Wednesday, July 13, 2005

 

Metro Brokers unveils Spanish Web site

Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate made history this month by becoming the first real estate company in Georgia with a Spanish language Web site that allows Spanish-speaking homebuyers to search for homes in Spanish.

The site (www.metrobrokers.com/espanol) is almost a mirror image of the company’s English language site (www.metrobrokers.com). Unlike many Spanish real estate web sites that only offer some information in Spanish or a single contact page for bilingual information, Metro Brokers has translated virtually everything from the English site. Virtually all content, links, ads, and even the navigation bar are in Spanish for consistent, easy to understand information. Plus, both sites link to each other.

“With well more than a half a million Hispanics in the metro Atlanta area, a Spanish Web site makes sense,” said Dac Carver, marketing director for Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate. “It provides thousands of Hispanics with a better understanding of the help that is available to them through Metro Brokers.”

The new Web site necessitated the creation of a parallel logo for Metro Brokers and its sales associates to use when marketing directly to Hispanics. The new logo looks almost identical to the current Metro Brokers logo, except the blue box with “.com” was expanded to include the domain name for the new Web site address which is “.com/espanol.”

In addition, Metro Brokers has Spanish speaking telephone operators, loan officers, and customer representatives to help Hispanics with real estate, relocating, mortgages, insurance and title/closing services at 404-843-2500.

There are 38.8 million Hispanics in the U.S. according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2002), making them the largest and fastest growing minority group in the nation. The same report found Hispanic homeownership grew at a rate of 16.7 percent from 1994 to 2001, while Caucasians grew only 6.6 percent. During the next two to three years, 48 percent of Hispanics who do not currently own a home are likely to purchase a home1, which translates to approximately 18.3 million homebuyers.

Metro Atlanta has the fastest Hispanic growth rate in the country according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2003) and Hispanics account for $10.9 billion in buying power in Georgia. Studies show that Hispanics prefer to work with a real estate associate who speaks their own language. In fact, more than any other ethnic group, Hispanics feel uncomfortable handling business transactions in English, according to a study by the Texas A&M University Real Estate Center.

Metro Brokers has almost tripled in size in three years with 19 metro Atlanta offices and more than 2,300 licensees, which makes Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate the largest license holder in the state of Georgia.

Metro Brokers/GMAC Real Estate, established in 1979, offers a wide range of real estate services including residential and commercial sales; pre- and post-license training; corporate relocation; new home sales and marketing; and insurance, mortgage and title/closing services. The company’s real estate academy is also the number one broker-owned real estate school in Georgia.

To contact Metro Brokers, call 404-843-2500 or visit www.metrobrokers.com/espanol.