“It was a 40th birthday present to myself,” says Hannah Morrell, now 41, of buying her first home — a one-bedroom flat in a converted house in Catford — on her own.
Morrell, who works as director of sport for the Girls’ Day School Trust, had managed to save up a five per cent deposit for her £260,000 home.
“I wanted somewhere fairly low cost, to avoid the stamp duty threshold and not to really stretch myself with the mortgage,” she says. “I lived in Greenwich and had lockdown there which enabled me to start to save… I opened a LISA (Lifetime ISA) and it was about three years from then.
“Without the LISA [which adds 25 per cent to your savings] I wouldn’t have been able to do it.”
Hannah Morrell who bought in Catford
Supplied
Before buying Morrell had been renting in London for a decade but once she got serious about becoming a homeowner she stopped living alone and moved in with a friend, cutting her monthly rent from £1,150 to £800 and sharing the cost of bills.
This enabled her to transfer £500 a month directly into savings. “Savings need to feel like a bill and then you can’t touch them,” she advises.
A friend also suggested that she put some money in the S&P 500, so she transferred £100 a month, which made her a little extra money too.
Astonishingly, even with the same earning potential and dedication to saving and managing her finances, if Morrell had been buying her home 50 years ago she would not have been able to take out a mortgage without a man’s help.
Before the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975, women purchasing a property had to get a male guarantor to counter-sign their mortgage documents.
While the legal obstacles to getting on the ladder have been removed, half a century on, it can feel like there are still barriers to women getting that all important room of their own, to paraphrase Virginia Woolf.
The biggest hurdle for female buyers today is the gender pay gap, which currently sits at 14.3 per cent. For women aged 40-49 it widens to nearly 20 per cent. This means that while men can potentially save £531 per month, women have only £377 to put away, according to calculations by Mojo Mortgages.
This £154 — or 40 per cent — savings gap has significant implications. Not only will it take women longer to save a deposit, but they may also need to save up more in total as house prices rise over time.
Mortgage lenders base the amount they are willing to offer on the loan to income ratio of a buyer, which is generally set at a maximum of 4.5 times earnings. This means that women are able to borrow less on average.
And while a man could save a 10 per cent deposit, a woman would need to save 28 per cent of the purchase price to secure a mortgage on the same property. On the average UK flat costing £191,600 this means it would take a man approximately three years to save versus 11 years nine months for a woman.
‘I cut back on socialising and eating out’
Christine Akhuetie, proud owner of a flat in Greenhithe
Ian Scammell
“I think it’s harder now than for my parents’ generation,” says Christine Akhuetie, 29, who bought her one-bedroom flat Greenhithe for £256,000 in 2024. “In general, salaries are lower for women. A big part of a mortgage is getting the requisite salary to qualify for a mortgage.”
Akhuetie, a legal project manager, managed to save up her 10 per cent deposit through a combination of dedicated saving, putting £1000 a month into an ISA while she lived with her mum in South Norwood for three years.
“Living with my mum was the greatest help as I didn’t have to pay any bills or rent except council tax… I cut back on socialising and eating out, and on ordering food in. If I went to the office, I’d take a packed lunch. I made it a priority.”
Data from Habito shows that the number of sole female mortgage applicants increased from 29 per cent in 2017, to 33 per cent in 2021.
In contrast, there has only been a 2.8 per cent increase in female mortgage holders over the last 10 years — while more women are applying for mortgages, many are getting turned down.
“Lenders treat genders the same, it is illegal not to. However, there are challenges and affordability issues for women buying property on their own, such as the pay differential,” says Mark Harris, Chief Executive of mortgage broker SPF Private Clients.
“We have made huge strides in the last 50 years, but the result of inequality in that time is still an issue women face today,” says Sarah Tucker, Founder & CEO of The Mortgage Mum.
“The gender pay gap is exacerbated by the fact more women take time off when having children than men, and their career progression can slow as a result.”
Sam Lindsay, Mortgage Planning Advisor, My Mortgage Angel agrees, adding: “Many women who have children often face pay cuts if they need to go part time to care for their children, or take some time off to raise their children”.
In addition, Lindsay flags that women in the process of separating from their partner are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to moving on and getting a new mortgage.
“If a couple with children are separating, and the woman is taking majority custody of the children, there aren’t currently any lenders in the UK who will consider any maintenance payment agreements as part of her income until we can show three months of evidence, which means that they often have to move back in with parents or rent for a while.”
This is in contrast to the male partner “who can go straight out and buy a property showing his income before his maintenance payments start coming out and borrow more money based on this”.
We consistently see more single female homebuyers than single male applicants
Sarah Tucker, The Mortgage Mum
SPF Private Clients’ Harris adds that while most lenders include childcare maintenance in their affordability calculations, they may require these to be Court Ordered or only take a percentage of what is received.
Despite all these hurdles however, the tide may be starting to turn. There is evidence that more women than men are looking to achieve home ownership.
“Approximately 25 per cent of our clients are women purchasing on their own, and we consistently see more single female homebuyers than single male applicants,” says Tucker.
“Confidence plays a huge factor, and therefore financially empowering women is key. We’re seeing more options for women coming to the forefront, such as gender specific investment and education apps, which is fantastic, but we have a lot of catching up to do.”
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