Real Estate: Home for the Single Working Woman/Mother

It's a powerful sign of the times--22% of home buyers in the U.S. from June, 2005 to June, 2006 were single working women. This Yahoo! Finance story reports a couple of amazing facts: "The best-educated woman in America is 28 years old--the best-educated man in America is 56"--this could be the most astonishing observation I've seen in a long time.

And this one is most affirming: "Single women who might have been laughed out of a bank lobby 25 years ago are given the red-carpet treatment by mortgage lenders competing for their business."

And readers, this one makes me feel really glad that we are here for all the courageous single women of the world: "Forty percent of all births are to single women," he notes. "Those are not teenage births; teenage births have been dropping like a stone. These are adult women looking for Mr. Right who haven't been able to find him. There's no social stigma whatsoever in being a single mom, and she's got the money."

So as you think about having your baby and buying your new home, keep this in mind: If your rental cost is 35% or more lower than all it would cost you each month to own, it could make more financial sense to keep your landlord.

Women are incredibly powerful spirits. Our members are modeling single success and inspiring those who still have old messages imprinted in their hearts. Buying our own homes is just one of those things.