Millennial borrowers, whether male or female, were more likely to purchase a home in the Midwest during October, according to the latest Ellie Mae Millennial Tracker.
In October, the top three metropolitan areas for millennial homebuyers were Marshall, Minn., Victoria, Texas, and Lawton, Okla., the tracker found.
The tracker also found that millennial men who were listed as the primary borrower for a home loan were approved for an average of $197,820 in October. Millennial women were approved for an average loan amount of $186,567 ($11,253 less than men). However, Ellie Mae found that millennial women closed loans faster than millennial men.
The tracker found that women averaged 42 days to close a loan in October, whether purchase or refinance, while men averaged 43 days to close a purchase loan and 45 days to refinance.
“While men make up the larger percentage of overall millennial borrowers, most of them are married,” Ellie Mae Executive Vice President of Corporate Strategy Joe Tyrrell said in a release. “An interesting trend we’ve been tracking all year is that single women are buying homes much more than single men. Sixty percent of women who were listed as the primary borrower in October were single, compared to 42 percent of men.”
The tracker also found that millennial women were approved with lower FICO scores than men. The average FICO score for a woman purchasing a home was 721, compared to 726 for men.