With over 10,000 members, and the expectation of serving 50,000 within five years, the National Association Of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) is working to improve visibility and opportunity for its members through a unique, new partnership with Realty Times.

Realty Times has created a Spanish version of its Realty Times agent newsletter to assist NAHREP members in their online marketing efforts to its Hispanic clientele. NAHREP members will also be able to take advantage of Realty Times' unique lead generation tool, Market Conditions Reports, which they can update in the Spanish language as well as in English.

In addition, NAHREP has switched from another news organization to Realty Times to provide daily news and advice for consumers on its NAHREP.org and Realestateespanol.com Web sites.

NAHREP CEO Gary Acosta says, "We think Realty Times is really innovative, and it is reaching out to the Spanish community. Our statistics have shown that 50 percent of those consumers that do business in real estate prefer to do it in Spanish, half are doing it in English."

Explains NAHREP President and executive director Ruben Garcia, many home transactions by Hispanics take place under a language barrier. "Wells Fargo and Freddie Mac published barriers to Hispanic homeownership. Number one was lack of education in the homebuying process. The real problem in this country is that 80 percent of Hispanics who bought homes last year were first-time homebuyers. A lot of times Hispanics learn the language, but they may have more education in Spanish. They go to escrow and have documents thrown at them, and many times there isn't an interpreter. They might have someone in the family like a 12-year-old interpreting legal documents. That could cause a real problem for people if these buyers don't understand their obligations."

Continues Garcia, "That's one of the things Realty Times and NAHREP can solve is the language barrier, and we are addressing that with this partnership. The news will be in Spanish, and consumers will see that we have homebuying advice in Spanish. Then we will offer the Realty Times newsletter and Market Conditions to our membership. That's exciting. For consumers who are looking to get Spanish information, that is exciting."

Realestateespanol.com is the consumer Web site created by NAHREP. Over one million listings are supplied by HomeSeekers.com. "It is part of the benefit to members," says Garcia. "They can find agent listings, learn how to purchase and sell homes, and there's a glossary in Spanish and English. If an agent has a Spanish-speaking couple, they can hit a button and translate information for them. You put in a word like "mortgage" and it will translate that into Spanish. There is a lot of value going to that Web site where they can find a home, prequalify for a loan, and more."

Unlike some real estate associations, NAHREP has opened its membership to all parties associated with the real estate transaction, primarily for the networking benefits. Sixty-two percent of NAHREP's membership are Realtors, while the remainder includes lenders, appraisers, title company associates, builders, attorneys, and other ancillary service providers.

The partnership comes at a significant time in homeownership when Hispanic participation is on the rise. According to NAHREP research, there are about 35.3 million Hispanics in the U.S., or about 12 million households. Hispanics' homeownership is 48.8 percent, a 1.3 percent increase in 2001 over 2000.

"Realty Times supports NAHREP in its mission statement," says John Giaimo, vice president of business development for Realty Times, "To increase the Hispanic Homeownership Rate By Empowering The Real Estate Professionals That Serve Hispanic Consumers." As we assist in this effort by providing Realty Times products in the Spanish language, we at Realty Times feel we are making a positive contribution to NAHREP, its members and the consumers they serve."

Published: July 29, 2002

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