Buy to let property investment is far more evenly split between men and women than other forms of investment, according to Ludlowthompson, a London estate agent.
Women comprise 46 per cent of the UK’s buy to let property investors, or 1.1 million of the 2.4 million in the sector. This comes from an analysis of Government data from ludlowthompson.
They also generate 43 per cent or £13.8 billion of the total £32.3 billion generated in rental income by the UK’s buy to let property investors. In contrast, in other types of savings such as pensions there is a far larger gap in ownership between the two genders. For example, women receive just 37 per cent of the income from pensions, equating to £46.5 billion. In contrast, men receive £79.3 billion of income from pensions.
The buy to let sector may have proved itself to be more progressive than expected, with a more even distribution of asserts marking an important step towards gender equality.
Ludlowthompson has suggested that one reason why women might have been active investors in buy to let is due to the fact that residential property is a relatively stable asset and not likely to drastically decline in share value. Research that looks into different investment strategies favoured by the two sexes found that women tend to be less keen on speculative investment types than males.
Stephen Ludlow commented: ‘Whilst a lot of men get entranced by get-rich-quick investments like CFDs and cryptocurrencies – women are said to much more grounded and prefer lower risk investments like real estate. When we started our business 25 years ago we noticed that it was an investment that seemed to be favoured by women over men. That’s been great news for those early pioneers as residential property investment has easily beaten other outperformed other asset classes like shares, bonds and cash.’
He continued: ‘Women who have built up substantial buy to let portfolios deserve a bit of recognition as they have done this in the face of constant criticism that buy-to-let property is risky. The reality is that assets like shares have proved to be far riskier.’
Source: Residential Landlord