Multiculturalism shapes real estate

• Gear your presentation to the prospective buyer

By Alan J. Heavens
Knight Ridder News Service

How we sell homes is heavily guided by cultural influences.

For more than 50 years, the market assumed that the typical new-home buyers would be the Cleavers: people of European ancestry; a mother, a father and two children who saw themselves pretty much as Madison Avenue saw them.

And accordingly, builders and real estate agents came up with ways to deal with these "traditional" buyers that served them well for decades.

The culture of the marketplace has changed, however, with the entry of millions of immigrants from Asia and Latin America, as well as an increase in black buyers over the last dozen years.

It has meant that builders and real estate agents have had to change their ways of doing business and their assumptions about the marketplace.

Builder and real estate agent organizations have recognized for years that changes were taking place, and have turned to a growing number of "multicultural experts" — people who have either grown up in certain cultures or have had years of experience dealing with them.

The bottom line, the experts say: If you aren't sure about something, ask.

Assumptions about housing styles and amenities also are being tossed out.

Barbara Anderson, who owns Preferred Designs in Kennett Square, has designed nine model houses for various East Coast builders that were targeted to "multicultural buyers." These included people from India, Koreans, Hispanics, and what she described as an "affluent African-American market."

"For example," she said, "Indian buyers are among those who want dramatic entrances, including wood doors with strong-looking brass hardware."

To accommodate buyers' concerns about direction and location, she said, "we installed a prefab compass on the floor of the foyer of the model home, to make it easy for us.

"It's important for builders to develop housing geared to how multicultural buyers live, not how they perceive that these buyers live, which is not often the case," Anderson said.

Feng shui, the 3,000-year-old Asian belief in creating spiritual balance by altering the environment, which gained accepted among non-Asians during the late 1990s, is one example of a cultural influence not previously given much consideration in the real estate marketplace.

The best way to minimize confusion is to ask clients whether they believe in feng shui and what they feel should be avoided, said Virginia Le of Vienna, Va., who often serves as a consultant on multicultural issues for the National Association of Realtors.

Things to be avoided might include, for example, a residence with the numeral 4 in the address or a home with a southern exposure.

The measure of a successful real estate agent or salesperson is to accommodate changes in strategies to obtain listings and move them quickly, Le said. In a changing market, the hard sell no longer works. A careful, knowledgeable, helpful and measured approach does, she says.

Gear your presentation to the prospective buyer

Knight Ridder News Service

Consultant Michael Lee offers this advice to real-estate agents and builders serving the changing market:

• Reconsider presentation styles because high-pressure tactics can turn off buyers without the sales staff knowing it.
• Do not assume that buyers will know real-estate basics. For example, the No. 1 reason for lawsuits against builders is that the furniture the client saw in the model was not included in the sale.
• Explain all the options; buyers may not be aware which ones are available.
• Be sensitive. In some cultures, for instance, the oldest male does the talking, even if he is not the prospective buyer.
• Remember that haggling over price is part of many cultures and that to pay full price is considered insulting.
• Create an inviting atmosphere. Offer tea, for example, instead of coffee only.
• Get buyers' names right.
• Recognize "buying signs." When people go off in a corner and talk among themselves in their own language, they are considering whether to buy, or whether the furniture will fit.
• Print brochures in languages besides English. If a foreign language is common in your market, make an effort to learn it.
• Encourage traditions, such as "christening" a house while it is being built by placing things in the foundation.
• Explain how your staff makes a living and how much those people make, to assure the buyers the staff is not using them to become rich.
• Some new-home buyers may be opposed to paying interest on religious grounds, so mortgages are out. Some lenders are creating mortgages that make the transaction more like renting to own.