Selling or buying a home can overwhelm an English-speaking American. But add a language barrier to an already intimidating situation and the real estate transaction can be enough to keep some people out of the market altogether.
Having grown up in Latino neighborhoods, Kelle Sparta of Sparta Success Systems in Newton wanted to help the Spanish-speaking population become home owners. She's taken her nearly 15 years of real estate experience and developed a training tool to offer her assistance.
She recently released "Presentacion del Listado-Spanish Listing Presentation Book" with the goal to help Spanish-speaking real estate agents reach out to the Latino market.
"The program teaches agents how to get Latinos to list their properties with them without a hard-sell approach," she said.
The product comes with several pieces. There's a customizable PowerPoint presentation in Spanish for agents to use when working with potential clients, as well as an audio training guide in English on how to do a listing training presentation and an instruction book in English.
Less than 1 percent of home-owners across the country are Latino, Sparta said. This means there's a large and practically untouched population that hasn't been targeted in real estate.
That's a stunning statistic for towns and cities in Massachusetts such as Waltham, which has a large Latino presence, Sparta said.
"Giving Latinos an introduction to the home-buying process is a helpful idea," said Cheryl Dillon, instructor at the Waltham English Center, which offers classes for those whose first language is not English.
"A lot of what holds my students back in many areas of their lives is that they don't know what they are getting into; they lack the confidence they need to make big decisions," she said.
Sparta said she wants to instill confidence and comfort with becoming a part of the real estate market, and she believes there's a new model agents can use to achieve this.
That model focuses on building relationships.
"The standard way agents use to attract listing clients is to talk about themselves and their company," she said. "The relationship-based way focuses on the sellers and their needs."
The listing book attempts to do this in three ways: To learn about the client first, to educate the client and then to tell the client what the agent can do for him or her.
"It's an effective method because relationships are everything to Latinos," Sparta said. "Before you talk business, ask them about their family."
Her methods work with other clients as well. "If people in general like you, they'll want to do business with you," Sparta said.
Sparta said she's learning that a growing number of agents also want to build relationships with their clients and are not just in the real estate business to sell houses.
Another aspect of selling or buying a home that everyone deals with is the stress.
"It's a major life transition and most people's largest investment," Sparta said. Building a relationship with people during this difficult time is critical to an agent's success.
People who are considering what real estate agent to work with want someone that provides comfort to them.
Those of us whose first language is English often take ease of communication for granted, Dillon said.
"A lot of my students don't talk about being homeowners because they may see it as a dream," she said.
Having an ally in the process may help them feel better about the complexities of selling or buying a home.
For more information about Presentacion del Listad-Spanish Listing Presentation Book and the other services and products Sparta offers, visit www.SpartaSuccess.com.
