All the single ladies are becoming homeowners.

What's happening: Sixty years ago, women couldn't get a credit card or a mortgage without a male co-signer.

• Now, the share of single women homeowners eclipses single men — in North Carolina and across the country, Axios' Brianna Crane and Alice Feng report.

Driving the news: Solo women mortgage applicants made up 18% of the market in 2023 — a share that's slowly grown since mortgage platform Maxwell started tracking applicants' gender and marital status in 2021.

• One in three women with partners bought alone because they were in a stronger financial position to do so, Maxwell's annual Single Women Home Buyer Report found.

State of play: Census data shows single women own close to 14% of North Carolina homes, compared to just over 9% of single men.

What they're saying: We're seeing a rise in the number of women homeowners — and a strong shift toward women-led households, Urban Institute researcher Jung Hyun Choi tells Axios.

Of note: In most age groups, women outnumber men. "This is more a reflection of strength in numbers than economic vitality," Pew researcher Richard Fry tells Axios.

Yes, but: Opportunity isn't equal. Single Latina and Black women have the lowest homeownership rates of any group in the U.S.

• "39% of Latinas who are single and live alone owned a home in 2021, compared to close to 62% of non-Hispanic white women in similar circumstances," Axios' Astrid Galván reports.
• Single mothers also face low homeownership rates compared to other groups, including single fathers, Choi's research shows.

The intrigue: Maxwell's report shows Gen Zers and millennials made up the largest share of single women mortgage applicants in 2023.

OK, fine, we admit it: Charlotte's Lovin' Life Music Fest, debuting this spring, may warrant a trip to the Queen City.

Context: Organizers hope the inaugural event will help make Charlotte more of a music destination, and with its stacked lineup, it just might.

What's happening: The three-day festival runs May 3-5 with several major headliners, including Post Malone, Stevie Nicks, Noah Kahan, DaBaby and Maggie Rogers. View the lineup as confirmed so far here.

• Tickets are still available and start at $269 for a general admission three-day pass.

Our colleagues at Axios Charlotte have put together a guide of what to know before you go.

Getting (and staying) there

Our Axios team loves taking the train to and from Charlotte as much as humanly possible, so we recommend doing that if you're not interested in driving. Tickets for May 3 through 6 — assuming the festival runs late Sunday night — start at $27 each way.

The festival will be held at 300 N. Brevard St., which is a six-minute drive from the train station.

Lovin' Life's premier partner hotel is the AC Hotel in Charlotte City Center — an eight-minute drive from the train station and less than a mile walk from the fest. You can search more of the festival's partner hotels here.

Keep reading

🤑 A super PAC supporting President Biden's re-election bid has reserved $250 million in ads to run later this year in North Carolina and other battleground states. That's more than any independent expenditure group spent in the entirety of the 2020 election. (New York Times 🔒)

✈️ Breeze Airways added three nonstop flights from RDU to Burlington, Vermont; Syracuse, New York; and Portland, Maine. (News & Observer 🔒)

🏥 Duke Raleigh Hospital maintenance workers have voted to join a union. (INDY Week)

McLendon Clinical Laboratories at UNC Hospitals is under evaluation after numerous current and former employees reportedly received cancer diagnoses. (Daily Tar Heel)

Three flights into RDU last year were among the bumpiest in the country.

Driving the news: Out of the 10 North American routes with the most turbulence last year — three involved RDU, according to an analysis of in-flight turbulence from Turbli.

• The bumpiest flight in the country on average was Nashville to Raleigh, according to the study.
• JFK to RDU was the fourth bumpiest.
• And Pittsburgh to RDU was No. 7.

How it works: USA Today reports Turbli used the eddy dissipation rate, or EDR, to measure turbulence. (Bigger jetliners might not experience the same turbulence intensity as small planes.)

• The company compared 150,000 airline routes around the world.

Reality check: Buckle up as directed, but don't worry too much. USA Today noted the average turbulence for the flight from Nashville to RDU was still considered light by Turbli's standards, and other global routes had higher scores.

• Injuries related to turbulence are rare.

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