Absolutely not. You do not need a spouse or kids to justify owning a home. A single buyer can get a place suited entirely to their own preferences; a fun, right-sized condo is a perfectly good first home. We think just about everyone should own a home at some point, regardless of relationship status. Paying down a mortgage, building equity, and locking in a housing cost you can carry into retirement matters exactly as much for a single person as for a couple or a family. The only real adjustment is scale. On a single income you might buy a smaller property matched to your actual needs instead of stretching for square footage you will not use. The fundamentals stay the same as they are for anyone: a payment you are comfortable with, a long-term time horizon, and savings in the bank after you close. If we were single, we would still buy, just something sized to fit.