In 1998 Carlos and Jane Arias attended a homebuying seminar and decided they were ready to purchase a house.
The Peruvian couple had lived in this country for a little over a year and spoke little English. But now the Ariases and their son Giancarlo wanted a home of their own.
The seminar put them in touch with Catherine Dorsey, regional vice president for the National Association of Real Estate Brokers and a Realtor with Allen Realty in Randallstown.
Not speaking Spanish herself, Dorsey hired a translator and was able to find the Ariases a home and a low-interest loan.
The Ariases were fortunate in being able to find a home. Recent census data show that fewer than half of African-American and Hispanic families own homes, while almost three-quarters of white families do.
The No. 1 problem facing Hispanic immigrants trying to buy a home is a lack of information about the process.
Fortunately, the Ariases had Dorsey.
Although the Ariases had paid their bills on time while living in this country, their lender wanted to see their credit history going back two years. Dorsey was able to secure the loan after it looked as if it would not go through because of the couple's short credit history.
"Although Peru has a different system, we did find receipts from a lender that showed they had made their payments on a television they bought there," Dorsey said. "Good credit is good credit whether it's here or in Peru. We went to settlement, and they were just so happy."
The couple purchased a Highlandtown home through an estate sale. Just before settlement, Dorsey phoned the owner to ask if he would leave behind anything he didn't want, explaining that the couple had few pieces of furniture and other belongings.
After settlement, Dorsey took the Ariases back to their new home and discovered that the seller had not only left the furniture and appliances but also had decorated the house for Christmas - which was only a few days away - and left a present for Giancarlo.
"The previous owner explained that the house was his parents' and before that his grandparents'. His grandmother was an immigrant from Hungary and he said he was happy to help out another immigrant family," Dorsey said.
"Whenever someone comes my way and I identify there is a problem with not understanding or credit issues or not making a lot of money, I get into that. That's just me," she said.
But the Ariases' happy ending didn't end there. President Bush invited them to attend an Oct. 15 White House conference on minority homeownership.
At the conference, Bush set a national goal of getting 5.5 million more minority families into their own homes by the end of the decade.
The president's goal would bring $256 billion to the economy in the form of construction and remodeling jobs, spending on household goods and other benefits, according to a Department of Housing and Urban Development study unveiled at the conference.
A recent survey found that the leading barrier to homeownership among Hispanics is a lack of information about the homebuying process.
The survey was conducted by the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals, an organization with more than 10,000 members, and financed by Freddie Mac, the quasi-government mortgage banking company.
In response to the survey, Freddie Mac launched a Spanish version of its homebuyer education Internet site: www.freddiemac.com/comprecasa.
"There are a lot of challenges to getting into a home. For immigrants, that challenge is even more daunting," said Jim Park, Freddie Mac's vice president of industry relations and housing outreach. "We have a lot of initiatives to break down some of those doors and the Web site is one of those."
The site, developed through leading Hispanic organizations, leads consumers through the homebuying process. It discusses homeownership vs. renting and teaches about credit ratings and how to shop for a home and a mortgage.
"Our objective is to get the information out as broadly as possible through the channels that people trust and believe in," Park said. "It's imperative that we reach out to the emerging immigrant population."
In conjunction with the Bush initiative, Freddie Mac also outlined "Catch the Dream," its comprehensive plan to help more minority families become homeowners.
The plan highlights 25 initiatives to accelerate the growth in minority and immigrant homeownership.
In addition, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac's sister organization, has unveiled a 10-point plan to increase the number of minority households and assist the Bush administration in meeting its goals.
Fannie Mae announced this year that it is committed to providing $700 billion in home financing to 4.6 million minority households through 2009. This represents a 66 percent increase in financing over a goal set in 2000.
In addition, Fannie Mae is creating a new mortgage product designed specifically to meet the unique needs of immigrants. Details of the product have not been released.
Fannie Mae already has several ways to help immigrants buy a home through its lending and community partners.
"We have many materials designed to make it easier for non-English-speaking people in this country to get mortgages," said Roger Williams, Fannie Mae's vice president for community-based lending. "There are a number of low-down-payment products out there because we really work with our lenders to structure the types of loans they want to use."
One Fannie Mae-supported program allows immigrant borrowers to apply for a home loan even if they are only in the process of obtaining a green card or do not have a complete history of income and credit in this country.
"The American dream for a lot of these folks is to have a home. But they don't always realize the process is different from their country," Williams said.
"A lot of the traditions immigrants come from require different things to get a home. Many times they don't understand how simple it is to get a house here and we are trying to bridge that gap."
Because other countries have different credit-reporting systems and bank in different ways, it can make it hard to follow the credit history of immigrants.
Not being able to substantiate a credit history is many times more of an obstacle than the language barrier itself, said Alan Ingraham, regional vice president for First Horizon Home Loans and past president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors.
"We have to follow industry standards to secure the potential future sale of the loan," Ingraham said. "Sometimes, getting the necessary documents together is a little more difficult. We need to see that paper trail."
In the last several years, Ingraham said, he has noticed a growing number of Hispanic, Eastern European and Russian immigrants who are interested in buying homes in metropolitan Baltimore.
As a result, first Horizon has hired two bilingual employees who can also act as Spanish translators during the home-buying process.
"With the bilingual employees as translators, the buyer has comfort and understands the mortgage process, and we have comfort that what is being translated is accurate," he said.
Although industry standards have not loosened in the past few years to specifically accommodate new Americans or those who may not speak English, the standards for first-time buyers in general have become less restrictive, Ingraham said. That, in turn, has made a difference in immigrants getting approved for a mortgage.
The National Association of Realtors and the Department of Housing and Urban Development have developed a certification program to teach real estate agents how to meet the unique housing needs of immigrants. Close to 300 Realtors in the area have completed the certification course.
"We are definitely meeting a need with this certification," said Carolyn Blanchard Cook, director of Government Relations for the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors.
"The class talks about different ways people communicate, different attitudes people have to the homebuying process and what Realtors can do to make the process easier for people who are not native to this country."
To assist homebuyers in finding an agent that speaks their language, the Realtor board issues a list of real estate offices with bilingual agents.
In the Lutherville Long and Foster real estate office, several of the agents are bilingual and can assist with buyers who speak Cantonese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Yiddish.
"The agents who market toward this sphere do very well," said Guy Sabatino, manager of the Lutherville Long and Foster office.