More women than any other group are buying property in Gauteng
Category Property Buying Info
Lightstone Property’s Cindy Bezuidenhout says this trend could be indicative of women becoming more economically empowered.
Female buyers are dominating Gauteng’s property market. But married couples still own the swankiest homes.
Cindy Bezuidenhout‚ lead analyst at Lightstone Property‚ said their data clearly showed that female buyers had been steadily increasing since 2016‚ noticeably overtaking the male and married couple markets. According to Bezuidenhout‚ this trend could be indicative of women becoming more economically empowered.
Reviewing the volume of sales by buyer type in the four main provinces since 2013‚ single female owners largely dominate in Gauteng and‚ by a smaller margin‚ in the Eastern Cape.
Married couples outweigh other buyer types in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal‚ followed single female buyers, and then male buyers.
Gauteng leads the property sales market in terms of volume‚ "and it is very encouraging to see the female market owning this space"‚ said Bezuidenhout.
Female buyers are choosing inexpensive homes. Bezuidenhout said: "One could deduct that the gap between male and female average sale price [can be] attributed to the income inequality between the two groups."
Picture: LIGHTSTONE
Lightstone said its data showed that since 2013‚ more than 130‚000 female buyers purchased in the values band including R250‚000 and under. This quantity is 20% higher than males in the same values band. It is the most popular price range across all purchasing types.
In a comparison of purchases by males and females over the past five years‚ males were found to have very similar frequency of purchases across value bands from R250‚000 and upwards‚ but slightly exceeded the volume of purchases by single females in the above R700‚000 range.
"It is heartening to see that women are becoming more active in these higher-value property sales‚" the report stated.
Across SA‚ married couples purchased properties with the highest value.
When it comes to buying cars‚ a Lightstone consumer study found that women were more likely to ask for advice from family and friends and would come to a final decision at the dealership‚ whereas men completed their research before entering the showroom.
Picture: LIGHTSTONE
An analysis of vehicle purchases over the past six months in SA shows that women purchase 48% of vehicles in the market.
The brand with the largest percentage of female buyers is Fiat, at 68%. Hyundai comes in second, selling 63% of their vehicles to women. Of the total Mazda purchases‚ 62.6% are by women and 59% of Kia’s are female buyers.
Women also feature in the luxury vehicle segment, with 15% and 6% respectively being buyers of Ferrari and Porsche brands.
"As transformation and the conversation of women in leadership take exponential strides within government and the private sector‚ women will become more economically empowered and the view of female ownership will continue to show more growth in all key metrics in the next several years‚" said Lightstone.
Author: Business Day