Since seeing the influence of women in choosing apartments, Connor has honed his firm’s overall strategy over the past few years. “When we’re doing acquisitions, we’re looking at niche markets or submarkets that we think would be attractive to women,” he says. The strategy also extends to Connor’s marketing plan. The company includes lifestyle information, such as restaurant and shopping recommendations, on its Web site. “In the design of our Internet marketing, we really try to put some emphasis on women,” he continues.
That mentality continues into the units. In fact, when The Connor Group launched a $20 million rehab program for 3,000 units, it test-marketed different types of products on women. The men in the company wanted cherry cabinets and black appliances. But when the women showed a preference for stainless steel and natural wood, that’s the direction the company went in.
London says Kettler tries a similar design sensibility, appealing to women by mimicking luxury hotel spaces found in places such as New York. “We look at hotels and [their] lobbies—at the choice of materials and color schemes,” she says.
Single women would rather own than rent.
Perhaps the reason apartment owners aren’t focused on single women—especially when compared to their interest in Gen Y, for instance—is because single women demonstrate a much greater propensity to buy than other demographic groups.
“If we find that younger women are shifting to the for-sale sector, there may not be a reason for multifamily folks to pursue them,” says Shyam Kannan, vice president and director of research and development for RCLCO, a real estate advisory firm based in Bethesda, Md. “Single women below the age of 34 are becoming home buyers before marriage or child rearing.”
Consider this: Today, 11 percent to 12 percent of homes are owned by single women, and that number will grow as more women become home owners. In fact, nearly one out of every four homes (22 percent) bought in 2006 was bought by a single woman, according to the National Association of Realtors. By 2010, there will be 31 million female-headed households in the country, says Be Jane’s Horton. “It’s a big phenomenon,” Horton adds. “Builders have shifted to be focused on women.”
And it’s little wonder. Despite the struggling U.S. economy, women are still a powerful financial force. Women are the fastest-growing segment of new business owners, and the number of women earning $100,000-plus has tripled in the past decade, according to the Employment Policy Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization. Plus, women spend $4 trillion annually, which accounts for 83 percent of all consumer spending, says Hollywood, Fla.-based WomenCertified, a women’s consumer advocacy and retail training organization. By 2010, women will account for about 50 percent of the anticipated $14 trillion in private wealth in the country, according to The Power of the Purse: How Smart Businesses Are Adapting to the World’s Most Important Consumer—Women by Fara Warner (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006). The book notes that 41 percent of the 3.3 million Americans with incomes exceeding $500,000 are women and that women control or influence 67 percent of household investment decisions.
Deborah Brett, owner of Deborah L. Brett and Associates, a real estate consulting firm based in Plainsboro, N.J., thinks that’s why condo builders, in particular, have been able to capitalize on such preferences. “You will see some single women buying single-family detached, but I think it’s more of a condo or townhouse thing,” she says.
Right now, however, a historically tough for-sale market may keep many women in rental housing. There’s still a group of women who can’t afford to buy. At the bottom of the financial spectrum, single women still suffer. More than 40 percent of unmarried women have household incomes of less than $30,000 a year, according to “Overlooked So Far: The Nation’s Unmarried Women in 2008,” a report from The Center for American Progress Action Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. What’s more, another report, “The Female Factor 2008: Why Women are at Greater Financial Risk in Retirement” from the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, says women spend less time in the workforce and have lower lifetime earnings than men, earning 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. That translates into a median retirement income valued at just 58 percent of men’s.
But long-term, Kannan thinks apartment owners may need a new script. “The challenge to the multifamily folks will be to make a compelling case to these women that they should rent,” he says. “What can be offered in terms of product and placemaking that gives them a reason to choose rental properties as opposed to for-sale?”
