Linda Vista Real Estate building community

This year, Linda Vista Real Estate made the American dream of home ownership a reality for dozens of families.

Named for the mountain road in Puerto Rico where agency owner José Quiñones spent his early life, Linda Vista is a full-service real estate agency with a staff of bilingual agents. Since May, they have helped nearly 50 Spanish-speaking families buy into a more attractive vision of the future as homeowners.

In the months since the real estate agency opened in downtown Seaford, Quiñones, broker Lit Dryden and a growing staff of agents, administration and advocates have found niche market in the Hispanic population and sales have been swift.

Home ownership bottoms out

Despite a real estate market that rebounded to show general increases in homeownership nationwide, according to the US Census, Hispanic homeownership hit a 17-year low at 44.1 percent in the first quarter of 2015.

Overall homeownership rates ranked at nearly 64 percent during this same period, and during the interim, agents at Linda Vista Real Estate Services found plenty of room for growth.

Although Quiñones often meets clients elsewhere, he said the office location was chosen because Seaford is central to affordable housing in western Sussex County.

"This community is a young community and as a young family, you need a home," he said. "Home ownership is up there with air; it's safety in every sense of the word."

A fresh start

Quiñones broke into the real estate market less than two years ago, but has moved fast on a plan he created with his wife to take control of their futures.

"I wasn't planning to have my own office until year five, but things just escalated," Quiñones said. "There was a need."

Formerly a substance abuse counselor, Quiñones moved from New York City to Delaware in 1995 and raised three children as a single father before he met his wife and they added a son to the family.

After an illness put life in perspective for the husband and father, Quiñones said he decided to change the direction of his career and pursue real estate sales, knowing his first language would help attract an underserved clientele.

"I started looking around at the real estate market, and I noticed, when the market is down, those who stick around have a niche," Quiñones said. "We service everybody, but I have a niche market."

So Quiñones left his job, cashed out his 401K to began pursuing a career in real estate.

He hasn't looked back since.

"All my eggs are in this basket, but I wanted to be in control of my time," he said. "I'm a counselor at heart, but now I'm working with people at their happiest."

Building relationships

In the 1980s, Quiñones moved from the island territory to the Bronx, speaking only Spanish.  He says he earned to speak English as a teenager who didn't look Hispanic.

Quiñones remembers being a stranger in a strange land.

"I'm so diverse; I came from Puerto Rico speaking Spanish and looking black, and I wanted to look like Menudo," he said, smiling. "Being in the Bronx, I got chased by Puerto Ricans one day and black guys the next."

Nowadays, Quiñones is a community builder.

He says much of this work gets done by bringing the business to his clients. Since they often work long hours and meeting in Seaford is not always possible, Quiñones has made it part of his practice to meet at alternate locations in the county, primarily McDonalds, to seal the deal.

The Realtor said he's no stranger to staff and management at locations across the county and can quickly name which ones have playgrounds. In eight months at Linda Vista, he's put more than 35,000 miles on his car.

"My niche market, they show up with the whole village," Quiñones said. "We can meet and go over paperwork, the kids have a playground, get food and we do business."

For-profit business, nonprofit heart

Beyond showing, selling and persuading buyers to sign the dotted line for a property, the owner of Linda Vista says he feels a duty to help clients understand their new responsibilities as home owners.

"My job is to make sure people can acclimate through the process," Quiñones said. "I've built relationships. I'm walking people into town hall, to the code enforcers. We provide a full range of services after the fact."

Realtor Bianca Mojica was the first agent to join the team at Linda Vista and in some ways, considers the work as a call to service.

"Of course it's a living," Monica said. "But its also service, we provide a full range of services. For a lot of these people, it's their first time owning anything. We're not just handing over keys."

The agent said her colleagues work as a team to provide continuing service and Quiñones hopes to expand his team with a post-transaction coordinator in the coming months.

Already, Linda Vista sponsors cultural events and the owner has set aside a workshop room in the offices for organizations who want to reach out to the community with educational opportunities and resources.

For the former counselor, it's a way to service the public his new role. "I think our No. 1 job is serving in life, I have a serving heart," he said. "All I want is to be part of your story."

For more information about Linda Vista Real Estate Services, call 302-313-1600 or go to www.lindavistare.com.