Last week, we reported that women are the drivers of the current retail economy. However, it appears that its not only daily purchases that women have a strong lead in.

Property website realestate.com.au has released data to show that Australian women are pushing the property market forward, accounting for two-thirds of visitors to the website. 87% search for properties at least three times a week.

Dividing women into five distinct segments, the study of 1260 ‘active’ female property seekers showed that women from their teens into their twilight years are all active property hunters. This highlights the need for marketers to be wary of catch-all marketing approaches, as the different segments have different influences and search behaviours.

The five segments are:

First home buyers: The most active segment, comprising a quarter of active female property hunters. Affordability is a major issue for many of these buyers, with 67% looking to purchase a home under the $400,000 price range.

Up-sizers: Around one in five active female property hunters were looking to upsize to a bigger or better home. Most were living in metro areas, from middle to higher income households and searching above the $500,000 price range.

Down-sizers: Down-sizers were the smallest of the five segments, representing 7% of active female property hunters. Almost half (46%) were visiting the site daily to search for their ideal property.

Lifestyle seekers: More than one in four active female property hunters were primarily seeking a new lifestyle in a new area (rather than a bigger or smaller home, or a first or investment property). The majority of lifestyle seekers were searching for properties in the $500,000 to $750,000 price range.

Investors: Female investors represented 17% of the active buyers searching on realestate.com.au. Around half were looking at properties under $400,000, with almost half of respondents (49%) indicating using the site to find out the ‘sold’ prices of properties.

Joanna Whyte, general manager of brand, communications and insights for the website believes that while women represent a dominant force in the property market, marketers should be avoid a ‘one size fits all’ approach.

“As a leading catalyst in researching and identifying property, it’s important to understand women’s search behaviours and purchasing influences. Significantly, identifying these consumer segments allows us to break down the broad-brush approach generally applied during a real estate marketing campaign. This emphasises the need for real estate marketers to create an exciting online experience with advertising designed to connect each segment of the property market to the right type of property,” Whyte says.

The survey also revealed these consumer segments demonstrated significantly different search behaviours, using a range of tools such as property websites, mobile search and telephone enquiry to progress their interest in a property:

– Women who were looking to buy their first home were significantly more likely to enquire about a property via email from a property website (49% compared to 38% overall)<removed full stop>Those who are looking to upsize to a larger home were significantly more likely to call an agent while on the go via mobile websites (13% compared to 8% overall)

– Women who were looking to downsize were more likely than any other category to rely on open for inspections to make enquiries about their preferred property (23% compared to 17% overall)

– Lifestyle seekers were more likely to use a variety of tools to search for their ideal property, with email via a property website (38%), calling the real estate agent’s mobile (21%) and attending open for inspections (15%), and

– Approximately three-quarters of female investors were likely to enquiry about property by calling the real estate agent’s mobile (38%) or emailing via a property website (37%).