When it comes to home buyers in China, more women are going it alone — an indication that women are becoming more educated and highly-paid in big cities.
According to a market survey completed by several realty agencies in the country, 40% of Chinese women are planning to do it independently, Yicai Global reported.
The survey added that the Covid-19 epidemic has also prompted 41% of the women surveyed to postpone their residence purchase plans, the report said, but almost 82% of these respondents intend to buy houses within five years.
As for the source of funding for these, 38.8% of the surveyed said they had their own means, about 40% needed to buy jointly with their spouses, and about one-fifth said they will rely on parental support, the report said.
The survey was jointly released by the resource-swapping Platform 58.com and Anjuke, an e-realtor operated by Shanghai Ruijia Information Technology.
The poll focused on professional women aged from 18 to 40 in first-tier and emerging first-tier cities, the report said.
About 43% of them will buy housing on their own, outnumbering the approximately 395 who preferred a joint investment with their spouses, but 81.5% of respondents believed they play a decisive role in this process, the report said.
Meanwhile, the number of single female home buyers over the age of 30 has been increasing, according to Beike, a Chinese real estate platform.
The report combed data on second-hand housing transactions in 12 major cities, including Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai, and surveyed around 1,000 women aged between 18 and 50, Xinhua reported.
In 2018, about 47.9% of the second-hand home buyers were women, up from 30% in 2014, the report said.
Also, about 47% of single women over the age of 30 have bought apartments, the report said.
“The rise in the number of single women homeowners shows the elevated social and economic status of women in China,” said Liu Lu, professor of economics at Southwest University of Finance and Economics.
As more women are educated and highly-paid in big cities, the trend is likely to expand.