By Clyde Noel

Candace Daniels found buying a home in Los Altos and Mountain View too expensive, so she bought a house in Morgan Hill.

Cindy Rickard rented an apartment in Mountain View for five years; then with low interest rates she found she could meet the payments to buy a house on her own.

Daniels and Rickard are single women who are making a major impact on real estate.

According to a recent National Association of Realtors survey, statistics show twice as many single women as single men bought houses last year. Single women accounted for 18 percent of all home buyers, which means 1.17 million single women purchased a home last year.

The survey revealed that the percentage of single male buyers has declined over the last decade. Only 9 percent of houses are purchased by single males.

Shelly Potvin, Seville-Contempo Realtor said she recently sold three homes to single women.

“They all look for a safe neighborhood and a garage attached to the home,” Potvin said. “Safety is a big concern because they are alone or if they have children, they don’t want to worry about the neighborhood they are buying in.”

The National Association of Realtors survey showed that a decade ago, 600,000 single women bought homes and represented 13 percent of all home buyers.

Baidra Prochnow, a realtor with Mary Prochnow Realtors, said more single women are looking to buy homes and have the money for the down payment.

According to a Fannie Mae Foundation survey in 1999, single women are more likely to think of their work outside the home as a career and not a 9-to-5 job. Over the last 10 years, the income gap between men and women has continued to narrow providing the single woman with the means to buy a home.