By: Ashmar Mandou

According to the latest BMO Real Financial Progress Index, nearly 7 in 10 Latinos stated that homeownership is the most important lifetime goal. In 2024, Latino/Hispanic homeownership reached a record high in the U.S., with 9.8 million households and a net gain of 238,000 new homeowners, according to data from the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). With these statistics in mind, BMO recently launched its first Spanish-language mortgage application designed to provide exceptional experiences and empower Latino families through their home buying journey.

“At BMO we believe language should never be a barrier to understanding terms, making informed decisions, and building generational wealth,” said BMO spokesperson Lizzy Diaz-Ortiz. The new application meets the prospective homeowner where they are at by helping to manage the mortgage process in their preferred language. BMO, in addition, provides culturally relevant tools and resources that reflect the diverse need of the Latino community, such as the Low Down Payment Mortgages and Assistance tool, BMO SmartProgress, and Bank at Work USA –Smart Progress, all designed to help navigate the home buying process. Diaz-Ortiz shared additional insight into the services provided by BMO.

Significance of BMO Spanish-Language Mortgage Application
For Latino families their most significant goal is homeownership. So despite rising interest rates, despite the high cost of housing, a majority of Latinos still have that as their top financial goal. So this Spanish language mortgage application will help Spanish-speakers navigate the challenges of homeownership. That’s what makes it significance because it’s in their language, it has cultural relevancy.

Additional Support
So we do have mortgage bankers who speak Spanish. We also have local branches in the Chicagoland area, it’s about 40 branches, where customers can go in and speak to a BMO banker in Spanish. We also have a bilingual education tool called BMO SmartProgress in both Spanish and English. So that whole support of those bankers, in-person, and the financial education tool also bolster the app so that the experience isn’t just the application itself being in the Spanish language but everything to prepare leading up to that process.

Financial Literacy
Financial literacy is one of the topics and one of the tools we have both with our bankers or our online tools, such as BMO SmartProgress as I mentioned earlier. At BMO, we know that it is more than just a credit score that is requires the financial confidence in trusted partners. So we are those trusted partners who understand cultural nuances and financial backgrounds so the preparation can begin with some of modules that are part of SmartProgress; speaking to a banker about preparing, about building credit, building savings, how to invest that money when you are ready to buy a home. So that’s the ecosystem under which we operate.

If you are curious to learn more about the BMO SmartProgress tool, the mortgage process, etc., visit www.bmo.com.