As Diana Maldonado walked down National Street in Corona, Queens, she saw snow-capped mountains that immediately brought back memories of her childhood. 

The white peaks weren’t a figment of her imagination, but an advertising ploy by a real estate broker that offers homes and land in her native Ecuador. Maldonado, a middle-aged woman who hasn’t visited Ecuador since she moved to New York at age 3, looked inside, checked out the poster of the Antisana volcano that overlooks Ecuador’s capital of Quito and grabbed a brochure for condos in her home country.

“I’m into this maybe now,” said Maldonado. “Everything is getting more expensive. You have to work to pay the rent and the bills with no fun. I want to pay the bills and have fun.”

Mi Casa en Ecuador opened in September to become the most recent addition to a handful of companies located in the diverse Hispanic immigrant communities of Corona (see slide show to the right) and neighboring Jackson Heights that market South American homes and land to South America immigrants. These real estate companies are taking advantage of a growing South American immigrant population in Queens that now totals more than 235,000, which are twice as many as the rest of the city combined. The slowing economy and the high prices in New York’s real estate market could also help sales as more immigrants consider moving home to look for the American dream they couldn’t find here.

“I really haven’t been able to buy a house here,” said Maldando, who lives just south of Corona in Rego Park. “Now at my age, I don’t want to get into debt that I can’t handle. Maybe go back and forth, who knows?”

A recent survey of Latino immigrants by the Inter-American Development Bank reinforces this growing market for these kind of real estate companies, as almost one-third considered moving home and for those here less than five years the desire to go back was 49 percent. The survey also showed economic concerns within the coummunity, as 81 percent said it was harder to find a job than before and 40 percent said they were making less money than the previous year.

The Ecuadorian government might help Mi Casa en Ecuador rack up commissions as well with a plan (see videos to the right) it enacted in February to entice Ecuadorians to return. The plan offers tax breaks and low-interest loans to move home.

At Mi Casa, a large flat screen television that faces toward the sidewalk shows off computerized artist renderings of properties that range in price from $19,000 to more than $100,000. Since opening in September, the company has sold 25 properties and most of the buyers have been in the United States for at least a decade, according to sales representative Cristina Gomez.

“I have a customer that’s lived here 25 years and he doesn’t know Ecuador,” said the 28-year-old Gomez, who immigrated from Ecuador 10 years ago. “He doesn’t even remember it.”

Mi Casa, which only sells properties in Ecuador, works as a middle man for the property owners and banks in Ecuador by finding buyers and helping them choose a property by offering locations, pictures and amenities of the housing developments available, or that will be available. Many of these real estate companies broker properties that aren’t finished. In those cases, the buyer provides a down payment to secure the property.

A Jackson Heights woman who recently bought an apartment in her native Colombia with her husband believed Colombians can acheive a better quality of life back home.

"The great majority [of Columbians] think of returning because of the lifestyle they lead here,” said the woman, who didn't want to be identified. “The typical Colombian works seven days a week and those who don't rarely have an entire weekend off. It becomes complicated. They don't have spare time for their family or for themselves. So, they become a production machine."

Despite the weakening job market and the rising cost of living, Hiram Ramirez doesn’t meet many people at the immigration services company he works at in Corona with the desire to move back home.

“That’s not something we encounter a lot of,” said Ramirez whose lived in Corona most of his life and seen the neighborhood transform from Irish and Italian to a Colombian, Ecuadorian and Dominican. “Everyone is focused on legalizing their status here.”

But for some the rising cost of living is too much. Jackson Heights couple Manuel Barbecho and Nube Calderon bought a house in Cuenca, Ecuador six years ago and plan to move back home soon.

"This country in another time was good when one would earn $500 and save $200,” Calderon said. “Now, if you earn $500, you owe $500 more. We are grateful to this country and we love it. But life is too hard here. It's not like before."

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