Membership

Rising Hispanic Membership Spurs Launch of NAR en Espanol Website

Recognizing a growing need to meet the demands of a rapidly increasing membership segment, the National Association of Realtors launched a new website to better inform and serve its Hispanic members.

As its Spanish-speaking membership continues to rise at a historic pace, the National Association of Realtors responded directly to meet the needs of its Hispanic members by recently launching a fully Spanish-language subsite to its main website.

“NAR’s primary core value is to put our members first, which ultimately drove our decision to launch NAR en Español,” said Katie Johnson, NAR’s general counsel and chief member experience officer. “We heard time and again that the desire for more content in Spanish to better educate their target audience was a huge priority for our membership, both locally and globally.”

The new site includes valuable content for members, as well as resources that members can use with their homebuying customers.

Hispanics are the second-largest ethnic group in the U.S., with more than 60 million people making up roughly 18 percent of the country’s population, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. Hispanics are earning more money, becoming better educated, and forming households at a faster pace than any other demographic, Johnson said. Nearly 2 million new Hispanic homeowners have emerged in the past decade, and as more Hispanics enter their prime home-buying years, this rate of homeownership will likely increase NAR’s Hispanic membership, she said.

For several years, the NAR Global team hosted Spanish-speaking sessions at NAR’s annual conference and noticed the event was becoming more popular and the networking and learning benefits were flourishing.

As with many associations, when COVID-19 hit, NAR had to act quickly to increase outreach to members in new and innovative ways. Alejandro Escudero, NAR’s manager of global alliances and business development, expanded NAR en Español’s content beyond an initial Facebook group, online blog, and the annual conference sessions to launch the NAR en Español subsite.

“Adding content and resources in Spanish will help us increase NAR brand recognition and support among Realtor members and consumers both domestically and around the world,” Escudero said.

NAR en Español features valuable content for members, including webinars and other NAR resources, which are translated into Spanish by contracted firms and Escudero himself, who is a native Spanish speaker. All content is edited, reviewed, and revised multiple times to ensure the language is suitable for residents and Realtors in every Spanish-speaking country, Johnson said. Additionally, NAR offers more benefits in Spanish for its international members than ever before, including some of its most prestigious designations and certifications.

NAR’s Spanish-speaking volunteer leaders played a key role in the initiative, and Johnson credits their “passion and support” as invaluable in helping to get the subsite built. She encourages associations with Spanish-speaking members to “continue developing resources for those groups” and to regularly engage with them to make sure the organization is responding to members’ unique needs and priorities.

(atakan/iStock/Getty Images Plus)

Lisa Boylan

By Lisa Boylan

Lisa Boylan is a senior editor of Associations Now. MORE

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