Center for REALTOR® Technology Web Log

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at this year’s National Convention for the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). I had a coveted Saturday morning breakout session on the topic of Technology Tools. The event was much more that I anticipated.

The event was held at the Hilton on 6th Avenue in NYC, an excellent venue. What a great location with lots to see (and hear) and easy access to La Guardia. When I arrived, the lobby was teeming with excitement. I made my way up to the registration area and saw at least 10 stations, divided up alphabetically. I just had to ask,

“How many attendees to you anticipate?”

“Over 2000″

This caught me by surprise. With the NAR Annual event coming up in another week, I did not study up on this engagement as much as I should have. Browsing the meeting material, I found a full agenda from Friday morning through Monday noon. The topics were all business.

I knew that the Hispanic home buyer was an important buyer, but here are some facts I thought I would post from the conference material:

1. Hispanics accounted for half of 2.9 million U.S. population growth from 2003 to 2004.
2. By 2010, one in four American consumers will be Hispanic.
3. Hispanics are a key catalyst of economic growth with disposable income that has risen 29% since 2000.
4. As their wealth increases, analysts predict Hispanics will spend more on financial services, homes, media and health care.
5. Thirteen million first generation Hispanics comprise 40% of all Latinos.
6. A total of 2.2 million new Hispanic households will buy homes by 2010.

On the technical front, I asked around to get a feel for how people are supporting multi-lingual web sites. I was hoping for someone at the conference to point me to a “magic bullet” I had not heard of yet. What I heard was that “on-the-fly” translation was still a fantasy and multi-lingual sites still require a great deal of effort to support.

I heard some encouraging news on the lending front though. Businesses are getting creative with lending that is more than just FICO® score with consideration being made for rental and utility payment history. This is good news indeed.

NAHREP is an excellent association dedicated to homeownership. I hope they ask me back next year. I had to return to Chicago early and wished I could have stayed for more of the program.