Women pay higher mortgage rates because research has found that they often choose lenders by recommendation rather than by rate.

A house in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Firefly4342/Wikimedia Commons

According to a 2011 study in the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, women, on average, pay more for mortgages than men do.

The researchers posit that the disparity cannot solely be attributed to gender discrimination, finding that "women pay higher rates because they are more likely to choose lenders by recommendation, while men tend to search for the lowest rate."