By William Kustiono
On Wednesday, July 24th, Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) held an educational seminar discussing the global real estate trends in New York City at The W Hotel located at 541 Lexington Avenue, New York.
AREAA is a trade association dedicated to representing the interests of the Asian real estate market nationwide with more than 15,000 members in 38 states. AREAA is founded in 2003 as a nonprofit professional trade organization dedicated to promoting sustainable homeownership opportunities in Asian American communities. This year, AREAA is celebrating its 10th year anniversary as the leading organization of real estate professionals dedicated to serving the Asian American community. This association also focuses on the Asian Pacific American real estate industry and position themselves as a primary resource for increasing Asian Pacific American homeownership and building investor wealth through real estate.
Angie Lee, President of AREAA (left)
The seminar began with Angie Lee, President of AREAA Metro New York chapter, who opened with an introduction to AREAA’s goal and the topic of this seminar. After the introduction, information about the AREAA National Convention on September 19-21, 2013 in Los Angeles, California was shared. At this upcoming convention, there will be several topics covered, such as Introduction to CIPS Course: Global Real Estate and Transaction Tools, CCIM Course: Residential Real Estate Financial Analysis, and Dragon’s Den. These are sessions geared towards enhancing your verbal communication skills and confidence-building techniques for effective sales pitches, and many more real estate related events.
The AREAA seminar welcomed speakers and presenters: Sherry Chris, President & CEO of Better Homes and Garden Real Estate, LLC; Ivan Choi, Incoming Chair of Asian Real Estate Association of America; Janet Choynowski, CEO of Immobel and Real-Buzz; Eric Barron, CEO of Keller Williams NYC; Gordon H. Hoppe, Senior Vice President/Director of Sales of Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group; Nikki Field, Senior Global Real Estate Advisor/ Associate Broker of Sotheby’s International Realty; Arthur Hung, Vice President/Broker of The Corcoran Group; Alex Flores of Wells Fargo; and Joseph R. Kleumper, Managing Director of WTAS, LLC.
In the midst of discussion, Joe makes a statement that the real estate segment has grown geometrically. In the West Coast, North California, there is a strong growth in the US real estate buyer and most of the buyers are Asians. Sherry supports Joe’s statement and says she is also trying to establishing diversity on her housing projects in the West Coast. Her company, Better Homes and Garden Real Estate uses statistics to predict people’s diversity in that area. Perhaps if there is a major real estate growth in West Coast, there might be a same growth progress in East Coast market. Eric and Gordon contribute and mention the growth in New York Area is tremendous, apartments and houses are completely sold out within a few months. Gordon explains this in his presentation while presenting his Corcoran Sunshine project, which they have sold most of the properties to the New York Area. Eric supports his report by explaining how the number of people who could afford a property has doubled since 2008, all while the price is increasing steadily every time. In the New York Area, there is a shortage in the amount of properties available for people to buy due to high demand.
According to Gordon, 30% of the buyers are international people and most of them are Asian. Arthur comments that the majority of Asian ethnicity is East Asians and South East Asians, such as people from China, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. There has been an economic booming in real estate in these countries, therefore, there are a lot of wealthy people emerging from this countries who want to invest in other side of the world especially United States.
Nikki and Eric add that the most important thing in real estate is to understand people’s need and to help them accomplish their goals in real estate. Nikki is studying the Chinese language at CUNY to help her understand people from China. She is also suggesting to realtors to learn how to negotiate like an Asian. She explains that realtors have to learn about their cultures and the way they negotiate in business. Learn to respect them and gain their trust, you must be a professional, first impression is everything, dress and act like a professional realtor.
After the panel discussion comes the table discussion session, the panelists assign to each table with the audience to discuss about the current events in real estate. Several topics discuss international marketing, professional networking, how to use technology & communication to reach people effectively, and how to invest effectively in the market. And after the table discussion, the seminar ends with an after event networking.
This event is a “must-attend” event for the real estate community and people whose desire to increase their knowledge and receive current news about the real estate market, especially in the current market where most investors are coming aboard from Asia. This is the perfect time to persuade them to invest in the U.S. market where in the projection there will be more properties available in the coming months.
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