A group of female mortgage industry executives wants the housing finance business to pay more attention to what they say is the forgotten minority -- single women with children.

Although single women have been buying houses at a greater clip than their male counterparts over the last decade, the Women's Mortgage Industry Network says single mothers are way behind single fathers when it comes to home ownership.

According to a 2001 survey of consumer finances by the Federal Reserve Board, just 45 percent of all single moms own the roofs over their heads compared to 69 percent of all unmarried dads. And WMIN, a volunteer group, says only part of the 24-point gap can be attributed to the fact that women tend to earn less than men, even when performing the same jobs.

Other factors which prevent women from buying homes include credit issues and outright discrimination. And it is those issues which the group intends to address through a targeted education and counseling campaign.

"Low rates of home ownership (among women) cut across racial, ethnic and income categories, indicating the disparity needs to be addressed on many fronts," said Charlotte Catalfo, executive vice president of Principal Residential Mortgage, a national lender based in Des Moines.

Of the nation's 12.1 million single-parent households with children under the age of 18, 9.7 million (80 percent) are headed by women, according to the Census Bureau.

And though they are "an economic force," with more than $1 billion in annual income, said Ms. Catalfo, their ownership rates "do not reflect that economic reality."

The National Association of Realtors has no sales data on single parents. But its semi-annual profile of buyers and sellers shows that single women accounted for 21 percent of all existing home sales last year, 15 percent in 2000 and 18 percent in both 1996 and 1998.

Single men, on the other hand, bought just 11 percent of the existing houses sold last year and only 7 percent in 2000. In 1996 and 1998, they accounted for 11 percent and 9 percent of all sales, respectively.

There is no corresponding data for new home sales.

The goal of the 60 senior executives who make up WMIN is to educate lenders about the problems faced by single mothers and to let the Moms know that ownership is not necessarily out of their reach.

Many lenders "are not even aware there's a gap," said Catalfo, a WMIN board member. "They hear a lot about how people of color lag behind white homeowners, but the ownership rate among single mothers also is below 50 percent."

At the same time, said Marcia Davies of Freddie Mac, a major supplier of money for home loans, a lot of single mothers are not aware they "fit nicely" into home ownership because they are not being targeted by lenders.

For example, many don't realize that support payments count as income when trying to qualify for a mortgage, said Davies, who also is on the WMIN board.

Catalfo said it probably will not be necessary to create entirely new mortgage products to tap into the huge pool of single moms.

"There already is a wide variety of loans that work just as well for single mothers as they do for other homebuyers," she said. "They may need some tweaking, but we don't have to start over from scratch."

Other major mortgage companies with female executives who have joined WMIN include Wells Fargo Home Mortgage, AmSouth Bank, Sun Trust Mortgage, First Horizon Home Loan Corp., and HSBC Bank.

Published: October 29, 2003

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When Lew Sichelman first started writing about housing in 1969, he was the youngest real estate writer in the country. Now, 37 years later, he's one of the oldest -- and most decorated. He has been rated the top housing columnist in the country by the National Association of Realtors as well as by his peers in the National Association of Real Estate Editors. Indeed, NAREE has recognized his work on numerous occasions. One year - due to his advancing age, he can't recall which one - he earned top honors in the annual NAREE Journalism Contest in three out of the four major writing categories. It was the first time one writer has won so many NAREE awards in a single year. Known for his ability to make even the most difficult topics understandable, Sichelman also has been honored by the National Association of Home Builders and the Mortgage Bankers Association. He began providing in-depth coverage of and consumer-oriented information about housing and housing finance at the Washington Daily News, where he was real estate editor. He held that same position for nine more years at the Washington Star, which purchased the News in 1972. The Star, a so-called "writer's newspaper" which also had the misfortune of being an evening paper, was put out of its misery in 1981, and Sichelman, who had begun self-syndicating his column in 1978, decided to become a full-time columnist. Today, his column, "The Housing Scene," is distributed by United Media to newspapers throughout the country. He also is on the staff of National Mortgage News, an independent newspaper which is considered the bible of the mortgage business. And he writes for numerous other publications, including MarketWatch.com, where he answers readers questions once a week, Sports Illustrated (don't ask), RealtyTimes.com, BigBuilder and others. Sichelman is married, the father of five and grandfather of eleven.