Refugee, immigrant real estate agents help buyers 'conquer homeownership' in Columbus
On a brisk winter morning, real estate agent Sinan Falah met his client, a buyer named Mohamad Mizyan, at a two-bedroom condominium in Worthington.
Both men are former refugees from far warmer climates than central Ohio.
Mizyan, a team manager at a bank, is Palestinian, but grew up in Lebanon.
“As a refugee, (owning a home) was a dream that was never possible for me to achieve in Lebanon. … Now I'm able to buy my own house to live with my wife and start a new family,” he told The Dispatch.
Falah, who came to the U.S. from Iraq 15 years ago, said many of his clients are immigrants or refugees who prefer to work with him, in part, because he understands where they are coming from.
Falah said he applied for a real estate license in 2019 after hearing about a friend’s struggles to buy a home. The friend, also an Arab American, told Falah that his agent spoke quickly in English and had little patience for explaining the intricacies of loans or insurance to him.
An Ohio State University graduate who also works as a civil engineer for the U.S. Department of Defense, Falah said he has found a niche as a real estate agent, explaining the systems around home-buying and translating complex terms for first-time buyers.
“It’s not about buying and selling. It's about educating and helping those refugees to know about the real estate system and the wealth management system,” Falah told The Dispatch.
Falah said he sold 33 homes his first year in 2020, and 65 in 2023. Falah was awarded Columbus Realtors’ Rising Star of the Year Award award in 2022, and is currently one of Coldwell Banker Realty’s top agents in central Ohio, according to his employer.
As central Ohio’s real estate market continues to heat up, The Dispatch spoke with multiple real estate agents from immigrant and refugee backgrounds who said their ranks are growing. Both agents and their customers said immigrant brokers provide important cultural translations, establishing bonds of trust that can move deals through — especially, but not solely, for immigrant clients.
“Education is a huge, huge piece of it,” said Hasina Nelson, a Columbus-based real estate agent originally from Trinidad and Tobago. “Whereas in other communities, they may have had many generations of homeowners, you don't necessarily have that in a lot of immigrant or predominantly minority areas.”
Immigrants overcoming barriers to enter real estate business
Many American Realtor associations prevented nonwhite people from becoming licensed Realtors until the 1960s, according to the National Association of Realtors. But real estate agents in Ohio have become increasingly diverse in recent years. In 2021, about 12% of the more than 25,000 real estate brokers and sales agents in the state were people of color, and about 4.5% were immigrants, according to the American Community Survey.
Around 55% of Ohio’s foreign-born population owned their own homes in 2021, either free and clear or with a mortgage. Among the U.S.-born population in Ohio, the figure was 68%, according to the ACS' 5-year PUMS estimates for 2021.
Bhim Dulal, a Bhutanese Nepali Realtor, said that when he got his license five years ago, there were five Realtors from his community in Greater Columbus. Today, there are more than he can count, he said.
Desalen Golla, an Ethiopian American Realtor, said that immigrants sometimes have to overcome barriers related to language, cultural nuances or a lack of familiarity with local regulations in order to become agents.
Having a thick accent — even if an immigrant real estate agent is fluent in English — can make it difficult to gain the trust of some native-born Americans, Falah said.
At the same time, immigrants may have certain advantages in the real estate business.
“Immigrants and refugees bring a unique perspective and cultural understanding. I believe it enhances our ability to connect with clients from a diverse community and backgrounds,” Golla said.
“We have a community … that we see regularly through markets, through events or through parties,” which can help find leads of potential buyers and sellers, Falah said.
Many new American homebuyers prefer agents from their own cultures
Realtors told The Dispatch that many immigrants are searching for the same general characteristics in a home as any other buyer: safe neighborhoods, good schools, rising property values and access to shopping centers and other facilities.
However, other preferences can be culturally specific.
Many Bhutanese Nepali families initially sought large, multibedroom homes to live in with their extended families — although recently, more are moving in with nuclear families, according to Dulal.
Mizyan said he is looking for a home with a private backyard so his wife, who wears a hijab in public, could be comfortable walking outside in home attire.
Falah said he helps some Muslim buyers seek out Islamic financing, which charges fees instead of interest, the taking of which is forbidden in Islam. However, many Muslim clients go with traditional mortgages, which are sometimes cheaper, he said.
Another of Falah’s clients, Ali Al Hraishawi, worked as a translator for U.S. Marines in Iraq before immigrating to Columbus, where he owns a trucking company. Al Hraishawi said many Arab Americans prefer to work with Arab real estate agents to prevent misunderstandings.
“Details about insurance and terms like ‘closing’ and ‘pre approval,’ all this stuff — it's very difficult for them to understand it from someone who speaks English only,” he said.
Nelson, the Trinidadian American Realtor, said many of her clients are African American, first-generation homebuyers. She said they choose her partly because of her race — but that’s not the only factor.
“Being able to understand where people are coming from, being reachable, being willing to work in their price range” are all important, she said. “And of course, sitting across a table from someone who looks like you just gives you a certain level of comfort — because buying a home can be a scary thing.”
Nelson said she takes pride in helping families "conquer the homeownership barrier."
“I've seen (homeowners') whole life change ... It just gives them a foundation to propel into their future. I've seen them get new jobs, start new businesses" after buying a home, she said.
Falah said one of his most memorable sales was to a refugee mother who had once been homeless.
He recalled that when they finally closed on the purchase, she said, “Now, nobody can come to my daughter and tell her, ‘You have to leave.’”
More: Ohio's current immigrant population much more diverse, still well below national level
Peter Gill covers immigration, New American communities and religion for the Dispatch in partnership with Report for America. You can support work like his with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America at: bit.ly/3fNsGaZ.
pgill@dispatch.com
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Building cultural bridges in real estate in Columbus
