The KCM Blog - Helping the Hispanic Community with Real Estate

Helping the Hispanic Community with Real Estate

Posted: 31 Jul 2013 04:00 AM PDT

This is the fourth month we are posting a blog about the Hispanic community. It is a market with enormous potential mainly because there are few agents focusing on it. We have had agents asking what can they do to work with this community as they begin to think about their business plans for 2014. Here are 5 steps to take today:

1. Get to know the community!

In most cases, you are going to find a section of a town where the Hispanic community is predominant. Perhaps, you will see the stores like the bodega, the hair salon, etc. Go to these places and introduce yourself! You will see that many of them will allow you to put your business cards or a flyer with some information either about your service or properties that you have for sale.

2. Find out the church service schedule.

The seminars that get the best results are the ones that are offered after church services! Bring light refreshments and invite the people to stay for a half hour seminar. Of course, you need to meet the priest or pastor to get permission to do these seminars. Don’t be surprised if you get seminar suggestions from them. They know their people and, in my experience, many buyers didn’t make a decision without the pastor’s approval.

Here are other possible seminars you can present:

§ First Time Homebuyer’s Seminar

§ The Home Buying Process and How it Works

Don’t make it too long. Don’t forget they just attended service.

For those who aren’t sure what to present during the seminar and are KCM members, there is great information already in Spanish for you to download for your presentation on the site. Go to KCM en español www.keepingcurrentmatters.com.

If you are not a member, here is a free trial https://www.keepingcurrentmatters.com/trial/

3. Have a team.

Find a local attorney, loan officer, appraiser, termite company, title company, etc. Look for companies with Spanish speaking professionals that:

1. Can help you with these seminars and

2. Will be able to help your clients in their native language.

If you don’t speak Spanish, perhaps you can hire or create a partnership with a bilingual agent who can do these events in Spanish. Sometimes you can do two at the same time (one in English and one in Spanish) and let the customer choose which session that they feel more comfortable attending.

4. Find local organizations.

There are many local organizations helping the Hispanic community; the Local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, roundtables, even some consulates. They may host activities in which you can participate. They organize some local parades and you can promote yourself there. Many of them will let you do a seminar there if you don’t feel comfortable doing it at the church.

5. Network with other industry professionals.

The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) is a fabulous organization that can help you network with other professional that want to work with the Hispanic/Latino community. You don’t need to be Hispanic to attend their events. Here is the link for the nationwide chapters: http://nahrep.org/nahrep-chapters. If you don’t see your community in the list, send an email to national as there are chapters being organized around the country every month. For those in New York and New Jersey, you have two meetings in one! You will have our founder Steve Harney and NAHREP in a partnership event August 12 in NY and August 13 in NJ. For those of you in other states, send an email to your local chapter and ask them for their next event. Most of them meet once a month.

Hope these ideas can help you create more business and assist you in helping the Hispanic community make the American dream a reality.