I recently had a coffee meeting with Jorge “Junior” Ibarra, CEO and team leader of Ibarra Realty Group, and Manny Toribio, a commercial specialist with the team. They told me that at the recent Keller Williams Family Reunion (their real estate group is an affiliate) in Orlando, Fla., Ibarra gave the first ever presentation in Spanish for the national event.

“It was such an honor to be able to be part of the first-ever Spanish-only breakout session here in the U.S. at Family Reunion for such a huge global real estate company, and this just shows how all industries are paying attention to the growing Latino market here in the U.S.,” Ibarra told me in a follow-up email. 

Ibarra and his team in Des Moines particularly focus on reaching the Latino market and providing resources specific to the needs of the Latino clients, such as materials in Spanish and English. 

The need to better serve Latinos will only continue to increase as demographics shift, he said. As one indicator, Des Moines Public Schools data from the most recent school year shows that 29.2% of students identify as Hispanic/Latinx. That’s compared to only 9.8% 20 years ago.