Where single women are buying property in Australia — and why their purchase power matters
Property buying patterns among single people are approaching gender parity, new data shows
2 min
More single Australian women are buying their own homes, with a report published by Ray White revealing 71,900 sales to this cohort in 2022, up from 64,680 sales in 2014. As a proportion of all single buyers, men have historically outnumbered women but the gap is closing with purchasing rates now closer to parity at about 12 percent of sales each.
Ray White chief economist Nerida Conisbee said rising home values meant the proportion of all single buyers was falling, from 26.2 percent of purchases in 2014 to 24.5 percent in 2022.
“An interesting dynamic, however, is also occurring by gender,” Ms Conisbee said. “A drop in single male purchasers is driving the decline whereas the number of single female buyers as a proportion of total buyers remains steady. By volume, the number of purchases by single women has risen by over 11 percent since 2014.”
Ms Conisbee said increased education about the importance of home ownership in building wealth and government schemes such as the First Home Guarantee and State Government stamp duty waivers and concessions have driven more women to buy. McGrath CEO John McGrath said the trend in career women buying property on their own began about two decades ago.
“When I started in real estate 40 years ago, it was very rare to conduct an auction and have a 28-year-old female on her own buy the property,” Mr McGrath said. “Nowadays when you put a well-located, beautifully designed apartment block on the market, the first 10 apartments will be sold to single career women.”
Ms Conisbee said most single women preferred to buy affordable apartments in central city locations.
“Overwhelmingly, the largest number of purchases are of units in areas where very large numbers of units are available. Topping the list nationally is Melbourne CBD where there has been 7,750 purchases of apartments by single females since 2014. The Gold Coast,however, has also made several appearances on the list with Surfers Paradise coming in second (3,386 purchases).”—
The data shows Victoria has the highest proportion of single female purchasers and NSW the lowest. Ms Conisbee said very high levels of development in Melbourne had given single women more opportunities to buy. Incidentally, greater supply in Melbourne is a key reason why median home values have not increased as much as other cities over the past year. CoreLogic data shows Melbourne home values have risen just 3.2 percent over the past 12 months compared to 9.6 percent in Sydney and 15.9 percent in Brisbane.
Single women seeking to buy a house also targeted more affordable city fringe and regional areas. The statistics was calculated using Valuer General data on more than five million sales from 2014 to 2022 and cross referencing first names using an artificial intelligence application called Genderize to deliver the largest research sample available documenting single female purchasing patterns.
Top 10 suburbs for single female purchases (apartments) 2014-2022
Top 10 suburbs for single female purchases (houses) 2014-2022
From making unpopular decisions to learning when to listen, leaders from five businesses reveal what nobody prepared them for — and how running a company has challenged their expectations.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Elon Musk is exploring a potential merger between Tesla and SpaceX, a deal that could reshape the future of AI, robotics, autonomous vehicles and space technology. With a combined valuation potentially reaching $3.5 trillion, the move could bring Musk’s vision of an interconnected technology ecosystem closer to reality, although a deal remains uncertain.
5 min
Elon Musk has engineered ties between Tesla TSLA 3.41%increase; up pointing triangle and SpaceX SPCX 7.79%increase; up pointing triangle that are hard to break, and now he wants to fuse them together permanently.
Musk has run both Tesla and SpaceX concurrently over the past two decades, using a schedule that dictated which days he spent focused on each business.
The companies have often shared resources and personnel, signaling their close ties. Last year, SpaceX looked into creating a spacesuit for Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, a person familiar with the matter said. Tesla last week showed off its new Roadster, a vehicle featuring SpaceX rocket thrusters that it hopes to soon bring to market.
And in recent months, Musk has repositioned both companies by expanding beyond their core operations toward a shared mission centered on artificial intelligence.
The world’s richest man on Tuesday signaled his interest in tying up SpaceX and Tesla, marking what would be the biggest corporate merger of all time. Because he serves as chief executive of SpaceX and Tesla, Musk said committees of independent directors at both companies are evaluating a possible deal, adding that a transaction might not come to fruition.
The committees will likely evaluate, with lawyers and bankers, how each company would fare in a potential deal and how a deal might best be structured. They then present their conclusions to their respective boards, who typically vote on whether to proceed.
“It’s an odd Kabuki dance where two groups of people are talking and I can’t be in the conversation,” Musk told SpaceX investors on Tuesday in response to an analyst’s question about a potential deal.
For Musk, the merger supports his vision of a world full of autonomous cars, humanoid robots and weekly rocket launches, as well as the data centers and satellites required to keep the whole thing running.
Some investors and analysts said they expect a transaction would be structured as an all-stock deal, with SpaceX potentially paying a modest premium for Tesla shares.
SpaceX, which has a market value of about $2 trillion, said it is seeing sharp growth in revenue across its businesses, which include operating data centers, launching rockets and operating satellite networks such as the internet service Starlink. Tesla is valued at about $1.5 trillion and is expanding its operations beyond its automotive and energy business. Shares in both companies traded higher following the news Tuesday.
Musk’s substantial ownership stakes in both companies, along with voting control at SpaceX, has enabled him to set the deal in motion. Analysts and investors said the deal will probably face regulatory scrutiny internationally, though some see Musk’s close relationship with the Trump administration as an asset to getting approval.
Blurred lines
The companies haven’t said which directors are on the special committees evaluating a potential deal. Several SpaceX and Tesla board members have either personal or business ties to Musk. And like Musk, venture capitalist Ira Ehrenpreis sits on both boards.
In a filing this week, Tesla outlined millions of dollars in business agreements with SpaceX and its subsidiaries last year, including $143 million in car sales to SpaceX, $3.3 million in advertising that it bought on the social-media platform X and $430 million in revenue from the sale of Megapack batteries for SpaceX’s data centers.
The companies also split the cost of resources including the use of Musk’s SpaceX jet and the bill for his personal security, which he runs through a private company.
Employees at both companies routinely move between companies to work on special projects, and some executives have dual roles, including Charles Kuehmann, vice president of materials engineering at both SpaceX and Tesla, and Ashok Elluswamy, the vice president of AI software at Tesla who runs a joint venture with SpaceX called Digital Optimus.
Over the years, Musk has launched new startups within his empire, including brain-implant company Neuralink, underground-tunnel developer the Boring Company and xAI, the AI startup that merged with SpaceX in February.
It is that AI business that Musk thinks can serve a market worth tens of trillions of dollars, justifying the need for a merger.
The business case goes like this: Tesla is developing robotaxis and robots, which it calls “physical AI.” SpaceX is working on the back end of physical AI: the data-center capacity and internet connection required for those robotaxis and robots to operate continuously.
“I don’t see what the value of Tesla is if it’s not merged with SpaceX,” said investment adviser Ross Gerber, a former Tesla bull turned critic invested in both companies. “If they don’t merge, the brains of everything that runs Tesla is owned by another company.”
On top of it all, both companies face constraints on the supply chains they need to make this world a reality, particularly when it comes to chips. To address this, Musk earlier this year announced a joint venture between Tesla, SpaceX and Intel to design and manufacture chips in Texas. “The most epic chip-building exercise by far,” he has said.
Musk at the wheel
For Musk, a merger would also solve two problems: demands on his attention and his lack of control at Tesla.
Tesla for years was Musk’s only public company, a status that came with greater scrutiny. There, Musk reports to a public board, as well as individual investors who make up around 30% of Tesla’s voting power, according to FactSet.
The question of Musk’s attention became a particular focus for investors and the board in recent years after he acquired Twitter in 2022 and launched xAI in 2023, and again in 2025 as he spent time in Washington, D.C., running the Department of Government Efficiency in the early months of President Trump’s second term.
As Tesla’s car business suffered in 2025, Musk threatened to take his AI ambitions outside the company if he wasn’t granted 25% voting control. Last November, Tesla shareholders approved a new pay package for Musk, which created a path for him to vastly expand his stake.
As of Sept. 30, Musk owned a roughly 20% stake in Tesla, according to the company’s proxy filing.
The SpaceX IPO gave Musk a different path. When SpaceX went public in June, the deal’s structure enabled him to have more than 80% voting power at the company—so much that he can’t be fired and decisions can’t be made without his support.
If SpaceX acquires Tesla, he will likely stay in control.
From Tokyo backstreets to quiet coastal towns and off-grid cabins, top executives reveal where they holiday and why stepping away makes the grind worthwhile.
Exclusive eco-conscious lodges are attracting wealthy travellers seeking immersive experiences that prioritise conservation, community and restraint over excess.
