Women have grown more powerful as a homebuying force over the last few decades, and they tend to take on more financial risk than their male counterparts, according to a new report from personal finance website SmartAsset. In 348 of 402 metros analyzed by SmartAsset, women had a larger loan-to-income ratio than men.
SmartAsset ranked the places where women are buying the most homes by looking at the percentage of mortgages approved for women and comparing that to the percentage of mortgages approved for men. Women are buying the most homes in Ithaca, N.Y., and Charlottesville, Va., the study showed. Here are the top 15 places where women are buying the most homes, according to SmartAsset’s rankings.
- Ithaca, N.Y.
- Charlottesville, Va.
- The Villages, Fla.
- Santa Fe, N.M.
- Rochester, Minn.
- Durham-Chapel Hill, N.C.
- Gainesville, Fla.
- Philadelphia
- Salisbury, Md.-Del.
- Napa, Calif.
- Tallahassee, Fla.
- Hot Springs, Ark.
- Santa Rosa, Calif.
- Elmira, N.Y.
- Springfield, Ill.
Source: “Where Women Are Buying Homes the Most—2019 Edition,” SmartAsset (Feb. 6, 2019)