What brokers can do to help Hispanic homebuyers
As more Hispanic homebuyers flood the market, they are often met with roadblocks in the process of buying a home.
One of the most obvious roadblocks is a lack of documents translated into Spanish. This makes the process of filling out and understanding complicated documents even more challenging.
Even if documents are translated, they are often explained by a broker or loan originator who cannot speak Spanish to answer follow-up questions in the borrower’s native language. One industry veteran is looking for solutions to that issue.
Ashlin Endter (pictured top), founder and mortgage broker at 4MG Mortgage, said that 70% of people purchasing homes in the next five years will be Hispanic. She said it is important that they can get assistance in their native language for one of the most important financial transactions in their life.
“There are 39 million Spanish speakers in the US,” Endter told Mortgage Professional America. “And 23% of Hispanic borrowers say language was an impediment in the mortgage process. A Maxwell survey said 38% couldn't find a Spanish-speaking lender in their area, and 31% considered abandoning their mortgage application because of language barriers. In the end, 51% had to hire a professional translator at their own expense.
“Applications that take minutes took three-plus weeks for 24% of Spanish-speaking borrowers, and still, less than 1% of loan officers identify as Hispanic.”
Need for more Hispanic LOs
While there is a continuing need for more properly translated documents, Endter said there is also a need for more native Spanish speakers to get involved in being a loan originator or mortgage broker.
“We need language access, and we also need to help the future originators,” Endter said. “If you don't want to go to college, that's cool. Go to trade school. You know what's in trade school? Origination. Can you read? Can you write? Do you have a passion to help people? Do you have a heart to serve? Come learn.”
Even companies that have embraced Spanish-language tools for borrowers often have those tools explained by LOs who don’t speak Spanish.
“Guaranteed Rate launched the first fully Spanish mobile mortgage app,” Endter said. “Fifty percent of the apps came from LOs who don’t even speak Spanish. The people who don’t even speak Spanish are sending Spanish documents, and 25% of lenders still have zero translation capability, according to MBA data.”
Endter is trying to help make a difference as a board member of the Hispanic Organization of Mortgage Experts (HOME). They’re trying to help both Hispanic customers and brokers with translation services.
“We're going to try to make it a hub for people to understand, if you are doing a mortgage application, you need to work with one of the originators who's working with HOME,” she said. “Because they're vetted. They have the heart to serve. They're going to walk you through the process in English and Spanish, and they're going to translate for you, and they're going to help you line by line until the client understands what's going on.
“We don't have enough originators who actually speak the language to be able to serve. So there's a huge opportunity for those who are looking for a career change and have a heart to serve, and can read and write, and use critical thinking. There is a need for those people. And there's hands-on training that we provide.”
Advice for current brokers
Many current mortgage brokers have Hispanic borrowers in their community they would like to serve, but there is a language barrier in the way. Endter offers some suggestions for helping them.
“If it's just too overwhelming for them, they can refer to somebody who speaks the language,” she said. “But if they want to start tackling this problem and be part of the solution, they need to rely on Claude or ChatGPT. I know an originator who does not speak a lick of Spanish, but she texts all of her clients, and she will take text messages. So she's doing it. Is it difficult? Yes, but she knows that there's a need for it.
“She's one of the top producers in Orlando, and she's like, ‘I'm going to help them, because I know somebody else out there is going to take advantage of them.’ So I would say, rely on the one thing that we need to rely on, which is AI. Use that as a step stool to help you serve the client.”
She knows that it’s hard for brokers to want to hand off leads to other originators. She’s hoping that HOME can help originators overcome that language barrier and help more borrowers in their community.
“If you're an English speaker, you don't want to hand off the lead,” Endter said. “I would say AI is the best way to do it, if not, reach out to somebody that you know is Spanish-speaking. I think that's the hardest part, though, because when you get a lead in, you want to get paid on it. We have people who are not Spanish-speaking in our organization, but they're using it as recruiting. They can recruit some great originators, so they can learn about the language access barriers.”
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