At the same time, he said, lenders must rethink how they evaluate Spanish borrowers.
That means expanding the credit box to include income from multiple family members — a common arrangement for Latino families — and taking into account other credit data such as rental payment histories.
“There [are] other pockets in the country where it is a consumer market,” said Acevedo.” So, if that’s true, then we know that dealers are giving more deals to buyers, up to $15,000 to $20,000 deals. So, if the seller is going to take care of that part, something like, ‘We got you down payment,’ well, what can lenders do in the end to get the credit back to the first-time buyer?
“Now, we can also have lenders who say, ‘Okay, we can buy at your interest rate based on being a first home buyer.’
Hispanic households added a gain of 441,000 homeowners by 2025 – the largest one-year increase since US Census Bureau began collecting data in 1975.
Without Hispanic buyers, the total number of American homeowners would have decreased by 125,000 homes last year.
Jaimie Smeraski, NAHREP’s vice president of national programs and research, said the numbers show trends the organization has been tracking for years are now accelerating.
“We know that Latinos are young. We know that they are getting older and are in their prime home buying age,” she said. “We’ve seen Latinos drive the growth in homeownership for as long as I’ve been doing this report — the last 10 years.”
Hispanics will build more than a million new homes by 2025, accounting for 92.6% of all US homes – a key indicator of future ownership.
“If we had enough availability, I think these numbers would be much higher,” Smeraski said.
Reaching out to a diverse population
For agents looking to break into the Hispanic market, Acevedo said there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
Society itself is divided between two different people, he said.
“With the older generation of Hispanics, you’ll find them at local community events,” Acevedo said. “You find them in churches and other places. Our one goal is to empower our professionals, where, in turn, they can now educate our community as we go along. That’s number one. Number two is our tech savvy Latinos. You’ll find them on social media and what have you. Most of our agents now get a lot of business through Instagram reels.
“We had an agent where I asked, ‘How do you get all this business?’ He just got his license three years ago, three years ago, and he’s already making over a million commissions every year. It’s because he’s on social media watching videos. He puts these songs that remind (people) of their growth.”
Culturally competent education, the report says, goes beyond language access. It involves showing those who want to buy the fruits of their labor.
“[It’s about] to give them that hope, that if their colleague or someone like them can succeed and find a home and achieve the American dream, so can they,” said Acevedo.
Immigrant fears are disrupting the market
Perhaps the most destabilizing force in the housing market in 2025, the report found, was the tightening of immigration laws.
Acevedo said he has seen the impact firsthand at his institution.
“Some of my escrows have been canceled due to the fear that I will buy a house and be deported after that – because they don’t want to be locked up with the house, with this money,” he said.
Others said they are selling their houses because they are afraid that the property may be taken from them, and they are withdrawing their money rather than moving it to another house.
“That fear obviously drives away a lot of these people who were on their way to building wealth — but stopped right there,” Acevedo said.
NAHREP’s Smeraski said agents are fielding increasingly complex questions from clients, many of whom are seeking guidance on how to protect their assets.
“The landlords are reaching out and saying, ‘How do I protect this property, what happens if I or someone in my family is evicted?'” he said. “Agents do a lot of hard work teaching about estate planning – how do you qualify as an attorney? There’s a lot of inaccuracy out there.”
Some agents, Smeraski said, bring in real estate attorneys to help clients navigate the uncertainty.
The long-term solution lies in fixing what he calls a broken immigration system.
“If we’re going to restore trust, that means we need to create ways for citizenship,” Smeraski said. “We need to create an opportunity for people who have lived in this country for a long time – who have been contributing to the economy in this country, putting down roots here. We need to provide a path to citizenship or a path to permanent residency.”
Compensation navigation and credit access
The 2025 real estate market marked the first full year following class action lawsuits that reshaped buyer agent compensation.
While brokers still charge commissions on most transactions, the report warned that could change in a tighter market – potentially creating new barriers for first-time buyers.
For now, Acevedo said, agents are leveraging market conditions in many counties that favor buyers.
“We’ve been taking advantage of this situation – we’ve been compensated, even more often than you would normally get [before the settlement],” he said.
On the lending side, the report found that nearly one in three Spanish home purchases will be used by 2024. The FHA financing – twice the rate of non-Hispanic consumers. But in May 2025, non-permanent residents were barred from accessing FHA loans, a change that affected DACA recipients, those with temporary protected status and others.
Smeraski said reversing that policy is among NAHREP’s top priorities.
“That’s probably one of the best things they’ve told us,” he said. “They had an incentive to try to push any of their non-permanent residents through that 60-day window when it was announced.”
Without FHA’s reach, he said, the broader mortgage system needs to be modernized.
Latinos are more likely to be self-employed or have side businesses — sources of income that don’t fit well with traditional W-2 filing, Smeraski added.
“It’s not that these people don’t qualify or can’t afford the loan – but the system isn’t designed to help them properly,” he said. “If we can create more opportunities for people who might not fit into this perfect credit box, that can open the door to more qualified borrowers.”
Opportunity markets and the road ahead
For agents in emerging markets — from Indianapolis to the Texas cities that dominate NAHREP’s list of top market opportunities — Acevedo had specific advice.
“Be a market expert,” he said. “When you become a market expert, you become an advisor to the families you serve. You help them better because you help them get the best money based on what’s available in that market.”
The report’s affordability index ranked Indianapolis first among opportunity markets for Hispanic home buyers, with Laredo, Lubbock and El Paso, Texas, and Pittsburgh rounding out the top five. Texas received 17 of the top 25 spots.
Smeraski said the resilience of Hispanic consumers in the face of affordability challenges and political upheaval reflects a deep cultural drive.
“This is something they want, they are fighting for and they are determined to make it happen,” he said. “Whether they’re willing to move or whether they’re willing to bring in their borrowers — they’re going to do what it takes. That’s because owning a home is really the epitome of that American dream. It’s the foundation of what they want.”
