Bay State real estate agents constantly look for signs in the marketplace that show them how to better serve existing customers or reach out to an untapped market. Now, many agents are finding those signs aren’t written in English.

In an effort to reach out to a diverse homebuying population, Realtors have been working to earn their At Home With Diversity designations, and associations at all levels have begun offering some form of diversity training. At the recent Massachusetts Association of Realtors annual convention, Realtors found themselves in a standing-room-only audience when the topic of diversity was taking center stage.

However, a growing number of Realtors are taking their diversity education a step beyond learning about different cultures and their homebuying experiences. They’re also opting to learn the native languages of populations in their area in order to better work with existing customers and perhaps attract new ones.

For example, in the resort area of Cape Cod – where the stereotype of a typical buyer as being white and English-speaking once prevailed – classes are now being offered in learning Portuguese to help agents work with that burgeoning homebuyer segment.

“A Casa E Sua,” began a prominent advertisement in a recent Cape Cod & Islands Association of Realtors newsletter promoting a new course titled “Portuguese for the Real Estate World” at Cape Cod Community College. The phrase is said to someone upon entering a house in Brazil to make them feel at home, literally meaning “the house is yours,” according to the ad.

Jeanne Walsh of Walsh Realty in Hyannis, which recently merged with Kinlin-Grover GMAC Real Estate, is taking the course now and said learning the new language is critical for her business. “You probably have about 7,000 or 8,000 Brazilians living on Cape Cod now. This is a destination for them,” she said.

Although she has not yet completed the course, Walsh said she already is putting what she’s learned to use. “I went to a home inspection the other day with Brazilian buyers and I introduced myself to them in Portuguese, and they thought it was the greatest thing that I was trying to learn their language.”

A number of other real estate agents also are learning the language, she said. The class, which places an emphasis on words and phrases key to the real estate industry, is expected to be offered again after the current session ends.

In the New Bedford area, which has long been known for its Portuguese-speaking population, Realtors are facing adjustments as other groups, speaking different languages, relocate there.

“In the past few years, the Spanish-speaking Latino population has really increased around here while the number of Portuguese has decreased because of new changes in immigration,” said Joe Castelo of ERA Castelo in New Bedford.

Seeing the potential to work with the Spanish-speaking market, Castelo’s office recently held its first homebuyers seminar conducted in Spanish with successful results.

Over the next few months, Castelo said he will implement a marketing plan to reach out to the Spanish-speaking market through Spanish-language radio and newspapers.

“We have to do what we can to help them,” he continued. “They have a right to own a home just like everyone else. Sure, we make some money from this, but everyone has the right to own a home.” He added that after the recent seminar, his office received about a dozen follow-up calls from homebuyers interested in working with his company.

“There’s a lot of work involved,” Castelo said of doing business with non-English speakers. “Unfortunately, there are not a lot of agents out there right now who speak the language. Portuguese, yes, but Spanish, no.” In addition to attracting more agents who are fluent in both English and Spanish to his company, Castelo is also looking at more bilingual combinations.

“There are untapped markets out there, and if we prepare to serve the people well, it’s a winning situation for everybody. We’re just changing with the times. The future is here.”

The Whole Deal
Edmund “Gill” Woods of Edmund G. Woods Real Estate in Holyoke said Hispanic homebuyers are an important part of the Holyoke real estate market, and having agents in his office that know the Spanish language and the culture of the population is critical. “Central Holyoke is going through a greater transformation than any other area around here,” he said of the neighborhood’s growing Hispanic homeowner population. “Hispanic homebuyers have great pride in homeownership, they’re not absentee landlords and they take care of their properties.

“A lot of them speak English as well as you and I do, but there are some homebuyers that speak English well but feel more at ease when they’re talking about mortgages and other important matters and numbers if they’re speaking in their own language … Even though they might not need an interpreter, they feel comfortable doing business with you because they know [a Spanish-speaking agent] is there.”

He added that knowing the culture is equally important as just knowing the language. “Some people take language courses, but that’s not the whole deal. With a lot of customers it’s not so much that you can speak some halting Spanish, but that you’re bicultural. They definitely appreciate that.”

The importance of cultural knowledge was echoed by Angela Ponte, an agent with Sylvia Roffo Real Estate in Quincy, who along with husband and broker/owner Barry Rabinovitz learned Cantonese to help them when working with some Asian customers.

“We know our Chinese customers will not go out to look at houses during the Chinese New Year,” she said, adding that she participates in numerous activities with Quincy’s Asian residents. “It’s all a part of being a good business person in the community.

“It helps to build a rapport, and when people trust you, they’ll buy property from you and they’ll come back to you,” she said. “We have a lot of brokers in the business here who are native Chinese speakers, but we still have customers coming back to us and it’s not because of our first language. People just feel better about you.”