The real estate playing field isn’t level for women and men, a new study shows.
A recent report by Kelly Shue and Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of the Yale School of Management, “The Gender Gap in Housing Return,” with data from CoreLogic, analyzed over 50 million home sales between 1991 and 2017. Results indicated there are significant disparities in buying power and trends between females and males.
According to the report, single women, on average, pay 2 percent more for the same house as a single man, and also sell their homes for 2 percent less. After looking at several factors, such as age, listing agent, income, type of home, ethnicity and education, the report found that women are losing, on average, $1,370 per year on their homes when compared to men.
Why such a loss? The report states the market environment plays a big role, as well as buying with risk. Single women may be tied down with children or may be making lifestyle-based decisions versus financial decisions, for example, and so the timing is different, showed the report. Men may be purchasing riskier properties with higher returns.
“Women earn lower returns on housing partly because they tend to buy when aggregate house prices are high and sell when they are low,” said the researchers.
In a tight housing market, however, the gap is nearly nonexistent, they found. It’s the areas with a higher average age, lower average education and a higher population of single females that are more associated with a bigger gender gap.
“Gender differences in upgrade rates, preferences for housing characteristics and listing agents appear to be less important factors. The gender gap varies with market tightness and demographic characteristics, but remains large in regions with high average education, income and house price levels,” the researchers stated.
The biggest problem? It doesn’t all revolve on how the market is faring. It’s also about how women (especially single women) are perceived in the market. The report found that women are being treated differently from the start—especially during the offer phase. During negotiations, men typically garner larger discounts.
“People are more offended by lowball offers from female buyers. It is an unfortunate consequence of perhaps our culture, and the fact that we may expect that women are more willing to share the pie and share the surplus from negotiation,” said Shue in an interview with NPR.
The largest discounts typically go to a male buyer (with a female seller).
So, where do women win out? When they transact together.
“Women, on average, do better when they are transacting with other women,” Shue said.
Liz Dominguez is RISMedia’s senior editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at ldominguez@rismedia.com.
Poor women. Boo hoo.
Perhaps women need to be taught better negotiating skills.
It all comes back to hiring the right people. Vet your agent. Know their qualifications. I’ve been on hundreds of client interviews and can’t ever remember being asked about my negotiating skills or my commitment to representation. Never once have I’ve been asked if I would put my client’s needs above all else (I do!). Get past the bells and whistles, the glitz and the glamour and hire a qualified agent!
As an agent, I refer to my clients as buyer/buyers or seller/sellers and not their gender. In negotiations it is the same with the clients making the personal decision of where to settle or agree.
Anna on January 23, 2020
Women in general are more ethical than men in any situation. In the business world today the bottom line trumps everything including morals, ethics or just doing the right thing. It is clearly evident now from our president, the White House, Congress, our justice system and right down to our large corporations. We need more women at the top echelons and then change will happen. Let’s hope it happens soon.
Wow….really. the bottom line has been around along time, its not a recent phenomena. Its been carrying the day since man stood erect and howled at the moon. Women marry the bottom line. If by now there are not more women at the top echelons, you kind of have to ask yourself why. Ain’t nuthin’ hold them back.?
This article is trash. I am offended as a man and agent to be portrayed in such a negative light. No 2 houses are the same and no 2 buyers are the same. Sellers see green, not male and female. A greater number of men buy investment properties and homes that need some work. The end. To say that a woman should work with a woman is sexist. Shue should apologize for that statement.
A 2% difference is a “Wide Gender Gap”?? And honestly, how accurate can this study be with so many variables comparing one home to another, let alone comparisons of “age, listing agent, income” … ethnicity and education.”?
“In a tight housing market, however, the gap is nearly nonexistent”? So we’re to believe that in a tight market, suddenly women become better negotiators? If this study was accurately measuring the impact of negation skills, you would expect a larger gap in tight markets.
The majority of women I know are smart decision makers and excellent negotiators. This “study” reflects nothing more than a margin of error and tells us nothing IMHO.
More aggressiveness, more assertiveness, more logic, less emotion. But alternative points also well taken — less lies (though that seems normal now), more ethics, more integrity — things that more men than women need to work on.
First to get a good deal, you have to ask for a good deal. Then you have to mean it. I have been in the industry 35 years. I don’t see a lot of talent or skill in getting a good deal. If it were as easy as simply asking for it, women would get more of them, but they don’t even ask. I think most people, women and men, give attributes to Realtors in areas and aspects they most certainly do not have….like valuation and, negotiation. Most realtors could be selling you pencils, pillow tops or bird seed…they are just sales people who understand about 5 things necessary to get a real estate transaction closed. People measure success by how much a realtor has sold. The big sellers are considered the best, when in fact a chimpanzee could sell a home. Its not whether your home sells, its how the deal gets done. No one ever asks if the listing agent got the most money that could be gotten. And how would anyone ever measure that.
How odd, the Majority of Realtors in California, as an example, are women. Not too scientific or an accurate analysis, yet we all strive to either obtain the best value and return for our Sellers or the best price and value for all of our Buyers. Seems this doesn’t resolve anything. We need to serve all with respect and honor, don’t we?!
This is a sexist biased study. Where I work, it appears that women win out every time in both selling/buying and as Real Estate Agents/Companies.
Nothing more than a divisive article to try to seperate us by Gender. Where are the articles on working together with each other. 30+ years and I can’t recall gender being a factor in any negotiation.