But there has been a slight shift in homeownership in Australia
Women continue to trail behind men when it comes to homeownership, but the gender property gap declined marginally from the snapshot taken in January 2022, according to a new CoreLogic report.
CoreLogic’s 2023 Women & Property report showed that male property ownership was higher by roughly 3.1% than ownership among women, with female-only ownership accounting for 26.8% of properties analysed and male-only ownership comprising 29.9%.
Last year also saw a slight shift in the composition of homeownership in Australia. While the rates of male property homeownership remained unchanged, homeownership by women increased slightly from 26.6% in 2022. The portion of properties associated with joint ownership between men and women, meanwhile, saw a slight reduction, from 43.5% last year to 43.4% in 2023.
Gender disparity is more prominent when it comes to investment properties, with men owning seven percentage points more of the investment properties analysed than women. Men owned 36.3% of the investment properties versus the 29.5% owned by women. Investment properties co-owned by men and women comprised 34.2%.
The study also found that men own more houses than women, with male ownership associated with 4.3% more of housing stock. Of the houses analysed across Australia, 28.5% were owned by men, compared to 24.1% owned by women. Meanwhile, 47.4% of the houses were jointly owned by men and women.
Female ownership was the most common across units, with women owning 35.7% of units, versus 34.6% of unit stock owned by men. Joint male-female ownership comprised 29.7% of units in Australia.
“This finding has further implications for gender wealth gaps, because detached houses, and higher-value property more broadly, has been associated with higher longer-term capital gains,” said Eliza Owen (pictured above), CoreLogic report author.
In Australia, detached houses have seen 10-year annualised growth rates of 5.1% per year to January, compared to 3.4% across the unit market.
Click here to download the CoreLogic 2023 Women & Property report.
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