-
Almost 72,000 single women bought residential properties in South Africa last year, according to the research group Lightstone.
-
This makes them the largest single group of property buyers in South Africa - bigger than married couples or single men.
-
However, single women are still buying cheaper homes compared to the other groups.
- Women now also represent 48% of new car sales, Lightstone reports.
Last year year, almost 72,000 single women bought residential properties in South Africa, according to the property and vehicle research group Lightstone.
This is considerably more than both single men (62,000) and also more than couples - making single women the largest group of buyers in South Africa.
The graph below compares the number of properties sold to single women (bright blue), to those sold to single men (dark blue), married couples (bright green) and multiple buyers (dark green).
Cindy Bezuidenhout, lead analyst at Lightstone Property, says female buyers have been steadily increasing since 2016, noticeably overtaking the male and married couple markets.
Single female property buyers largely dominate in Gauteng and then by a smaller margin in the Eastern Cape. Married couples outnumber other buyer types in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
But while single women represent the most property sales, they are still buying cheaper homes.
South African married couples purchase properties with the highest value, followed by single men.
So far in 2019, married couples have bought properties with an average sale price of almost R1.2 million - compared to around R1 million and around R800,000 for single women.
Since 2013, women have been the main buyers of houses below R250,000.
A Lightstone report released last year, showed that women were responsible for 48% of new cars sales at dealerships in the six months to July last year.
Almost 70% of Fiat cars were bought by women, followed by Hyundai (63%), Mazda (62.6%) and Kia (59%). Some 15% of Ferrari buyers were women, and 6% of Porsche cars.
The report showed that the most popular vehicle types among women were the Mazda 3, Mazda CX-2, Ford EcoSport, VW Polo and Polo Vivo.
The survey showed that 60% to 80% of women are likely to take up offers of insurance, service plans and extended warranties, compare to between 50% and 70% of men.