Paper Tiger

Bucking current trends, Nuestra Casa plans a nationwide expansion

In an era when potential homebuyers increasingly rely on the Internet rather than newspapers and other print media, why is a local real-estate publisher promising to introduce new print publications in as many as 20 U.S. markets? Well, it makes perfect sense if your principal market is Hispanic homebuyers, whose numbers are skyrocketing."Many of these people are not Internet-savvy," says Marco A. Rodriguez, who, with Amy Ceisel, started the Spanish-language shopper Nuestra Casa in Evanston seven years ago."They come from countries that still have a strong use of newspapers for [house hunting]." In 2007, the pair launched publications serving Houston and Orlando/Tampa, and their current business plan calls for rollouts in five U.S. markets each year through 2010.