With the real estate market slower than anytime in the last three years, more realty agents and loan brokers are looking for customers in segments often forgotten by the mainstream real estate industry — minority communities. “For the longest time it wasn’t quite popular to be a minority,'’ said Hilda Ramirez, a director of the Santa Clara County Association of Realtors and co-founder of the Hispanic Association of Realtors and Affiliates. “But suddenly corporate America has awakened and it’s the hottest ticket in town.”

Nationally, 58 percent of Asians, 48 percent of Hispanics and 46 percent of blacks own their homes, compared with 74 percent of whites, according to 2004 data from the U.S. Census Bureau. But 60 percent of first-time U.S. home buyers in the next decade will come from these “underserved” communities, said Maria Valentin, diversity marketing director for First American Title Company, which hosted the conference.

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