| More real estate
pros meeting needs of multicultural residents With Atlanta
becoming more of an international city with the
passing of each year, there is an increased need
for services to meet the specific needs of
newcomers to this area with diverse backgrounds.
The real estate
industry, in particular, is working to serve this
category of homebuyer, and Coldwell Banker
Bullard Realty has a number of bilingual agents
able to communicate easily with many of these
families seeking homes here.
Forrest Hale,
managing broker of Coldwell Banker Bullard's
Butts County office in Jackson, notes that one of
this agents, Maria Eggers, is especially
effective in dealing with those coming here from
Latin countries.
“Maria is a
native of Cuba, but she has lived in the United
States for 15 years,” said Hale. “She
has helped many times with both naturalized
citizens whose native language is Spanish and
with immigrants whose language skills are
limited.”
This ability has
also been good for business. Hale said that Mrs.
Eggers' fluency in Spanish and English has
brought her about a dozen customers in the past
three years.
The Butts County
office is not the company's only location
offering bilingual services.
Coldwell Banker
Bullard's Fayette County office has two agents,
Pedro Carrillo and Jose Pinacho, who speak
Spanish. In addition, Linda Perez, the Cendant
Mortgage representative who works out of that
office, is also fluent in both Spanish and
English.
The company's
Tri-County/Riverdale office's staff includes one
agent, Cynthia Shareef, who speaks Arabic, and
two agents, John Barricks and Stan Odle, who are
fluent in Spanish.
The Clayton County
office in Jonesboro has a Korean-speaking agent,
Alex Min, plus Maria Cueva, who speaks Spanish.
Emanuel Oso, an
agent in the Newnan/Coweta County office, is a
native of Nigeria and is fluent in Nigerian.
“We feel that
having agents who can speak these languages in
addition to English has been a great benefit to
us in serving our clients and customers,”
said Steve Bullard, president and owner of
Coldwell Banker Bullard Realty. “As our
company continues to grow, we are looking to
bring on board addition agents who a fluent in
these and other languages.”
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