Building Strength to Carry You Through: Countrywide’s Latest Initiatives to Support Homebuilders The Calm After the Storm: How the Recent Federal Rate Cut Could Help Your Sales A World of Opportunity: Understanding Your International Home Buyer Countrywide Connection Reaches Out to Builder Partners

November 2007 A World of Opportunity: Understanding Your International Home Buyers You spend countless hours brainstorming how to get into local buyers’ heads to find out what motivates them to make a purchase. But reviewing statistics to better understand foreign investors’ home buying preferences could also pay off. In the 2007 National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Profile of International Home Buying Activity, 32 percent of participants reported working with at least one international client over the last year. With international investment too prevalent to ignore, we share some of the findings to help you profile these buyers and expand your foreign investor knowledge. Respondents said that cultural differences (such as language) posed unique barriers to making the sale. Culturally-sensitive moves — like learning about culture-specific greetings and other customs, or investing in bilingual marketing — can help home builders break down these barriers and build trust with international buyers.