USA Immigration – Can You Buy Real Estate?

USA Immigration – Can a U.S. Immigrant Buy a House in America? What you should know before buying Real Estate in the USA.

Hello and welcome back it’s great to see you again. My name is Bernhard from goUSA.live that’s basically for the English speaking audience and today it’s really amazing like I got so many questions about it i really want to talk about if you can actually buy real estate house home apartments condos or whatever in the united states even if you’re not a first of all u.s citizen or even if you wouldn’t be a permanent resident or a visa holder.

To answer that question yes you can like as long as you have the money as long as you have the funds you can actually buy whatever you would like to buy right this is number one number two if you don’t have the funds and you basically have a specific portion as a down payment and let’s say that’s for a house etc then, of course, it’s a much more tricky uh question but part because you need to have a specific finance option and

Financing your House – U.S. Mortgage

If you would like to get your house financed then of course you have to talk to a bank and the bank will ask you first of all how does your financial situation look like do you work here in the united states do you have income what is your credit score and so on so this is what you have to consider first of all so people ask me

Bernhard, how did you do this because when I moved to the united states i’m basically purchased the house and i moved in with my family with my three little kids you know and it went you know without any problems or whatever and it went it was really a quick process too and so for me it was fairly easy because you know

When I moved so quickly to the united states I didn’t need any financing I didn’t need to go to a bank I didn’t have to ask for any mortgage and all I did is I wrote a check transferred money from the European union to a u.s bank account that’s what I was basically opening transferred the money wrote a check and boom bought the house right so uh there’s not really much more to say about it that the process can be actually done very very fast here in the united states what you might want to think about is uh definitely if you would like to buy something here uh let’s talk about differences um or the situations here in the united states that might be also different what you might know from the European union

Apartment, Condo, Farm or Family House

I don’t even know situations how it would be if you’re in Asia if you’re in New Zealand, Australia or somewhere else but it’s definitely important to know that there are typical things here in the United States you should know before you buy a house or any property, first of all,. Clearly to say if you would like to buy an apartment an apartment if you would like to buy something it’s it’s actually called a condo or condominium

This is something where you can purchase in the home and so whatever you like it can be a studio it can be a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom a three-bedroom whatever is available on the market so this is one chapter. The second chapter most of the time the inquiries I’m getting is like I would like to buy a house that includes, of course, all the property the land, and everything that comes with it so

How does this roll and what should you consider so the first thing if you are going to buy something in the in the united states you have a so-called property tax you might not be familiar with this the property attacks can vary dramatically it really depends on the state you’re living in but also the district you’re living in.

Property Tax in The U.S.

You know it’s something you can definitely research and you can check out different uh tools platforms like for instance I post this below the video you can check zillow.com and that’s a platform where you can really find a lot of homes and a lot of data and that data also includes like okay what was the property tax so far the person or the family or even the company whoever is selling the house was paying before.

That is not a hundred percent the money you have to pay and you have to come up every year because it will be calculated from the sales price then and that can also change dramatically if the house wasn’t sold as you know and the property tax wasn’t calculated like from let’s say the last two or three years and it was like sold maybe 40 years or 20 years ago then this can also vary dramatically um but the best option is also that I recommend

If you know exactly where you’re drilling into or like what location and property you’re interested that you always can contact directly on zillow.com an Agent knew as Realtor. You can immediately ask hey what is going on with the property tax can you give me an exact calculation of that once I purchased that home so this is very important now property tax can vary it depends on the sales price and now hold on to the roof that you’re not freaking out.

But it is definitely i would say in the lower range if you find somewhere a house that is very affordable in a very very affordable state and it’s not a lot of money then i would say it’s definitely a range like up to a thousand dollars per year maybe also let’s consider like up to two thousand dollars a year that’s more in the lower range that you get a better feeling about what does it actually mean to pay property tax on real estate

In the united states and then there is no limit it goes up uh depending on the states for instance texas you get really good deals um you find really good properties at a much lower price compared to other states like California but you will figure out that the property tax is pretty heavy so that means you could potentially buy a house for four or five hundred thousand dollars. But the property tax might be already up at eight thousand ten thousand twelve thousand dollars a year.

Now you should consider that of course because that means if it’s twelve thousand dollars a year for example that’s a very good calculation in the math it would cost you a thousand bucks a month and of course after tax that’s what you have to come up uh after tax net what you have to pay just to own the house so this is number one let’s make sure you always consider property tax that’s the first thing.

Hown Owner Association Fees

Then another fee that is very typical in the united states are the so-called home owner association fees it’s an hoa fee and that also varies on basically the location on the homeowner association and that can vary also tremendously like it it you know there is no golden rule that it’s not like one number you can say like okay that’s what it cost me because it varies a lot from the location uh the amenities and whatever the homeowner association actually uh is calculating.

One more thing you should consider in the homeowner association is also the fact that um you know you have policies so those policies you might not familiar with is basically to make sure that people cannot do random stuff it’s a it’s kind of like a limitation and it basically gives you rules and policies what you cannot do

So for instance if you would buy a property uh and it’s also binded to a homeowner association fees then the homeowner association has policies for example you cannot park an rv in front of your house or you cannot have this rv in your backyard right uh or you cannot just build anything on top of your house or right next to your house or you need to you cannot do this or that and and so on a home owner association can be very restrictive.

It goes for example with rules like you have to do the lawn mowing right and if you don’t do your job you will get fees on top of it you will get penalties you have to pay now people ask me always this question they said bernard this is crazy so i’m going to buy a house a property in the united states and then it’s within a homeowner association and they are telling me what i can do and what i can’t do and that is correct now this is not typically what you might believe where you have the maximum freedom in the united states.

But the reason behind the homeowner association is the fact first of all you can use different amenities that also comes with it you have either a clubhouse you have tennis courts pool areas anything like this and that stuff you know needs to be maintained of course and that stuff costs money that means the maintenance you know the homeowners association is hiring a landscaping company you have administration uh you have board meetings of course and so on and all that cost money the members have to pay and those membership of homeowner associations yeah that can be really from i would say the very low amount would be like maybe 50 bucks 50 a month you know that’s in the in the very low end can go up to 500 bucks a month.

You know really depending on where you live what amenities are included and what membership a homeowner association it it actually is but keep in mind it’s very important that you do understand this um because of course if you consider homeowner association let’s say you pay 300 bucks 400 bucks uh you have then your mortgage payment and you have also your property tax so the monthly premium or the monthly costs they will go up quickly in order just to maintain the property right and to keep it up another thing you should consider is of course if you’re getting a mortgage it’s mandatory that you also pay an insurance premium for that house.

Costs of Your Home Insurance

In case there is fire there is uh a thunderstorm rolling in especially i lived in texas or in in the south uh it doesn’t matter if it’s florida if it’s south carolina et cetera you will have tornadoes right then insurance companies say wait a minute and banks like you can only get this mortgage if the house is also insured which makes sense because like if a tornado hits the house boom and everything is gone and it’s not yours until you paid the final payment of the mortgage.

Then it’s yours um so you need to cover that now people also told me like but how much did you pay like on insurance and whatever like oh my god there are so many options you know like you have to consider there is also not a fixed number you have so many insurance companies offering you something but i would say if you want to be on the safe side a good insurance will cost you on the low end minimum a thousand bucks a year maybe 1500 bucks and then you know go up with premiums to three thousand four thousand dollars a year.

Depending of course on your coverage now those are i would say the most important things you should consider if you would like to buy a property in the united states there is even more uh to say there are like some specific areas where homeowner association is included there are also club fees to pay on top of it or fees you know where you need before before you can even buy you need to pay an additional fee on top of it that you pay the homeowner association fee homeowner association fees the club fees and whatever that you can actually buy it and that is very specific of course.

But it’s it’s also very common and i wanted to let you know that uh buying a property in the United States can be also very pricey. Even if you feel like okay well like it doesn’t necessarily look like as crazy as you might know it from europe or whatever but trust me it can be very very pricey another thing depending of course on your situation i would say you always should consider what’s the purpose of buying a property what are you really looking for is it because for your family is it like in my case you know.

I bought the property because i felt look my investment was really much better i invest this money in the house and i have my family of five people living in this house then renting something because i wanted to make sure that my wife my children are safe right that this was reason number one and i don’t live somewhere like in an apartment and i have to pull my kids all the time or whatever but reason number two was also the fact and that depends on your situation and why you want to buy a property of course was also because of the school of my children and when you select a specific property or a specific apartment you could also rent of course and then you want to check the the public schools in that area.

Public Schools, Ratings and Influence To the House Market

And it’s not just schools it can be you know preschool kindergarten elementary school high school and even college a college of course what is what is in this area available and for public schools it’s really good to consider uh you know in what area you want to move to check also the public school ratings uh the the rating systems are pretty good a pretty legitimate i have to say so and you’ll see you get ratings from zero to ten.

Ten means like it’s exceptional great the rating and zero means so i think it starts at zero one i i might straight lie to you right now but i i also post the link then and you can see and check it out um but 10 means basically it’s the best and if you are somewhere in a school that is rated like seven or eight nine that’s excellent that’s really great and you know i have been traveling so much and my kids have been going to so many different schools of course.

And yeah you gain a lot of experience and you will really see and understand what does it actually really mean the school grade grading and you will get a much better understanding then of this but also you know consider if if you are going to plan to buy a house and you have family you have kids and you want to make sure that they are also in a good school district in the public one then you also want to make sure if you buy something that it is within the school school school district and the reason why is because if you don’t select that and you want to make sure your kids are going to school.

Well they fall into this district by law that means you can send them into this public school if you don’t want to of course this is the freedom in the united states that’s wonderful you can do homeschooling number one uh that is for instance in austria or like in germany not as available i think maybe with super strong restrictions but this is the great thing about freedom in the united states so you can do the homeschooling for your kids but if you don’t plan to do that and you don’t like the public school then you would need to send them into private schools.

Private Schools

And if you do so well then you need to have the extra money because you know sending your child to a private school depending of course on all the different school districts but it starts in the lower lower end like at the thousand bucks a month and can go up like three four thousand dollars a month uh depending on what specific school you would like to send your child okay so very very important so i hope that uh buying homes finding home selecting them i also will post more information in the description below.

I will also help you of course now a little bit and checking out okay all the different states where do you want to go what you want to do etc and gives you also a much better understanding what do you get for the money.

Like what price range are you looking for and i think what is very interesting in very very typical also for this topic and very very interesting in terms of real estate buying houses or homes or selling somewhere is that so many people have such a big you know different how do we wanna say that like dream uh and it varies dramatically so somebody would like to live somewhere in the big city in los angeles downtown or like in santa monica and california right.

Consider What You Are Looking For

At the big cities somebody says i would like to live in a skyscraper in new york right but then you have people who say are you nuts i would never do something like this i want to live in idaho or like i want to live in texas on a ranch where i want to live in the south on the beach right the next person says i would like to go to alaska i want to explore the wild the last frontier of the united states and what i love so much about the united states.

And that’s why i traveled so much of course also exploring different states but because of business of course etc but what i like so much about the united states is that this continent north america is so big that it offers you everything so like no matter what what your tendency is no matter what you really like whatever your passion is if you want to be if you want to go snow skiing and bear hunting in alaska or if you want to live on the beach in charleston in south carolina if you like the sunny florida or even of course the west coast and you want to go into the high-tech industry and live in silicon valley and have also the mountains and everything.

Whatever you prefer you got it all it’s just really you need to pick something what you like to do where you where you feel like this is my place where i feel happy with my environment and of course uh the cost of living you know don’t underestimate that also changes a lot but that’s very similar worldwide so you go to bigger cities and the cost of living goes up and you prefer maybe country life and you go to smaller towns and maybe little villages and the cost of living goes dramatically down.

So this is totally up to you but i hope that this was also very helpful for you i’m going to post like again in the description some more links where you can explore that check it out have fun exploring like the real estate market here in the united states and if you have any other questions please leave your comments below the video ask me whatever you like to ask me.

I will try to answer with the best knowledge i have and i can help you with so that being said all the best have fun finding and buying your real estate whatever you would like to do as an immigrant and yeah keep me posted and also if you find some nice properties or whatever feel free to post the links below the video and that being said i wish you already all the best and talk to you later till my next video bye bye and have fun

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