Aug 12, 2025
Kate, a marketing professional from Michigan who’s in her early 20s, runs her own business and makes more than $150,000 a year. She’s managed to save close to $125,000 for a down payment on a house, but she’s getting pushback from her friends and family.
The reason for the pushback? She is single. Kate recently wrote into The Ramsey Show seeking advice, saying she’s always wanted to be a homeowner and she’s confident this is what she wants to do with her money.
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“But a lot of people around me are pressuring me to not buy a home because of Christian beliefs that girls shouldn’t buy homes and men should be providers,” Kate explained to hosts Dave Ramsey and Dr. John Delony.
Kate doesn’t have a boyfriend, so marriage is likely not in her foreseeable future, but that didn’t stop Ramsey from highlighting where he believes Kate’s real problem lies.
“Leave the cult,” Ramsey implored. “That is not a Christian belief, darling. That’s a cult belief.”
Delony, meanwhile, echoed Ramsey’s sentiment.
“You know who says this crap? Men who are afraid of losing control of amazing women like this,” said Delony. “So they take their insecurity and fear and try to duct tape Jesus on the top of it to keep their crumbling kingdoms from coming out from under them.”
Single women buying more homes than single men
Kate likely isn’t the only single person wondering if it makes financial sense to wait for a partner before buying a house, even if the reasons have nothing to do with Christian beliefs. But many single people are doing it anyway, and some even prefer to buy a home on their own.
According to a Bank of America study, 65% of single women said they’d rather not wait until marriage to buy a home, while 30% of female homeowners said they purchased their home while single.
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In 2024, 62% of homebuyers in America were married couples, while 20% were single women and another 8% were single men, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
“Today, single women are surpassing all odds in the housing market by purchasing homes while having lower household incomes in an increasingly unaffordable housing market,” Dr. Jessica Lautz, deputy chief economist and vice-president of research at NAR, wrote in an article.
With high prices and mortgage rates, buying a new home can be challenging for anyone in today’s market, and it’s particularly tough if you’re not sharing the costs with another person. But it’s not impossible. Kate makes a higher-than-average salary and, in her early 20s, has already saved $125,000, enough for a 20% down payment on a reasonably priced home.
The median sales price for a home in the U.S. was $410,800 in Q2 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. And the typical down payment on a house, as of April 2025, was $62,468, according to Redfin.
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How single homebuyers can approach buying a home
Qualifying for a mortgage as a single person means your financial house needs to be in order.
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That means paying off any high-interest debts and boosting your credit score so you can qualify for the best mortgage rate possible. But you’ll also want to make sure you have enough income to cover housing expenses, such as property taxes, homeowner’s insurance and ongoing maintenance.
If, after crunching the numbers, you decide you can’t afford to buy on your own, you could consider buying with a friend or family member. More than 61 million Americans co-own a home with someone who isn’t their spouse, according to CoBuy. That’s nearly 20% of the population.
“Co-buying and co-ownership aren’t just alternatives; they’re essential paths to modern homeownership,” said CoBuy in its report. “Today, 30% of all U.S. home sales are to co-buyers — a transformative shift in how Americans approach housing.”
Another option is buying a home and getting a tenant to bring in additional income, whether renting out a room or a separate floor of the house. However, if you decide to go this route, it’s important to thoroughly research everything involved, including your legal obligations.
Being financially independent — whether you buy a house or not — is beneficial at any stage of life. But if family members offer unsolicited financial advice — as Kate's family and friends have — it’s important to communicate your boundaries and, ultimately, follow your own path.
If Kate decides to ignore the family and friends urging her not to buy a home, she may want to seek the advice of a financial advisor who can help her run the numbers to see if buying while single makes sense for her.
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Vawn Himmelsbach is a veteran journalist who has been covering tech, business, finance and travel for the past three decades. Her work has been featured in publications such as The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, Metro News, Canadian Geographic, Zoomer, CAA Magazine, Travelweek, Explore Magazine, Flare and Consumer Reports, to name a few.
