Housing industry awakens to Hispanic market

Housing industry awakens to Hispanic market: "NEW YORK -- Aug. 3, 2005 -- Home builders are loosening their credit standards and mortgage lenders are getting creative in an effort to target the Hispanic market, whose homeownership rate of 49 percent is well below the national rate of 69 percent.

Last year, Countrywide Home Loans started offering loans with no downpayment to prospective borrowers who can provide a year's worth of utility bills, rent or even cable payments -- a product that should serve the Hispanic market well, according to Mary Salinas Duron, executive vice president of national multicultural markets for Countrywide."