Women: What Are You Waiting For to Buy Your First Home?

Despite our ideals of the 21st-century woman being more independent than ever, making more money than ever before and climbing the corporate ladder, many women still feel that certain life milestones need to come in a certain order -- marriage first, buying a home second.

But it certainly isn't true for a growing number of women. Look at these numbers:

• The single female segment of the homebuyer population accounted for 18% of all homebuyers in 2004.
• Single women purchased approximately one in five homes in 2003, while more than one in ten were purchased by single men.
• More women (15.5 million) than men (11.8 million) lived alone. Among these, women were more likely than men to own their homes (56% vs. 47%).
• Over the time period of 1994-2002, the number of unmarried females owning homes climbed from 13.9 million to 17.5 million.

So what are you waiting for?

It's true that buying a home means a lot of responsibility. It's the single-largest investment that most people will make in their lifetime. And it is truly the best long-term investment you can make.

Imagine...instead of putting your hard-earned money into your landlord's pocket and building up his investment every time you write a monthly rent check, by buying a home and making a mortgage payment, you are actually investing in yourself. You are building up equity (equity: the difference between the sale price of a property and the mortgage balance owed on the property), adding to the value of your property and to your own net worth.

You probably have at least one of the following: an IRA or Roth IRA, a savings account, a money market account, a 401(k), which proves that you are thinking about your financial future. You can continue to build your personal wealth and your individual portfolio by buying a home. Don't invest in your landlord's future -- invest in your own future. And start thinking about it now. There's no time like the present!