Executive Madeline Mordarski had checked all of the to-do boxes to buy a South Florida home in her early 30s: She had a high-paying salary, industry knowledge and money saved.
But those plans changed after a doctor visit. In 2022, she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, a type that typically strikes adults under the age of 50 with a genetic predisposition. Chemotherapy was a must. For Mordarski, the cost of the treatment and recovery ate up the $30,000 she had saved over five years.
“The down payment I had wasn’t there anymore,” said Mordarski, the 34-year-old chief marketing officer at the Miami, Florida-based family-run brokerage firm The Keyes Co. “It’s a unique situation, but it goes to show that it doesn’t matter if you have a good job, if you’re single or married, it’s not always attainable.”
Homeownership is still the goal for Mordarski, who is in remission, but it is an achievement that will take her a few more years to accomplish. Just like Mordarski, more and more single women are delaying homeownership in the United States. The median age is 40 years old for single women buying their own home here, according to data the National Association of Realtors released in November as part of its 2024 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. By comparison, the typical man is 34 years old when he buys his first home.
The National Association of Realtors gathered data from 5,390 respondents for its survey. It went out to 167,750 homes between mid-2023 and mid-2024. It has conducted an annual homeownership survey since 1981. The research suggests that since 2020, there has been a steady increase in the median age in which single adults buy a home. Five years ago, the median age was 31 for men and 33 for women.
“It has become the new normal to purchase at a later age,” said Jessica Lautz, the Washington, D.C.-based deputy chief economist and vice president of research for the association. “When we’re looking at that age rising, it indicates the lack of inventory at affordable price points for first-time homebuyers, the rise of rental costs, student loan debts, the length of time to pay that off and saving at a higher inflationary environment over the last couple of years.”
Policymakers express concern about the increased delay
On Tuesday, members of the House Committee on Financial Services gathered near Capitol Hill to discuss increasing the nation's housing supply. Many lawmakers said they were worried about how long it was taking adults to buy their first home. The overall age for single people buyers is 38, up from 35 in 2023 and 31 in 2014, according to NAR data.
That’s a concern for Democratic Rep. Janelle Bynum of Oregon's Fifth District, and her 20- and 23-year-old children.
“Let’s say you graduate from college or trade school and you’re 23. You have to work 15 years to be able to get into your own home?” Bynum asked, turning to the five witnesses and guest speakers at the meeting. “Help it make sense, please.”
One challenge is the lack of homebuyer education at early ages and opportunities to make it affordable, said 37-year-old Victoria Coster, a marketing consultant with the Raleigh-based Grit+Grace Consulting LLC. She and her 45-year-old husband purchased a single-family modernist-style house about a decade ago in the city's Brookhaven neighborhood. She said they would have bought sooner had they known about down payment-assistance programs.
“I wish someone would teach this in high school or college,” Coster said. “Homeownership is about building wealth. Why wait until 40 to do that? It’s a lack of education.”
Gender wage gap and zoning are playing a role
The challenge stretches beyond education. Women still earn less than men in many fields, said Mariya Letdin, the Kyle Riva associate professor of Real Estate in the Department of Risk Management/Insurance, Real Estate and Legal Studies at Florida State University. According to Pew Research Center, women earned 85% of what men made in 2024.
Zoning remains another problem, Letdin said.
“When we’re seeing where prices are going down and inventory [is] going up, it’s with places with few restrictions in terms of zoning,” she said. “On the flipside, the places that are most constrained on inventory, it’s because they have expensive homes and it’s difficult to build in the Northeast. Zoning is very restrictive. It’s difficult to get new units approved and that leads to a lack of affordability.”
While single women tend to buy at an older stage in life than single men, Letdin said, one bright spot is that single women in the United States are buying more real estate overall than men. In 2023, 62% of recent buyers were married couples, 20% were single females, 8% were single males, and 6% were unmarried couples, according to the NAR.
Mordarski, the Florida real estate executive, is well into saving $100,000 for a down payment and has multiple strategies in mind to afford a place, whether that’s buying an investment home out of state and renting it to build equity or splitting the cost with a friend or family member. Ideally, the lifelong equestrian said she wants a ranch-style house in Palm Beach County, Florida, with a stable.
Regardless, she’s determined to own a home one day.
“Maybe even with all of the first-time homebuyer programs, buying on your own isn’t in the cards, but there are other ways it can be done,” Mordarski said. “Until salary catches up with cost of living or there’s [more] supply, you have to make it work.”