Latin looks start to sway home designs
Some builders offer features to draw Hispanics
— reported by the Houston Chronicle(1)
Residential designer Geraldina Interiano Wise spent the past three years urging builders to give a Latin flavor to new homes by including open living areas, adding terraces and tiling floors.
Fed up with builders who refused to listen, she bulldozed her home in West University and in its place is creating a hacienda-style house of her dreams, appropriately dubbed Casa de Suenos.
“If what you’re going to throw them is stuff they can’t relate to, why bother?” said Wise, who now plans to show her home to builders so they can understand what Hispanics want.
Builders would be wise to listen.
Hispanics are expected to buy between 1.5 million to 2.2 million homes in the next five years, according to a study by the Los Angeles-based Tomas Rivera Policy Institute.
And according to Packaged Facts, a division of Market- Research.com, Hispanic homeownership surged by 80.3 percent between 1995 and 2005, compared to 18.2 percent for non-Hispanics.
To capture that market, real estate firms and banks have hired bilingual agents and loan officers. They’ve translated advertising material into Spanish.
[snip]
Since I know this particular designer, I really liked this story. Yes, I am that subjective.
Reminders:
- Houston Chronicle links expire after a few days because they’re archived. If you want to access these articles after that, you either have to be a subscriber or go to the Houston Public Library and access the database using your Library Power Card.
