Learned quoted from The First Sex: The Natural Habits of Women and How They Are Changing the World, by socioanthropologist Helen Fisher:

“Both men and women have some ability for planning long term. I have found no concrete evidence that either sex is more skilled at this essential task. However, a few business analysts believe that women are apt to think long term more regularly, while men are more likely to focus on the here and now.”

Then, she went on to explore women’s homebuying behavior – especially during market crises – in light of this inclination to think over the long term.

Click here to read Andrea Learned’s full post.

In this era of the Mommy blogger, marketing to women is often confused as synonymous with marketing products and features for children.

On her site, SavvyAuntie.com, Notkin provides the following data, which compels the conclusion that PANKs wield a weighty chunk of change in the American economy.  In real estate, PANKS are part of the single woman demographic that buys 21 percent of all homes, but also a significant chunk of the married and unmarried couples demographics, too.  The latest NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers (available for free to Realtors online) revealed that a whopping 61 percent of homebuyers had no kids under 18 living at home!

For 2010, in addition to our marketing mantra Don’t Think Pink, we might have to add: Do Think PANK!

Women without children: 45%*
*This fertility data does not include women over 45 whose fertility is greatly diminished. We surmise therefore that the total number of women without children is well over 50%, and over 25% of the entire adult population.

Childlessness is a fast growing factor among American women:
2004: 45%
2003: 44%
2001: 43%

Women are getting married later, if ever:
Median age for marriage for a woman in 1980: 20.8
Median age for marriage for a woman in 2005: 25.8
Single Women, Never Married in 2006: 26%

Even marriage does not ensure a family:
Married couples without children in 2006: 43%

All above sources U.S. Census
From: SavvyAuntie.com

This week’s NYT features an article which truly validates the Vision of Home concept. The subject of the article is Dr. Erica Friedman, a single doctor/professor looking to relocate from the suburbs to Manhattan with her college-aged kids and elderly father.

Dr. Friedman simply created a checklist for the things that were important to her, harnessed her uncanny ability to visualize a space and compared the online floor plans and building amenity lists, photos and renderings against her own “list” – The List, if you will.

Dr. Friedman’s list is what a WRELDA would call a Vision of Home. And the article speaks directly to the freak-out preventing, mindset managing power of her List/Vision of Home:

As for those things she couldn’t control or predict — well, they weren’t worth worrying about.

“I was able to define what was critical for me,” Dr. Friedman said. “Some of the specifics had to do with location and finances, which you don’t have to walk into a building for. A lot had to do with amenities, which are either there or not.”

In reading the article, you’ll see that Friedman’s list/Vision of Home was about much more than amenities, it was truly about what she wanted the minute, yet impactful, details of her life to look like in the ‘AFTER’ picture – after she lived in her new home. For example, she’d commuted for 2.5 hours a day for 15 years; as a result, her ‘AFTER’ vision included a walkable distance from home to work. She wanted her aging Dad to maintain the dignity of having a car at his disposal; accordingly, a home with a garage was a must. Friedman had long loved to swim for stress management, so a place with a pool was a plus.

Read the full article, here, for a living, breathing, on the ground example of how one smart woman homebuyer crafted her own written Vision of Home and put it to use. In the end, Dr. Friedman found the home that ultimately met her “every criterion” sight (and site!) unseen – over a year before the building was even finished. And she owes it all to her List.