Press Article
THE SUNDAY TIMES - June 13, 2010
What women want - More single ladies are buying property, but what are they really looking for?
By Anna Mikhailova and Emma Wells
Feminists, look away now. A development above Spearmint Rhino, a lap-dancing club on Tottenham Court Road, in central London, is a highly popular place for single women to buy their homes — and we’re not talking about those who want to live a stair climb away from work.
The reason? Security. The flats have a separate entrance from the club, but it’s on the same street, which means burly bouncers outside until 4am every morning. Ben Everest, a partner at LDG, a West End estate agency, has sold flats in the building above the club to half a dozen single women over the years; he recalls sitting down with one client, a student in her twenties, and her father, who had bought the flat for her, to discuss the club, two storeys below. They both enthused about how secure the doormen make her feel when walking home at night. “Female purchasers seek safe locations in good, solid buildings and are more conscious of safety than men,” he says.
Forget most of those Bridget Jones cliches. The single woman is increasingly a force in the market — the proportion of mortgages taken out by them more than doubled from 9.8% in 1983 to 23.1% in 2003, according to the latest Halifax figures. But in trying to identify the needs of the singleton buyer, you soon realise that the gender divide is alive and well in the property business.
DIY is a particular sticking point. Some, usually female agents, claim that women tend to look for a “project”: not afraid of knocking down a wall or two, they see potential in a dated two-bedroom semi, where men see, well, a dated two-bedroom semi.
Others, such as George Frank, a director of Douglas & Gordon, an estate agency based in southwest London, offer a different perspective: “Knowing that her father will be doing the DIY in the future, a girl likes to involve her parents in the decision-making process.” (Note to househunting females: when you say that you’d like something Victorian, be sure to specify property, not the agent’s attitude.) On other matters, there is more consensus: women’s housing decisions, it seems, are guided more by emotion than men’s. “The initial instinct is crucial for women — it needs to feel ‘right’,” says Jo Eccles, director of Sourcing Property, a home-search company. As a woman, she’s allowed to say that.
Despite what the people behind Sex and the City tell you, huge wardrobes are not the be-all and end-all: “Women see entertaining space as more important than the bedroom,” Eccles says.
Financially, women tend to take fewer risks than men, putting up a bigger deposit: last year, 80% of LDG’s single female clients were cash buyers, compared with 60% for their male counterparts or couples.
So what do women really want? It depends on whether they’re first-time buyers, city career girls, country ladies or downsizing widows or divorcees.
FIRST-TIME BUYERS
An increasing number of young women want to buy a property on their own — before they marry or feel confident enough about a relationship to buy with a boyfriend. “Whereas our parents’ generation might well have rented with a friend and moved straight into the marital home, my contemporaries are getting on the property ladder in their mid- to late twenties and relishing the freedom of living on their own,” says Sarah Macdonald Smith, an associate in the farms and estates office at Strutt & Parker estate agency. So, if they do settle down with someone else who has done the same, they can both sell up — and jump a rung up the housing ladder.
The figures back this up: according to research by the Santander banking group, only 10% of first-time buyers were single before the 1980s. By the 1990s, the figure had risen to 32%, and in the past five years it has jumped to 37% — meaning single first-timers now outnumber their married counterparts.
For every single woman who succeeds, many more struggle to get a loan — in part because few lenders will fund more than 85% of purchases. “Many young people find it hard to gather together such a large deposit,” says Helen Adams, managing director of FirstRungNow.com, a website that advises first-time buyers. The bank of mum and dad is one option — last year, three in four first-time buyers were helped by their parents, compared with 40% before the downturn. Buying with a good friend or a sibling is another, although it’s important to have a watertight agreement about ownership.
“I would never have been able to get what I wanted without my parents’ help,” admits Sharanjit Sandhu, 28, an assistant vice-president at the investment bank Merrill Lynch. She has just put in an offer for her first home, a one-bedroom, £400,000 flat in Fitzrovia, central London. She saved up a £50,000 deposit and her family has promised to match it. Her main criteria were that she wanted to be in a well-lit area near her office, above street level.
CAREER GIRLS
Fast-forward a few years and things begin to look a little different. “Young women now have similar levels of spending power to men,” says Marcus Dixon, a researcher at Savills estate agency, who points out figures from the Office of National Statistics showing that the pay gap between the sexes does not begin to open until the age of 34.
It took Megan Lloyd Davies, 38, two years to find the right property. A ghostwriter who is now on her seventh book, she rented a flat in Bethnal Green, east London, before paying £355,000 for a two-bedroom flat in a bay-fronted Victorian house in Twickenham, on the other side of the capital, in December 2007 — the second home she has bought.
“I was obsessed by what I’d see out of windows, and from the second bedroom of most places I looked at, there were views to a brick wall,” she says. “Now I can see trees, Richmond Hill and a church. The flat has two bathrooms, one with an oversized bath and another with a big walk-in shower, which was one of the selling points. There’s also a large reception room with a big table that seats eight — good for entertaining.”
“At first, I thought, ‘Who in their right mind would live this far out of town?’ I have a single life, so I’m out and about a lot. But a friend introduced me to the area and I realised I could get a lot more from my money.” She likens her attitude to property to her approach to relationships. “It’s like falling in love,” she explains. “As soon as it feels right, the practicalities fly out of the window.”
In the capital, single females account for 22% of purchases, up from 19% a year ago, according to data from Knight Frank estate agency; in Fulham, they represent one in three buyers. Over the same period, the proportion of couples buying in London fell from 48% to 44%, and of single men from 34% to 33%.
It’s not all plain sailing, however. Rowena Ladbury, 42, a film script supervisor, occasionally misses having someone around the house to help her with unexpected problems. She bought a two-bedroom house in Hackney, east London, for £250,000 seven years ago. Although she occasionally lets out the spare room, she mostly lives on her own. “It’s fine, but I live in an 1850s property, which frequently needs lots of work, and it’s hard not having anyone around to help you out.”
Like many women living alone, Ladbury is wary of letting unknown builders into the house. Instead, she finds tradesmen using mybuilder.com, a directory that works as an online community, where professionals are rated and recommended by previous customers. “It’s an efficient way to source trusted local tradesmen,” she says.
COUNTRY WOMEN
“Many women moving to the countryside are doing so after a big life change — children, a divorce or a bereavement,” says Charles Birtles, a country buying agent. “They are not simply looking for a change of scenery, but for a different, slower-paced lifestyle.”
He warns against following the dream of a secluded property deep in the country. “A small farm may sound romantic, but it is far too easy, especially for newcomers to an area, to lose social contact,” he says. “A house on the outskirts of a village is a better option.”
Wannabe country ladies tend not to look for run-of-the-mill homes, instead favouring quirky conversions that will excite and intrigue their friends. Some, including Fiona McLean, who is in her forties and works for RM, an educational IT company, take an off-the-wall approach to property buying. “I bought my two-bed flat in Oxfordshire off-plan, over the phone, when I was on holiday in LA,” she says. “It cost me £105,000 and is my most expensive impulse purchase so far. I’ve certainly got a far better return on it than on my collection of Jimmy Choo shoes.”
She is about to start a new job as head of global PR for Promethean, a company that sells interactive whiteboards, and is considering moving again, this time to Buckinghamshire. She knows exactly what she wants: “I need my home to be low-maintenance, with parking and someone to take care of any outside or communal space. It also needs to be lock-up-and leave, as I travel a lot, and to have lots of entertaining space. I can’t be more than a five-minute drive to work, as I have never commuted.”
WIDOWS AND DIVORCEES
Step forward the glamorous ex-wife. “People are getting divorced at a younger age, and women in their forties don’t want to see any house they move to as a step down,” says Ed Heaton, director at Property Vision, a buying agency. Many psychological factors influence the buying decision post-divorce — often including a backlash against the former marital home.
“They want to move on with their lives and focus on the positives, so they look for something different and special,” he adds. “Often, women do not want what the husband would have insisted on before — acres of land, a wine cellar, a long drive.”
Charlotte Lock, of Savills’ new homes office in Bournemouth, says divorcees typically like the reassurance of gated developments. “They can block out the outside world as well as enjoy a feeling of prestige from the exclusivity — and it helps to keep ex-husbands at bay. Generally, small, mews-style developments are popular for peace and quiet. There are no playgrounds or children’s facilities on the smaller sites, and, once their own kids have flown the nest, single female residents don’t want to be bothered by the noise of other people’s children.”
For older women, whether divorcees or widows, much depends on personal circumstance. “Widows with grown-up children often look for properties nearer the kids,” says David Smith, a senior partner at Carter Jonas estate agency. “This provides support and, importantly, lets them help out, especially with grandchildren.
Practical considerations are vital. Ovens at eye level, cupboards within easy reach and simple gadgets are all key considerations. Hair and beauty salon facilities nearby are also popular. For elderly single women and widows, the lifestyle options offered by a property — room for gardening, bowls or long walks on the beach — take on a greater significance.
In London, the number of widows over 65 has surpassed that of married women in the same age group, according to a report published last week by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), and the proportion of single women in retirement homes is growing. Retirement Village, one of the country’s leading developers in this sector, has 59% single women, 32% couples and 9% single men in its latest project, Mayford Grange, near Woking, Surrey.
Lady of the Manor
Nikaila Beckett is not a typical female property buyer — not least because she is one of Britain’s most successful businesswomen.
Beckett, 48, who made her money in software, bought the Old Manor, in Dorset’s Piddle Valley — whose name has made it the butt of many a schoolboy joke — for £4.3m after her divorce four years ago and, after doing it up, moved in during 2006.
It’s deeply venerable: a big, grey-rendered, Grade II*-listed pile, dating from 1690 and based around a central block with projecting wings.
The house was owned by Penske, the motor racing company, which used it for corporate hospitality. “It was in good structural order, and in 2000 won an English Heritage award, but it wasn’t a home,” Beckett recalls. “It didn’t have a working kitchen.”
The most modern part is the east wing, added in the mid-19th century. There’s a formal dining room with an ornate plaster ceiling: those old aristos loved decorative bling. The high-Victorian decoration extends to her sons’ bedrooms, which have red flock wallpaper and leather chairs.
Beckett has taken pains to replicate the original butlers’ cupboards, and commissioned tables and chairs from Italian craftsmen for the formal dining room. She has allowed herself freer rein in the kitchen: there’s an island she designed herself, a blond-wood scheme and a black Aga. She doesn’t eat lunch. For wimps? “No, because I’m always trying to lose weight.”
The piece de resistance is the drawing room: Versailles-sur-Piddle, if you will. Beckett bought the chandelier from Harrods’ antiques section, the sofas from Harrods — but left the interior design to John Lewis.
The house is stuffed with high-tech features, controlled from a huge office upstairs, which she calls “mission control” — the least you’d expect from a woman who started work at IBM as a teenager, went on to set up a software business, NSB Retail Systems, and by 2000 was reported to be the country’s second-highest female earner, behind only JK Rowling.
So why sell after all that work? She bought the house to be near Sherborne, but one of her sons, James, 18, is going to medical school and the other, Charlie, 16, to sixth form in London. Beckett, who sold her stake in NSB in 2006, is moving to her flat in Barnes, southwest London.