Sharing in the dream

A crowd of 30 sisters, brothers, in-laws and cousins gathered recently in the family's living room, kitchen and backyard -- a weekly tradition since Ana and Eduardo Gutierrez and their two children moved into the two-bedroom home in September -- to shrug off the workweek and enjoy bountiful food, a movie on the big screen and swimming in the inflatable pool.

"It may be small, but for us this house is a castle," Eduardo said of the 1,019-square-foot, white stucco house, which the couple bought on a tree-lined street for $360,000.

Whether newcomers to the United States or third-generation Americans, first-time Latino home buyers are overcoming cultural and institutional barriers, such as distrust of banks and lack of traditional credit, that for decades prevented many from buying homes. They are purchasing condos and single-family houses in Southern California, from the Inland Empire to the Antelope Valley, and helping to gentrify some neglected neighborhoods.

Spanish-language marketing campaigns are helping boost homeownership rates among Latinos, who, like other home buyers, are taking advantage of low interest rates and abundant mortgage options.

More significantly, lenders see opportunity in the growing Latino market and are loosening conventional home-loan credit rules, enabling more in the fastest-growing demographic in California to purchase homes.

Two-thirds of California's Latino population is under 35 and entering its peak home-buying years, according to Pepperdine University's Davenport Institute for Public Policy.

The percentage of Southern California home buyers with Spanish surnames nearly doubled in the last decade, from 17.6% in 1994 to 34.3% in 2004, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a La Jolla real estate research firm.

"It's like a dam has broken open," said David Toyama, head of a Coldwell Banker real estate business in Eagle Rock that focuses on Latino buyers. "The banks and real estate companies are finally tapping into the flood of buyers."

Although strides have been notable, Latino home-buying still lags behind that of non-Latino whites in the state. Latinos made up about 23% of Californians who bought homes in the last two years, whereas non-Latino whites accounted for 59% for home buyers, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Latinos made up 35% of the state's population in 2003, and whites 45%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.