield — Women owned 16 percent, men owned 1 percent
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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:35AM
Carrie Adelman-Ledyard is no stranger to owning a home on her own.
The Hobart real estate agent bought her first house at the age of 20. After she got divorced, she bought another home on her own a few years ago.
“My mom was very independent,” Adelman-Ledyard said. “She taught me to take care of myself.”
Adelman-Ledyard isn’t alone in taking the step to buy real estate by herself. According to numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, women in Porter and Lake counties are more likely than men to own a home by themselves. A sense of independence, along with doing better economically than men, is part of the reason local experts give for the difference in home-ownership rates.
According the U.S. Census, in 2010 26.9 percent of the owner-occupied homes in Lake County were owned by women on their own. That’s compared to 17.3 percent of the homes that were owned by men on their own. In Porter County, women owned 19.7 percent of the homes, compared to the 14.8 percent that men owned. The difference in the numbers stay the same for almost all the towns and cities in the two counties. The only exceptions are Burns Harbor, St. John and Cedar Lake, where men owned more homes than women do.
Adelman-Ledyard said she wasn’t surprised. In addition to owning a home on her own, she sells homes to lots of women.
“Women have been raised by their mothers to be able to take care of themselves and provide for themselves and that’s what they’re doing,” she said.
She said that she has sensed a change in attitude from when she first bought her own home. Before, she said, she would have been surprised that another woman was buying a home when she was single. Today, however, it seems normal.
Tanice Foltz, an associate professor sociology and director of the Women and Gender Studies Program at Indiana University Northwest, said the numbers were “fascinating” and that likely there were several factors at play. Part of it could be women who either got divorced or became widows and wanted to own a home despite not being married any more. However, Foltz said she knows several women who aren’t interested in marriage who have bought their own home.
“They’re very, very happy being by themselves and buying a home by themselves because they can do whatever they want with it,” Foltz, who also owns her home, said.
The economy could also be a factor in why women are more likely to own than men, Foltz said. Studies have shown that the economic downturn in 2008 hit men harder than women and that men were more likely to lose their jobs.
“This is one of the few times in history since World War II that women had less unemployment than men,” she said.
Anecdotal evidence shows that the home ownership rates are spread across various income levels. Highland real estate broker Jane Boyle said she and other agents at her office have sold several homes to women, some of whom have had children and some whom haven’t. For some, it’s their first time buying a home, but others have bought before, she said. The homes aren’t cheap, either. Boyle said she generally sells homes in the range of about $250,000.
“What I’ve seen is they’ve got good jobs,” Boyle said. “Some are professionals, some work in Chicago and buy nice places out here.”
Adelman-Ledyard works in a different price range, averaging more around $150,000. However, she said she also witnesses a variety of women buying homes. Some choose to buy condos, because there’s less they have to maintain, she said. Adelman-Ledyard said she chose a patio home for herself partly for that reason. Some are first-time home buyers, but Adelman-Ledyard talked of two sisters who each bought their own house after buying a condo together.
The first time she bought a house was scary, Adelman-Ledyard said, because of the worry that she might not be able to fix something if it broke. But that was back when mortgage rates were at 16 percent. With the interest rates and the prices of home dropping dramatically in the past couple of years, she said, women are realizing they can own a home for about the same amount of money they would spend on rent.
“Women are smart and independent and don’t want to waste their money on rent,” she said.
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