Influencers seem to be all around us these days, but did you know that women have an outsized impact on the real estate business? While women may have a long way to go until they dominate corporate boardrooms, they’ve made significant progress in the real estate industry in the last few decades.
Today, 66% of real estate agents are women. Back when the National Association of REALTORS® was founded in 1908, it was a 100% male organization.
And it’s not just real estate agents who are female: many of the top real estate brokerages are led by women, including Anywhere, (formerly Realogy) led by Sue Yannaccone and Sherry Chris; Howard Hanna, led by Helen Hanna Casey; Windermere, led by Jill Jacobi Wood; Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices, led by Christy Budnick; The Corcoran Group, led by Pamela Liebman; Zillow Group, led by Susan Daimler; The Keyes Company, led by Christina Pappas; EXIT Realty, led by Tami Bonnell, and Brown Harris Stevens, led by Bess Friedman.
Women occupy leadership roles in NAR and in state and local REALTOR® associations, too. Ancillary fields to real estate transactions such as title professionals are also filled with women employees. The American Land and Title Association had its first female president in 2000.
Besides handling the transaction side of real estate more often than men, women also influence the interiors of our homes today. More than 83% of interior designers are women.
In architecture, formerly a male-dominated field, about 40% of architects are female. And more are coming: two of every five new architects are women, according to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards.
Women making financial progress
Female influence on the real estate industry doesn’t come just from the inside, either. Single women made up 17% of all purchases, according to the 2022 NAR Profile of Buyers and Sellers, compared to 9% made by single men. But that’s not new: more single women have purchased a home than single men every year since 1981.
Yet before 1974, women were required to have a male cosigner to qualify for a mortgage. That’s the same year that the Equal Opportunity Credit Act allowed women to get their own credit cards, too.
It’s a good thing the financial world finally figured out that women are worthy of access to the same opportunities as men, especially since women make up 50.5% of the U.S. population.
Girls run the world when it comes to money, too. Women control more than 60% of all personal wealth in the U.S., with purchasing power that ranges from $5 trillion to $15 trillion annually.
Even when the money isn’t directly in their hands, women control or influence 85% of consumer spending in the U.S. While people used to think that men made the money while women controlled the purse strings, in many households, women do both. In fact, approximately 40% of working women in the U.S. now out-earn their husbands.
Many of those women invest in real estate for income and profit. About 30% of the members of the National Association of Real Estate Investors are women. While that’s still lower than the number of men, it’s a change in recent years, according to the association. In the past, the female members were typically part of a husband-and-wife investor team. Today, more of the women are investing in real estate on their own.
As a real estate professional, that means a lot of your marketing and interactions with clients should focus on the females — whether single or part of a couple. Women dominate the decisions around what to buy, where to buy and how much to spend. Finding ways to create compromise between males and females during real estate transactions can be a good skill to hone.
Don’t forget to make sure your buyers and sellers, both women and men, enjoy the protection of a home warranty. Learn more at cinchrealestate.com.