‘You can be my sugar mummy’: Why female homeowners are closing the door on dating – UK Times

Issy was 27 when she bought herself an apartment in zone five of Greater London with four years’ worth of savings from training and working as a lawyer. She picked up the keys and painted the walls pink, adding a matching blush velvet sofa in the lounge and artwork painted by her closest friends on the walls. From the floor to the ceiling, it was all hers.

Single women and widows were legally allowed to own their own homes in England and Wales long before the 20th century, but banks and building societies would routinely refuse them mortgages unless they had a husband, male guarantor or evidence they wouldn’t leave work upon marriage or pregnancy. After the Sex Discrimination Act was passed in 1975, this tide began to turn. Just over half a century later, women now make up 47 per cent of mortgage applications following a surge in solo buyers – and the reaction has been troubling.

“I’ve had a lot of guys call me intimidating, which is weird because I’m a friendly person,” says Issy of the reactions to her homeownership. “I can’t tell you the number of times they’ll then go ‘oh, you can be my sugar mummy then’, or three separate men have said ‘oh, I’ll be a stay-at-home dad ’… There’s nothing wrong with that – but I barely know them,” she adds. Notably, some studies have found that men are more likely to marry for money than women.

It’s unsurprising that solo female homeownership is on the rise. For the first time ever, women are outstripping men when it comes to higher education. Plus, in the three months to December, the rate of unemployment for men hit 5.7 per cent, a whole percentage point higher than the percentage registered for women. Meanwhile, Gen Z have reversed their gender pay gap, with women aged 16 to 24 in full-time work earning an average of £2,200 more per year than men in the same age bracket, according to the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).

“I’m in this weird space now where men can’t do much for me,” Issy says, reflecting on her inability to meet a “genuine person” on her hunt for love. She’d like to find a kind, funny and supportive guy – but when it comes to security: “I’ve probably already done it for myself,” she laughs.

Not being able to lean on this crutch of necessity appears to be, in many cases, single men’s exact fear: 32-year-old recruiter Zizi bought her flat in south London in 2022 after saving up for five years – and her ex boyfriend didn’t like their financial parity: “He was intimidated by my success and openly admitted to me that every girl he dated before me had earned a quarter of what he earned,” she says. “That’s why me and him aren’t together anymore.”

Like Zizi, 33-year-old Sophie*, who begged and borrowed her way to owning a small cottage (“one bedroom, semi-open-plan kitchen living room, with a tiny nook for an office”) in Kent, doesn’t tell guys she owns a house until after quite a few dates now. “There’s always this tone change, like, ‘well, what do you need a partner for?’” she says of the repeated reaction.

Still, the last guy she dated for 10 months – who was living with his parents – got over it and all but moved into Sophie’s house, entirely uninvited. “It was the biggest point of contention in the relationship,” she says. “I never had time to clean or anything. The final straw was when I raised that it was stressing me out and he said, ‘oh well, I can read a book while you clean’ That might have actually been the moment that I decided to break up with him.”

Musician Hannah, 31, who bought her own houseboat Willow in 2024 and sails her around London’s waterways as a “continuous cruiser”, docking where she can, says this sly piggybacking hasn’t been such a problem for her. “Boating doesn’t give quite the same sugar mummy energy when you have to compost your own waste,” she says.

Thankfully there are some men who take the home-owning news normally; but, seemingly, only if they’re in the same situation themselves: “The guy that I’m dating at the moment owns his house, which I think really helps,” says 32-year-old Lottie, who’s just moved in to her own place in Mile End after saving up a portion of her salary for the best part of a decade. “He’s so proud of me and keeps saying what an amazing achievement it is… I’ve never met somebody who’s been weird about it but, obviously, I’m so new to moving in.”

Pride, really, is the correct response. Buying property is an astronomically hard thing to do; even more so for those without a partner or family to help financially, who’ll need to earn over £65,000 to afford the average British home, according to the estate agency Savills.

“Being a homeowner, you really feel the single-person tax. It’s f*****g brutal. Every penny counts,” says Sophie of the £1,700 penalty living alone is estimated to incur on one-person households each year. “Immediately, two-thirds of my income is wiped towards my mortgage, bill council tax, home insurance, service charges; it’s so painful,” she says. Is it worth it? “It is,” Sophie asserts. “But I am always poor, and an indulgence is now new bed sheets.”

But as much as independence is costly – it’s also a luxury that’s hard to give up. Zizi is now happily in a relationship with a “mature and emotionally intelligent” man, who’s supportive and glad to help out with DIY whenever things go wrong in her home. Nevertheless, he’s not allowed to move in. “I’ve very openly said to him that he’ll never live in a flat that I own,” she says. “If we want to move in together, it’ll be somewhere that’s owned by both of us.”

Living with a man isn’t something home-owning women take lightly. For many millennials, buying property is now seen as a more significant and savvy commitment than marriage, with the average nuptials costing £21,990, which could go towards a deposit. But there’s a lack of legal protection when buying as an unmarried couple and some who split spend thousands of pounds, years in court – and even continue cohabiting – while they divvy up the assets through solicitors in what has become known as “The Millennial Divorce”.

There’s also the unpaid labour to consider. Although the majority of people in the UK agree that household chores should be shared between a couple, 63 per cent of women said they do more than their fair share of the housework, while just 22 per cent of men said the same. In the US, women who out-earn their partners still undertake more unpaid labour, while men have hours of extra time for leisure or paid work, a study by the Pew Research Centre found.

When The New York Times asked Whoopi Goldberg her thoughts on getting into a relationship in 2016, she famously replied: “I don’t want somebody in my house.” Ten years later, the response still resonates and as the ideological divide between men and women continues to grow (with the Financial Times finding that young women have rapidly become more liberal, while young men have become more conservative) many women who’re settled and secure simply can’t be bothered to rock the boat they’ve built themselves with romance.

Publicist Ashley Rudd, 34, who lives merrily alone in the house she bought herself in Cheshire, says men’s behaviour “in general” has put her off looking for love ever again. “If I hear one more ‘when am I coming over?’…” she says sardonically. “Never, Mitchell. Never.”

*Names have been changed