Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 29, 1992 TAG: 9203300234
SECTION: HOMES PAGE: D-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Languages spoken at one Shannon & Luchs office include Arabic, Spanish, Chinese and Vietnamese, reflecting the huge influx of foreigners to the area in the past decade.
"Ten years ago there was no ethnic person in our office and now there are eight of us with ethnic backgrounds" among the 80 licensed professionals in the Shannon & Luchs Fairfax County office, said Ann. Brady.
Brady, who was born in the United States to Hispanic parents, is head of the Equal Opportunity Committee of the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors.
The organization wants to help sales agents and customers from other cultures adjust to the U.S. market, Brady said.
The Washington metropolitan area's Hispanic population has nearly tripled in the past 10 years and Asians have nearly doubled their numbers, bringing thousands of new customers to the housing market. Often those customers have money to spend but had difficulty finding agents who spoke their language or encountered perceived discrimination or other barriers in securing loans, agents said.
More than 230,000 Hispanics from many countries live in the Washington area, making them the area's largest ethnic group, according the the 1990 U.S. Census. A large number of Hispanics choose Arlington and Fairfax counties, where established Hispanic communities have flourished for years.
"We are family oriented and need space for the family," said Luis Lama, an agent with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. His customers prefer large houses with finished basements, he said.
That is the kind of house Maria Arandia, a native of El Salvador, looked at in Falls Church last week. She and her husband have never owned a home but hope to buy one because "when I die I want to leave something" to their two daughters, Arandia said.
Lama, who came to the U.S. from Peru nearly 40 years ago, gives prospective buyers written information in Spanish and seeks out Spanish-speaking loan officers and real estate lawyers for his clients.
"Many people understand everyday English. They live and work in English but for the technical parts of buying a house they need to hear it in Spanish," Lama said.
"Every ethnic agent works twice as hard as the mainstream" agent, said Harold Pyon, a Korean American. In addition to helping his customers find a house, Pyon said he frequently translates for them and explains elements of the home-buying process that native English speakers might learn from lawyers or their own experience, he said. "It's very complicated."
About a third of the estimated 80,000 Koreans in the Washington area own homes, Pyon said.
"Most Koreans who are first-generation do not know what's going on in the American system," Pyon said. "We must translate American culture to the ethnic community."
Many older Koreans distrust banks and traditionally keep their savings in cash at home. Loan officers are stunned when these buyers bring in paper bags full of cash to cover the down payment, Pyon said. "They look at me and say, `What is this, drug money?"'
Pyon's father, Man Pyon, owns the Annandale-based ERA realty firm and employs about 18 agents, most of them non-ethnic. The younger Pyon handles sales to Asian customers.
"The rate of foreclosures is very, very low in our community," said Dean Nguyen, the Vietnamese-born head of IMB Realty Corp. in Falls Church. "If you lose a house, you lose face."
He said many Vietnamese families choose northern Virginia or Montgomery County in Maryland "because the education system is good and . . . most of our people look on education as the No. 1 priority."
by CNB