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While women have been increasing their share of the home-buying market and single women actually own more homes than single men today, their chances of getting their mortgage application denied are actually far higher, a recent study shows.
Single female mortgage applicants were nearly 30 percent more likely to be denied than single men, according to a new LendingTree report.
Why It Matters
Purchasing a home has become increasingly unaffordable in recent years as home prices remain at record highs and mortgage rates are still well beyond their pandemic lows.
While many millennials and Gen Zers would like to buy a home, their finances are not on the level necessary to get approved for a mortgage, and lenders favoring male potential homeowners could exacerbate the issue.
What To Know
Single female mortgage applicants are 29.8 percent more likely to be denied a mortgage than single men, according to LendingTree.
“It’s not because some mustache-twirling loan officer is sitting there going, ‘A woman? Absolutely not!’ It’s actually more insidious than that. The system itself is doing the dirty work,” Michael Ryan, finance expert and founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com, told Newsweek.
“Women are still making about 85 cents for every dollar a guy makes, right? And when you apply for a mortgage, lenders look at something called your debt-to-income ratio (DTI). It’s basically how much you owe versus how much you earn. Sounds fair enough on paper. But when you’re earning less from the jump? That ratio looks way worse, even if you’re just as reliable with money. Maybe even more reliable.”
The only place where single female mortgage applicants outnumbered single men was in Washington, D.C., where women were 32 percent versus 29.2 percent of men, application-wise.
The largest disparity for rejected applications was in Louisiana, where women were denied 29 percent of the time compared to 18.1 percent of single men. Mississippi and Alabama followed.
However, the report also found that single men who take on mortgages tend to pay more monthly than single women in every state. The largest pay gaps were in Hawaii, California and Washington, where men paid $578 or more higher than women.
In 2024, single women garnered $173.3 billion in mortgage debt, whereas men took on a much higher $328.7 billion.
“A lot of this comes down to debt-to-income ratios and credit history length. Men, on average, still earn more than women and often have longer credit files,” Kevin Thompson, CEO of 9i Capital Group and host of the 9innings podcast, told Newsweek. “That matters when lenders are sizing up risk. The size of the loan can play a role too. Smaller loans sometimes get flagged as less creditworthy, even if that doesn’t tell the full story.”
What People Are Saying
Ryan also told Newsweek: “We keep treating it like it’s a lending problem, like we need to fix the banks. But honestly? The real issue happened way upstream, back at the payroll office. The mortgage application is just holding up a mirror to decades of women getting paid less. Like blaming your bathroom scale for the fact that you ate an entire pizza last night, you know?”
Thompson also told Newsweek: “Gender and ethnicity have always shaped access to credit and homeownership. The fact that women, particularly single women, still face higher denial rates highlights the biases that are baked into the system. The good news is these numbers are being brought out into the open instead of being normalized. That creates space to ask the harder questions, get to the root causes, and break down barriers that have held back women and people of color for generations.”
Alex Beene, financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: “Unfortunately, this report introduces data we’ve mostly already known: the challenge is greater for sole women applying for a mortgage than sole men. The prevailing factor is the income gap. Women tend to choose careers that generate less income than their male counterparts, and lenders obviously view this as a greater risk. Hopefully, as women advance in new, higher paying career fields, this discrepancy will lessen with time.”
What Happens Next
Ryan said the ripple effects of the data are creating two entirely different housing markets in America.
“You’ve got couples with two incomes who can swing a nice place, and then you’ve got single buyers, especially single women, trying to compete with one hand tied behind their back,” Ryan said.
“Even when women do manage to buy a house, they’re taking out loans that are about $57,000 smaller on average. Which sounds responsible, maybe even smart! Until you realize that smaller loan means less house, less equity building up over time. And get this, they actually end up paying more in interest over their lifetime. Something like $7,000 more. Plus they’re accumulating 30 percent less wealth overall.”
Thompson said the lending skew will ultimately create worsened housing markets.
“If qualified buyers continue to face systemic denials, it slows demand, creates uneven access to wealth-building through homeownership, and reinforces inequality,” Thompson said. “Fixing these gaps isn’t just about fairness. It’s about creating a healthier, more inclusive housing market.”
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