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Immigrant agent

REAL ESTATE: The growing community is increasingly diverse, housing experts say.

11:27 PM PDT on Sunday, May 29, 2005

By LESLIE BERKMANAND MARY BENDER / The Press-Enterprise

You might call him Eastvale's Little Saigon connection. Frank Huynh, a Vietnamese immigrant, four years ago moved from Garden Grove for a chance to buy a large house at a bargain price in the community emerging from the dairylands north of Corona and Norco.

He didn't come alone. Huynh, owner of Saigon Realty, refers Vietnamese families from Westminster to the new Eastvale developments, where he and his agents earn commissions on home sales. He also figures about half of his 65 agents have made the move.

They are part of a torrent of ethnic minorities, many with first languages other than English, flowing inland from Los Angeles and Orange counties for the chance to buy houses far larger than what they could afford in their old neighborhoods.
David Degner / The Press-Enterprise
Frank Huynh of Saigon Realty in a model home in Eastvale. Huynh caters to Asian clients as part of the influx of ethnically diverse buyers to the community.

Huynh described his clients as "big families looking for a nice neighborhood and a big house for little money." A house that might be $1.1 million in Garden Grove, he said, can be found for just $600,000 in Eastvale.

"To own a home is not only the American dream, it is the universal dream," said Angi Ma Wong, an expert in Asian culture and adviser to many Southern California home builders.

The newcomers to Eastvale are willing to leave Westminster's Little Saigon and predominantly Asian enclaves in the San Gabriel Valley, as long as they are within commuting distance of jobs, friends and relatives, ethnic restaurants and shopping via the 60 and 10 freeways, Wong said.

Few figures are available on the ethnic changes under way in Eastvale and many home sales agents and mortgage bankers are reluctant to discuss the subject, saying they are fearful of violating national fair housing laws that forbid discrimination. Nonetheless, they acknowledge that the trend toward far greater ethnic diversity is apparent.

Ofelia Hernandez, a Prudential real estate agent, said when her family moved to Eastvale from Tustin seven years ago, she was an ethnic minority among Caucasians who were the "oldtimers." But she said as the dairies have given way to more housing tracts, she has seen a large influx of Hispanics, Japanese and other Asians from Orange County.

Hernandez said she came from Mexico to the United States with her parents when she was 4 years old and has compassion for the newcomers to Eastvale who are immigrants trying to buy a house. "You don't know the language or what is going on," she said.

Mike Dwight, vice president of marketing and sales for K Hovnanian Homes said although he keeps no tallies, he has seen many buyers from the Philippines, India and Pakistan, some in their native dress.

At Belmont at Cloverdale Farms, a 127-lot subdivision in Eastvale, the builder KB Home reports that of the first 61 homes sold, the background of 48 percent of the buyers was Korean and 19 percent Chinese with a sprinkling of other racial backgrounds ranging from Latino to Middle Eastern to Caucasian.

Educational opportunities are a major consideration for the homebuyers.

Huynh said many of his Vietnamese clients choose Eastvale because it is only a 15-minute drive to Cal Poly Pomona. Christina Sung, owner of China Post, a Chinese newspaper, said some Chinese families like Riverside County because their children can attend UC Riverside and be close to home.

No Specific Plans

New schools are planned in Eastvale without regard to the ethnicity or national background of the prospective students, said Ted Rozzi, assistant superintendent in charge of facilities for the Corona-Norco Unified School District.

If the district needs to hire bilingual teachers to serve a large influx of youngsters who are not proficient in English, it will do that once enrollment shows the need -- not in anticipation of it, he said.

Statistics for the 2003-04 school year, the most recent available, show enrollment was diverse at Clara Barton Elementary School in Eastvale. White students accounted for nearly 40 percent, Hispanics almost 39 percent, African-Americans about 10 percent, and Asians, Pacific Islanders and Filipinos combined were just under 11 percent.

No data was available for Harada Elementary, which just opened in Eastvale last July.

Homebuilders are adjusting by using multi-lingual loan officers, establishing relationships with real estate agents who work in ethnic communities, and advertising in ethnic newspapers. Some builders also take care that the architecture of their homes complies with the principles of feng sui, the Chinese practice of creating harmonious surroundings.

KB Home's Inland Division President Scott Laurie said about a year ago the division's in-house mortgage company began to hire bilingual loan officers in languages including Mandarin and Cantonese, Korean, Vietnamese and Spanish.

Bob Kronenfeld, director of marketing for KB Home's Inland Division, said the models at the newest Cloverdale Farms tract will have Asian touches, such as a color palette trending toward red, gold and black.

One model home at John Laing Homes' Steeplechase project in Eastvale also is decorated to please Asian buyers. The "Zen house" has fountains at the entry and an upstairs meditation room with a massage bed for relaxing and floor mats around a tea table.

Asian families tend to be tight-knit, Kronenfeld said, making space in their homes for grandparents. For that reason, he said, KB's home designs include a large master bedroom on the ground floor where grandparents can stay.

Gazi Gori, 32, who emigrated from Pakistan 12 years ago, said when he graduated from Cal State Fullerton in 1997, he was a bachelor with little interest in settling down. But he said his mother advised him and his two brothers to buy a house. So he said they pooled their resources to buy their first house in Eastvale in 2001.

Since then, Gori said, he has made considerable profit investing in Eastvale real estate. He and his brothers no longer share the same house. Instead they live with their families in side-by-side homes in Ryland Homes' Saratoga development. He said his mother has a ground floor bedroom in each son's home. "Wherever she feels like staying, that is where she stays," he said with a chuckle.

One afternoon last week, Gori stood outside the Ryland Homes' model homes that were for sale. He was overjoyed to see that the model of the five-bedroom house he bought for $478,000 last July is priced at $874,000, including landscaping, furnishings and upgrades.

Gori said the smell of cow manure in Eastvale once gave him a headache. But he no longer complains about the odor, which is disappearing with the dairies.

"I love that smell. I call it the smell of money," he said.