The latest numbers from the National Association of Realtors show that single women are owning on the homeownership front.

Women may earn 77 cents of every dollar that men earn, but when it comes to homeownership, women are not only leading the way – they’re doing so by a wide margin.

According to a recent piece in The New York Times, the homeownership rate of single women was nearly twice that of single men in 2012, with single women making up 16 percent of all homeowners to single-men’s 9 percent.

Rise of the Female Homebuyer

Women, the Times notes, first began to outpace men in the homeownership front in the late ’90s, and though no prevailing hypothesis exists explaining the trend, Walter Molony, a spokesperson with the National Association of Realtors, offered a succinct possibility to the Times: “it may be as simple as most guys don’t get serious about housing until they meet the right woman,” he said.

Also, it would make sense that more women are becoming homeowners, considering they are making considerable economic progress. According to a recent study from the Pew Research Center, more women than at any time are the primary earners for their households, with 40 percent of households with children (that’s four times the level of 1960) having women as the breadwinners – and two-thirds of those breadwinners are single.

Women and Real Estate

The Times article is just the latest in a line of interesting studies related to women and real estate, and thankfully, it decidedly contradicts one of the more contentious.

A recent survey had suggested that men were more interested than women in homeownership, but in light of the Times story, men are either extremely apprehensive in making home purchases, or the survey was completely off.