Homes sweet HOMES
Extended Huynh family, recently relocated from Vietnam, buy side-by-side houses
Lai (Lilly) Huynh and her extended family had a clear idea of what they wanted in their future home: close to work, in a good school district and big enough for all of them.
But they were a long way from their native Vietnam, not fluent in English, and unfamiliar with a homebuying process that can be intimidating under the best of circumstances.
“Our house-hunting process when we first arrived in Oklahoma City was very difficult,” Huynh said through a translator. “We didn’t know what to do or what it would take to own a home.”
Enter Realtor Derrick Tran, of Metro First Realty West, 700 W Main in Yukon — her translator. Fluent in Vietnamese with a network of flexible lenders, Tran was able to steer the family through the process and get them approved for a loan.
Finding the perfect house, though, was a different story.
Lai Huynh is the eldest daughter of Luom Huynh and his wife, Cam Nguyen, who moved to the United States two years ago. She and her siblings followed their parents here six months later. With everyone together again, they began looking for a home that they could all share.
“They needed five, six bedrooms, and homes with that many bedrooms tend to be older,” Tran said. “I wanted to get them into a home they wouldn’t have to worry about — you know, the roof and the plumbing.”
Then they came across a pair of brand-new homes side by side at 1417 and 1421 SW 96, a stone’s throw from work and in the Moore school district. With three bedrooms and about 1,500 square feet each, the homes combined offered plenty of space.
And a bonus: The backyards hadn’t been fenced, meaning they can fence both together into one big yard to share. The homes’ back doors are
only yards apart, making it easy for family members to come and go.
It was meant to be, Tran said.
The houses had “been sitting on the market for 60 days, even though they were new,” he said. “I believe every home is destined for some family, and these were meant for this family.”
They plan to move in later this month, he said.
More than Realtors
Asian-Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States, according to the Asian Real Estate Association of America.
Their numbers are growing fastest in the South, including Oklahoma, where 2.5 percent of the population is Asian-American. In 2010, it was 1.8 percent.
This doesn’t translate into homeownership rates, though. The association said AsianAmericans lag behind the national average by 7 percent.
Real estate agents often are drawn into clients’ lives, at least for a while, as they negotiate a path to homeownership. But it can go much deeper with families who are still relatively new to the country, its language and its ways.
“They don’t speak the language” said Allison Mai Tran (no relation to Derrick Tran), broker-owner of Oklahoma Realty & Management Co. “They don’t know where or how to purchase a home.”
She said she was 12 when her family fled Vietnam 1981, one of about 800,000 people who made their escape by boat. Her family was picked up at sea and spent about a year in Malaysia before being resettled in Oklahoma.
She enjoys working with more recent immigrants.
“Meeting those people is very interesting because I left my home a long time ago,” she said. “To be able to help them is very fulfilling.”
Language is an obvious barrier. Derrick Tran initially didn’t speak enough Vietnamese to act as a translator since he was only 2 when his family fled in 1975 with the initial wave of refugees.
His family was taken to Guam after they were rescued at sea, then to Fort Chaffee in Arkansas. Once they saved enough money, they moved to New Orleans, where his father returned to his work as a fisherman.
So Derrick Tran grew up immersed in American culture. “I’m American through and through,” he said.
A job transfer 15 years ago brought him and his wife, Jeanette Truong, to Oklahoma City. “We fell in love with Oklahoma,” he said.
He ended up learning Vietnamese as an adult, not in a classroom but from a group of men willing to teach as they hung out together once a week. “A year later, I was fluent in Vietnamese. I can speak it and read it now,” he said.
Interpretation means more than translating words and sentences. The financing process can be bewildering to anyone used to paying cash for everything. It often takes extra time, to attend to every meeting and each detail of a contract.
“It’s not just sign here, sign here and sign here,” Allison Tran said. “Our journey is much, much longer than we would have with an American customer.”
Derrick Tran also works for American Eagle Title Group, giving him the ability and flexibility to see the process through from beginning to end. He can meet with clients to finalize deals in the evenings and weekends, a service he also can extend to other agents and their clients.
“That way, (clients) don’t have to take a day off of work to close on a house,” he said.
Lai Huynh said their two-house family home is a dream come true.
“At first, we felt like it was impossible to own a home in the United States,” she said. “Derrick made it possible for our family to own two homes.”
The joy isn’t lost on the agents, either.
“To help the Vietnamese people purchase their American dream home is very exciting,” Allison Tran said.