The Female Investor. Kate Hill

mean she will be financially secure.

      We know plenty of women like this and we're sure you do, too.

      Their situations — and their reasons why — vary widely because each of us is an individual who will experience challenges unique to us during the course of our life.

Sometimes they may not technically be struggling financially, but they worry about how they are going to retain their financial independence throughout their lives, or perhaps they're concerned about how they're going to fund their retirement — even if it's decades away.

      Alas, their concerns are valid, because it's a fact that women generally remain less financially secure than men.

      First up, there is the income pay gap between men and women, which stubbornly appears to not be changing significantly.

      Then there is the stark difference in superannuation balances between men and women, which starts when workers are only in their 20s and never recovers.

      And there are the increasing numbers of women who wind up homeless after a relationship breakdown or in retirement, because they were never able to create their own independent wealth or buy a home of their own.

      Let's face it, half of all marriages still end in divorce and many women remain the primary caregivers of children — even more so during a pandemic, as it turned out.

      And that means that if a women's ‘forever' union ends in tatters, she's likely to be futilely playing financial catch‐up for the rest of her working life.

      Many women are worried about their lack of superannuation and about having to work until they are 80 instead of retiring. In fact, many women are forced to re‐enter the workforce in their twilight years because they can't afford to live without doing so.

A recent retirement‐income review repeatedly highlighted the inequitable outcomes for women, with women generally retiring with far fewer funds than men and also often living in poverty. What sort of end of life is that for anyone?

      We want to be clear: this book is not anti‐love, anti‐marriage or anti‐joint bank accounts.

      The Female Investor is a book to help women stake their claim on the property market so they have the assets to improve their financial futures — regardless of whether they choose to partner up or not; whether they are single, married, divorced or widowed.

      But it's not a book to teach women how to become property squillionaires. Rather, it's a guide that will teach you about the importance of maximising your income sooner, so you have more choices later on.

      Even though the salary gap remains, the number of women investing in property is rising — but more still could be done to secure your personal financial future.

      Fundamentally, this book is about women being clued up, taking charge and being proactive with their finances via strategic property investment — at any age.

      The truth is that most women have experienced a world in which they were not encouraged to take care of themselves financially.

      We want to help change that because it potentially leads to dependency upon a spouse, another family member, continued employment late in life or even the government for financial support.

      So, The Female Investor is a rallying cry from women to women — from us to you — to motivate women of all ages to get educated, take charge of your own financial future, and become proactive enough to stake your claim on the property market — now!

THE FACTS

      Here are some cold hard facts about the financial outcomes for women and men in our part of the world.

      While most of these figures are drawn from Australian research, the situation is similar in most countries around the world — and the reality is that women are more likely than not to be financially inequitable with their male partners from the beginning of their relationships.

      The lack of financial literacy for young children and teenagers is one reason for this imbalance, but one scary fact is that the financial outcomes for women and men in retirement start to solidify at the beginning of our working lives.

      According to the Australian Government's Women's economic security in retirement insight paper (2020), even when women are in their late 20s, their superannuation balances are lower than men's.

      The research found that women are on the back foot financially from the beginning of their careers and if they decide to have children, the gap just gets wider and wider, and it will keep growing throughout their lives.

      By the time a woman retires in Australia, according to the insight paper, her average superannuation account balance is 17.4 per cent lower than a man's, which reflects the average superannuation account balances of $277 880 for women and $336 360 for men.

      Even with Australia's superannuation scheme, which started in 1992, many women in Australia still retire without any funds whatsoever. Sadly, about one third of women wind up with no superannuation at all when they retire.

Superannuation was designed to help more people become financially independent in retirement, but most women and men still rely on the age pension as their primary source of income during that stage of their lives. According to the insight report, in 2017–18 about 70 per cent of women compared to 63 per cent of men relied on government pensions and allowances — these allowances could include payments such as an energy or essential‐medical‐equipment supplement, remote‐area or carers allowance, or other benefit payments to help fund health and medical care.

      Do you know how much the age pension is in Australia? In 2021, the maximum rate for a single person is less than $500 per week, including all potential allowances, which is hardly enough to live the life you've long dreamed about, is it?

      For anyone under the age of about 50, retirement seems like a long way away, so we don't give it much thought, do we?

      Of course everyone should enjoy their life rather than squirrel away every spare dollar for a stage of life that is decades in the future, but you can't ignore the truth forever.

      This means that unless you prepare for retirement when you are youngish, including purchasing a strategically selected property (or perhaps two or three), then the outcome for you may be spending your twilight years in poverty. Here are some stark statistics from government research:

       Women are more likely than men to re‐enter the workforce following retirement, often due to financial constraints.

       Women are twice as likely as men to sell their house and move to lower‐cost accommodation because of tight financial circumstances in retirement.

The Women's economic security in retirement insight paper also reported more elderly women than men are living in poverty in Australia. Therefore, women are far more likely to face higher financial insecurity in retirement than men.

HOW CAN PROPERTY HELP?

      One way that you can help to prevent this dire situation happening to you, as well as ensure you remain financially independent during your life, is to create wealth, security, and freedom through property.

      We have written this book as a guide to help women understand how they can make their income work harder throughout their working lives, using property ownership as the vehicle.

      While The Female Investor has been written with property investors — or landladies as we like to call them — predominantly in mind, you can apply this information to the purchase of any property, including your home.

      WHY THE TERM ‘LANDLADIES'?

       The real‐estate sector is riddled with over‐the‐top