Nora and Associates was started by local businesswoman Nora Salazar, who began her own brokerage in the summer of 1995. Nora, who had a few successful years in real estate sales decided her passion in helping people would become her life’s work. Along with Nora, her daughter Rosanne Bonilla, opened their doors. Today, Nora’s legacy of helping first-time home buyers and working with sellers is carried on by owner/broker Rosanne and her son Daniel Bonilla. As a local, independently-owned office, their passion and knowledge of Central Valley real estate has given their clients insight into neighborhoods, market conditions, community attributes, and relationships that span beyond a business transaction. Celebrating 25 years in business, Nora and Associates is here to continue offering real estate services including residential, commercial, farm land, and investment property sales and management.

Nora Salazar was the top agent for Coldwell Banker Real Estate. She decided to start her own business as she knew an opportunity that could fundamentally change the way real estate was sold in Madera. Her approach required a lot of work that paid off for both her business and for the community. She identified an opportunity to help the many immigrant farmworker families that were stuck paying rent while their hard work in the fields could not translate into any kind of equity. She looked for and found a way to transform her prospects’ rent payments into mortgage payments. 

To achieve that lofty goal required hard work on her part: she would go to the field, gather family members who, together, could demonstrate credit worthiness to financial institutions, did all the paperwork on behalf of her world-be clients, and got home loans approved on their behalf. Nora did not stop there; she nurtured her relationships with her clients and was able to help many local families achieve that quintessential component of the American Dream of homeownership. She nurtured her relationships with her clients, the families that had helped build her business, providing a healthy business pipeline for the local community, both for her own business but also for her customers who eventually joined the trade up home market upon having built home equity.

Nora would work on half a dozen escrows at any time, juggling complex transactions. Living in labor camps, many workers dreamed of a small two-bedroom, one bath homes to get away from inadequate labor camp housing. The second generations would trade up to better homes built on their equity.

One of the principles that drove Rosanne’s mother was being generous with her time and efforts while building true relationships with her customers within the community for which she cared. Far beyond the immediate reward of commissions, she would often purchase washers and dryers for her new customers, keep visiting them and stay in touch as an advisor for anything related to home ownership. That was the best kind of investment, the kind that benefits both sides of any transaction, builds trust, and above all, builds financial and moral equity.

Nora & Associates Real Estate operates in the Agriculture, Commercial, Multi Family, and Single-Family Residential markets. Although some short sales were inevitable during the 2008 recession and its aftermath, Nora worked with local families that were underwater to keep their homes when the market hit bottom. That rare and essential dedication to the community is a well-known component of the Nora & Associates team’s work ethic. You can take that to the bank!