Nhca Aims To Connect Hispanic Construction Workers And Housing Pros

The National Hispanic Construction Alliance (NHCA) — an offshoot of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals — is nearing its second anniversary and connecting Hispanic workers building homes with the real estate professionals selling them.

Near-term goals include reaching 20 markets by the end of the year and creating a national network that connects contractors, homebuilders, real estate brokerages and lenders.

“Selling a home is a cycle. A lot of times, homes either need repairs to be sold or need to be updated as soon as they’re sold,” said NHCA Executive Director Sergio Barajas told HousingWire. “We’re there at that crossroads where we’re available to identify contractors [in] our membership and can assist.”

Juan Sanchez — broker-owner of Century 21 Bear Facts Realty in Denver and president of Denver’s NHCA chapter — sees the connection between real estate and construction as essential to optimal client service.

“Education is power, and getting to know more about new construction or just the construction industry in general has really helped my brokerage educate our homebuyers, since we now understand the whole process a lot better,” he said.

Connecting lenders, contractors and homebuyers

NHCA’s partnership model extends to lenders who offer renovation loan products such as FHA’s 203(k) program or conventional renovation mortgages.

Barajas said the biggest constraint for lenders looking to increase volume with these products is having a reliable conduit to contractors.

“You don’t want to steer anybody to a specific contractor, but you want to be able to say, ‘Here’s a few contractors that are working with us and are part of our membership. You may want to vet them as potential,’” Barajas said.

The alliance is also working to expand home inventory through easier access to renovation  funds.

“Oftentimes, people run out and say, ‘That’s a three [bedroom]-one [bathroom]. If it was a three-two, I would buy it in the blink of an eye,’” Barajas said. “Think about how much easier it would be to just convert that property to a three-two if you had a contractor that you trusted.”

Hispanic workers drive construction growth

The need for stronger connections between real estate and construction comes as Hispanic workers are becoming increasingly essential to homebuilding industry capacity.

According to NHCA’s 2026 State of Hispanics in Construction Report, Hispanic workers now represent 31% of the construction workforce — up from 28% in 2018.

Between 2018 and 2024, Hispanic workers accounted for  67% of net new workers added to the industry, a gain of more than 646,000 workers.

Henry Galeas, director of operations at NHCA and primary author of the report, said the concentration is even more pronounced in production roles.

“Nearly half of all general laborers and one-third of skilled trades workers are Hispanic,” Galeas said. “They are essential to the operational backbone of the construction industry.”

Yet despite their growing presence in the workforce, Hispanic workers remain significantly underrepresented in leadership roles — accounting for only 15% of management positions and 13% of engineering roles.

Sanchez said the disparity reflects broader patterns he has observed in Denver.

“We’re going to help them become skilled laborers,” he said. “If they’re skilled laborers, maybe they’re trying to grow their own business and they want to become a [general contractor]. We want to give them the tools and the resources to do that.”

The report highlights educational attainment as a key factor shaping career mobility in construction.

Among non-Hispanic construction workers, roughly half have completed some post-secondary education.

“Education is really a big barrier,” Galeas said. “That precludes them from promoting within the construction industry if they are not getting that more formal education.”

Immigration enforcement, aging workforce

Alliance leaders said immigration enforcement actions under the Trump administration have had direct consequences for construction labor supply, particularly in production roles.

Barajas described a member in Nashville with temporary residency status that’s no longer recognized who volunteered to self-deport, fearing that losing his case would mean separation from his wife and two children.

“We’ve been impacted at that very extreme end,” Barajas said.

The National Roofing Contractors Association has reported crews are as short as 40% in some cases, he added.

“That makes sense, because those that are most exposed to raids are those that are out and in the open,” Barajas said. “It’s usually the roofers or the framers. They’re out there exposed.”

“In the midst of a worker shortage, this could have a bigger impact on meeting needs, the injection of workers needed on an annual basis,” said Galeas. “We’re going to constantly fall short. If this is something that’s going to be constant, it’s just going to magnify the impact and the scope of the worker shortage.”

The report also highlights an aging workforce compounding labor pressures.

Workers aged 55 and older account for approximately 58% of total workforce growth since 2018.

“There’s a cliff that we are approaching in the next five to 10 years where a substantial portion of the overall labor force is going to age out,” Barajas said. “We went through a 20-to-30-year cycle where saying you were blue collar was almost like saying a four-letter word. They didn’t plant any seeds during that time period.”

Building pathways to homeownership

For home builders and real estate professionals, the demographic trends carry implications for both labor supply and potential homebuyers.

“How do we get them to be able to participate in the home buying process?” Barajas asked. “Part of that is more education around purchases. For a lot of these folks, the biggest challenge is just lack of information. They already believe they’re priced out of housing.”

Sanchez said many of the Hispanic construction workers he works with in Denver are ready to buy homes but don’t know where to start.

“We’re creating those connections between the builders and the contractors and the real estate community by having focus groups, just informational seminars,” he said. “With that, we can bring everyone together, and we can let the builders and people in construction know about the process.”

Some regional homebuilders in Texas have begun offering incentives to construction workers, allowing them to purchase homes in the developments where they work without waiting in line.

Barajas said that model represents the kind of opportunity the alliance hopes to scale.

“Once we mature, by year five, my desire is that we actually start building and that we start building specifically with that thought process of creating more homeownership opportunities at the very grassroots level, which includes contractors and construction workers,” he said.