02:49
Robert Chadwick
Hi everybody, this is Robert Chadwick with America Mortgages. Thank you for joining us for another webinar. Today, we are happy to have Lucas Ramos from Steadily Insurance. Steadily Insurance is one of our vetted insurance partners. They are our only vetted insurance partner, and they help provide insurance for our foreign national and US expat mortgage clients when they require this type of insurance. Lucas, perhaps you could introduce yourself, what Steadily does, and what your background is, and then we’ll go into the slides.

06:34
Lucas Ramos
Yes, excited to be here with every one of you. So good evening, everyone, and thank you for having me this evening. My name is Lucas Ramos. I am a team lead with Steadily Insurance. I am probably one of the first agents who was with the company when they first opened up, and I’m still here. My specialty is working with investors and property owners that rent out their properties. I also work with property owners that also occupy their properties across the country and globally. I’ve been in the insurance industry for almost 20 years now. So, coming to you with a lot of knowledge and a lot of information this evening.

07:22
Robert Chadwick
Okay, you can go into your slides now if you’d like, Lucas. I’ll be controlling the slides. So if you just tell me when to move forward, I will follow your direction.

07:32
Lucas Ramos
So this first slide is just a disclaimer letting you know that the insurance coverage that we’re going to be discussing this evening is just a broad stroke. It’s not specific to any one policy. Any one policy is based on your specific need and what you’re going to be doing with your investment property. As it says on this slide, right now, Steadily is number one in the US for offering fast and affordable insurance for rental properties in all 50 states. That’s a great one. Landlord insurance is what every one of you will need when you choose to purchase a dwelling or a home and you choose to rent it out and not occupy it yourself.

08:16
Lucas Ramos
It’s going to cover you from anywhere from your legal liabilities to the actual dwelling, which is your house itself for any damages and also protect you against any of the possible injuries that your tenant can have that you’re renting the property to. You have two different types of policies. You have your homeowner’s insurance policy and you have your landlord’s insurance policy. A homeowner’s insurance policy is basically when you buy a house or you buy a home and you choose to occupy it yourself, you’re not renting it out. That is different from basically getting a landlord policy in place where you buy a home and you’re renting out the property to either a tenant family member or you’re using it for an investment purpose compared to renters insurance. Renters insurance is something that your tenants would get in place.

09:15
Lucas Ramos
So when you own your investment property and you choose to rent it out, you rent it to a tenant. At that point, your tenant would get what’s called renters insurance to protect their personal belongings within the home. And it also does come with some liability coverage. And the best advice that I can give for every one of you as an investor is when you buy your investment property and you’re renting it out, it’s pretty safe practice to always require your tenant to go get a renter’s policy in place and make it as part of your lease agreement and a requirement. Landlord insurance policies are very similar, just like stage two primary home insurance policies. It’s all hazard insurance.

10:04
Lucas Ramos
They’re all called hazard insurance policies, they’ll cover the home for things like fire, windstorm, weather-related damage, vandalism, and theft. But they do differ. You cannot get a landlord insurance policy in place when you’re the one occupying your own home. It’s like trying to file a liability claim against yourself, which you can’t do. Landlord insurance is always needed when you’re going to rent out the property versus primary home insurance. Another good slide is the types of water damage that most, if not all insurance policies, will cover except for flood. Accidental water damage. If you are trying to fix a pipe in your home and you break the pipe, trying to fix it and you get a leak from that, that’s accidental. If you have long-term water damage, that is a case-by-case scenario with a lot of insurance carriers.

11:05
Lucas Ramos
If they feel like it’s a long-term water damage where something that could have been prevented from you being negligent, you might have an issue with getting that covered. But if it was accidental, again, that’s why you have the insurance, then that would be covered. Flood insurance is a separate policy. One of the misconceptions about landlord insurance or home insurance is that if we have a flood, does my policy cover this? And that answer would be no, you would need a separate flood insurance policy. These are the two most used forms for landlord insurance. So really quickly, I’ll discuss homeowners as well.

11:49
Lucas Ramos
If you look to the left side of this slide, a homeowner’s insurance policy would have a letter H in front of it, and particularly it would be an HO3. When you have a landlord policy, your home is considered a dwelling. So it usually starts with a D. A DP1 is a very basic landlord policy. There are a lot of exclusions in this policy, and anything that is physically named in your policy would be the only thing that would be covered. Everything else is excluded from coverage. If you go down to the second one, a DP3, that is considered an open peril or an all-perils policy, meaning everything in the policy would be covered. The only thing that would be excluded is what’s listed in the exclusions.

12:44
Lucas Ramos
To give you the best advice that I can give you even on my investment properties when it’s going into your portfolio, it’s a long-term investment. It is always best to get a DP3 policy in place. Some of the basic things that both policies do cover or will provide are liability coverage for injury, your loss of rental income, if there’s a claim and your tenant can’t live there, and you have to get the house fixed, and any detached structures that are listed on the policy. A detached structure is something that is not attached to the home. If you have a storage or a shed, a cabana, or something in the backyard that is not attached to the house, that would be considered a detached structure that would be covered on your policies.

13:35
Lucas Ramos
Just like I went through a little bit earlier things, insurance policies do not cover your tenant’s belongings. Your tenant’s belongings would be covered under the renter’s insurance. Because you’re renting out the home to a tenant, the personal belongings don’t belong to us as the property owner or as the landlord. The personal belongings would be covered under a renter’s insurance policy. Normal wear and tear, we can’t file insurance claims for things that break down because they’re old. So if you have an AC system or an HVAC system for your air conditioning and it’s 25 years old and it decides to break down, you can’t file an insurance claim for that. That’s more like a home warranty type thing. Tenants damaging your belongings. A tenant, when they rent the home, is like an extension of us.

14:24
Lucas Ramos
So that wouldn’t be covered. That’s why we get security deposits when we rent out the home to a tenant to cover that. Then another exclusion that’s on every insurance policy, terrorism, war, any disease-related things. Those definitely wouldn’t be covered on any insurance policy for a dwelling or primary home. This varies. How much does insurance cost? I get this question a lot. I am licensed and appointed in all 50 states. And these premiums you see on this screen are varying right now across all 50 states in the US. So if it’s a standard home, maybe under 1200 sqft, it’s a long-term rental built within the last 15 years. You would see a premium, maybe for about $1,100 or less.

15:16
Lucas Ramos
Or you would see if it’s a short-term rental where you’re renting it out for six months or less. Anything under six months would be a short-term rental. Anything over six months would be a long-term rental in the insurance industry. But that’s the premium you would see for a standard-size home. Again, it’s dependent on a lot of different factors. The size of the home, the occupancy of the home, the rebuild cost of the home, and the location, where it’s located, in which state in the US or abroad. Another good slide, which I absolutely love. A big misconception with deductibles that investment people or property owners have, is that when you have a deductible on your insurance policy, that’s something you would have to pay first for the insurance company to pay the rest.

16:09
Lucas Ramos
that is a very big myth. I look at the slide here, let’s say if you did have a $10,000 claim and you have a $1,000 deductible on your insurance policy, the insurance company is going to pay out the claim minus your deductible. There’s not something that you would physically have to pay first. In other words, if it’s a $10,000 claim, the insurance company is going to minus your $1,000 deductible and send you the check for the 9000 and then you can go ahead and fix whatever needs to be fixed as part of the claims process. Airbnb and VRBO. I don’t know if everyone is familiar with what that is. It’s very big here in all 50 states in the US and abroad.

16:58
Lucas Ramos
these are short-term rental policies and these are people who choose to contract or owners who choose to contract with the company, Airbnb, or VRBO. Do they have their insurance policies? Yes, but their insurance policies do not provide any coverage for the actual structure, damage to the structure of your home, or anything like that. What they do provide is while you’re using their program they’re going to provide you liability coverage while it’s being rented, when you have it occupied through their program with someone for the short term, and also for any personal property. Because when you have a short-term rental and you’re renting it out, nine out of ten times you own the personal property in that short-term rental because you’re letting other people use it as such for short-term Airbnb and VRBO.

17:46
Lucas Ramos
But don’t mistake that for not getting your dwelling or your landlord’s insurance in place. You still need to have that in place even if you’re contracting with Airbnb or VRBO. What kind of insurance is for a midterm rental? The term midterm rental is a term that a lot of investors and property owners use, including myself. Outside of insurance talk, we use that. Technically in the insurance industry, there is no such thing as a midterm rental policy. Depending on your occupancy and how you’re renting out the house, that’s going to determine if you’re going to get a long-term or a short-term rental. So the rule of thumb is that you can say 95% depending on the carrier. But a big rule of thumb is if your lease agreements with your tenants are under six months or less or five months and 30 days or 27 days, whatever that number chooses to be, then that would be a short-term rental policy. If you’re six months or twelve months more on a lease, then you would go on a long-term rental policy to make sure that you’re not exposed and you’re insuring it the right way. Your coverages, I like how they put midterm rentals here. It’s funny. Your coverages for your long-term or short-term rentals are going to be pretty standard across the industry with a DP3. DP1 doesn’t provide coverage. One of the big misconceptions I’m going to touch on from the previous slide, vandalism, and mischief are some of the biggest exclusions on a basic DP1.

19:29
Lucas Ramos
The only time you’ll get vandalism and mischief that is included in the policy is on a DP3, and we can discuss that further in the Q&A. These are the standard coverages that you would get. Your dwelling coverage is your house to structure, damage for fire, weather-related damage, water damage, and anything that applies to that. Vandalism and mischief on a DP3, someone tries to break into the home and they get in there and vandalize it, or even if they couldn’t get into the actual house, they vandalize the front door, they break the locks, things like that. The bedbug coverage would be more for short-term rentals because you have so many different people going in and out and the leases are a lot less. That’s a good coverage to have on a DP3.

20:15
Lucas Ramos
God forbid you do wind up getting bedbugs in the house, then liability coverage is broad. It’s offered on a long-term or a short-term rental policy, no matter how you’re occupying it. And again, we are rated number one right now in the US, in all 50 states, for the fastest and most affordable insurance for all types of rental properties. Because you can have several different investment properties. They can be anywhere from a single-family to an apartment building. And you can go online. We’re trying to make this a very easy process.

20:57
Lucas Ramos
You can go online to the Steadily insurance website and, the first thing you’re going to see is punch in the address or type in the address for your investment property that you own, and then it’ll start providing you a lot of information. You’ll have to answer a few more questions, but it’s pretty quick. You can probably get a quote within two to three minutes and get connected with one of my agents. Touching on what we just discussed, your investment property can be anywhere from a single-family home, meaning that it’s one unit. You’re only renting it out to one person. If you can own a condo, condo units typically have a condo policy that can still go on a DP3 or D1. However, on condo policies, you’re not responsible for the exterior.

21:50
Lucas Ramos
You’re not responsible for the roof and you’re not responsible for any damage to the outside of the siding. On a condo policy, you would only be responsible for the drywall or your studs from the inside of the unit, and that is it. Manufactured homes, we also provide coverage for, if you’re not familiar with that term, it’s a mobile home. And that’s very big in the US as well. A lot of people are mobile homeowners and use them as rental properties. Apartment buildings are anything that’s five units, which means it’s not a four-family, a three-family, a two-family, or a single-family. Anything that’s five or above that you can have five different families living in there would be under an apartment building. So anything five units and above, all the way up to 1000 units.

22:34
Lucas Ramos
If you have an apartment building that big, we provide coverage for that. And multifamily would be your quadplex, which is a four-family, a triplex, which is a three-family, a duplex, which is your two-family, and a single-family. That’s your multifamily. That last one is if you’re building a property, whether you’re building an investment property to rent out or you’re building a home for your primary occupant, you’re occupying it yourself. We do cover and offer vacant builders risk policies, new construction policies, or even if you’re going to buy a house to renovate it and then rent it out as a long-term or short-term rental, we do offer those policies as well.

23:24
Lucas Ramos
And yes, if any of you are not familiar with TrustPilot, Trust Pilot is one of the biggest review companies in the US right now in all 50 states. So if you go to TrustPilot, you can see our reviews. These are from real-time, real customers that we have accumulated since we started up three years ago. So, I would advise all of you to check that out too and see what the reviews look like on TrustPilot. This is for any of you who would like to become a brand ambassador and kind of like a partner, where you can become an ambassador. We’ll send you an affiliate link where you can start generating income for promoting Steadily for us. And for more information on that, that link or URL on the bottom there, if you remember, or you can write that down.

24:15
Lucas Ramos
Maybe I might put that in the chat as well. But you can click on that if you want to become an affiliate of Steadily. We would love to have you. That’s where you can do it. You can get a quote online in minutes. It’s lattesandleases.steadilypartner.com. I didn’t see that one. That’s good.

24:41
Robert Chadwick
thank you and I think we’ll go to the questions and answers at the end, but super informative. A couple of things that I took from this. In the US, as you’re likely aware, all mortgage lenders will require something called hazard insurance. And hazard insurance is the replacement cost of the property in case something happens. But I think a lot of the things that you brought up were additional to this hazard insurance that would benefit real estate investors or property owners, whether it’s going to be mitigating them from lawsuits or protecting the property, et cetera. Super good information. One question I had myself, when you were talking about the premiums, and it was about $1,000 a month or so, was that annual premium or was that monthly premium on average?

25:45
Lucas Ramos
That would be an annual premium. Great question.

25:49
Robert Chadwick
Quite affordable then.

25:52
Lucas Ramos
Affordable.

25:54
Robert Chadwick
Perfect. I thought it was great too, how you touched on bedbugs because you’re constantly hearing that in the news now, that there’s a bedbug problem in this state or this country or whatever. So, very interesting stuff. We’ll get back and do the questions and answers. If anybody has any questions on what Steadily Insurance can provide, please put them in the chat section of the webinar. Also in that chat section, there are links to schedule free consultations with both Steadily and America mortgages. So if you want to sign up, you have questions on either insurance or mortgages, please feel free to do that. It’ll pop into the chat every so often. Right now, I will do a quick coverage of what America Mortgages can offer to foreign investors and US expats living abroad, earning their income abroad.

26:54
Robert Chadwick
Again, 100% of our clients are living and working outside of the US, but obtaining US mortgages. In the general mortgage overview for all of our loans, there is no US credit required, and no AUM, which means there’s no requirement for you to put a minimum deposit in the bank where you would be obtaining the mortgage loan. Foreign income, because all of our clients are living and working abroad. Absolutely allowed. We have loan programs in all 50 states. If you’re a foreign national, so you’re not a US citizen, and not holding a green card, you can get up to 75% financing in all 50 states. If you’re a US expat, we try to make it just as if you were to walk into a bank in the US. You can get up to 80% with the same coverage and programs.

27:51
Robert Chadwick
Normally, once you submit your documents, we can give you a loan approval within 72 hours. This is super crucial if you’re looking to purchase a property because before you put an offer in, you need to have a pre-approval letter from a lender. We’ll issue you that letter when you put your offer in on your property. You also submit that the lender and the seller’s agent on that side are fully aware that you are pre-approved for a mortgage loan. Will make your offer much more, I guess, viewed in favor of perhaps other offers. On average, we have closing times between 30 to 45 days. You do not need to go to the US to sign your closing documents. We’ve been doing this for a long time now.

28:42
Robert Chadwick
We have at least a dozen different ways where you can close your mortgage in a very convenient, easy way in the country that you’re living in. Purchase, refinance, pulling cash out, or equity releases, are absolutely possible. 30-year amortization regardless of age. Very unique to the US, the mortgage tenure is not limited to the age of the borrower, meaning that if you’re 19 or 99, you can still qualify for a 30-year mortgage. The reason behind that is quite simple. In the US, you cannot discriminate against anything. Age, sex, religion, and the age for a mortgage are the same. We have ten-year interest only, which is fixed for ten years. Convert into a 30-year principal and interest loan, so you have a total 40-year tenure.

29:42
Robert Chadwick
that’s perfect since interest rates are a little bit higher now to where you’re still able to see some fantastic yields. Then at some point, you can either choose to refinance when rates go down, or at least you have the comfort of knowing that this loan is fixed for a long period. We have loan programs that are based on common sense underwriting. Just as you would underwrite a commercial property, you would underwrite it off of the cash flow. We do the same thing for rental properties, meaning that you do not need to provide your income documentation. You can do this by going off of only the rental income of the property. Fantastic program. What we are very proud of is that 97% of the loan applications that we submit are approved.

30:34
Robert Chadwick
And what that means is, after speaking with one of our loan officers based all over the world, if they tell you, “Yes, I think this is something we can do”, they take the application, and we submit it. It’s almost guaranteed to get approved. Normally, if there is an issue, it’s an issue with the property and not the borrower’s profile. We have loan officers all around the world. So when you go on to our calendar, if you click on the link to be able to talk with one of the America Mortgages loan officers, it is a 24/7 calendar in a variety of languages. So, we’re in your time zone and we speak your language. The loan programs that we have, I’ll just kind of briefly go through these.

31:22
Robert Chadwick
If anybody has any specific questions, we can answer them in the chat, or you can also talk to one of our loan officers. So, this is our most popular program. And this is the one that I said is a common-sense underwriting. It’s called our America Mortgages Express or AM Express+. No personal income documents are required. You’re going to qualify only on the rental income of the property. And it’s normally a one-for-one. I’ll go over that in an example. No US credit is required. Loan amounts as low as $150,000 with a loan-to-value of 75%, meaning that you only need to look at property values of $200,000 plus to qualify for this program. It can be used for both purchases, refinance, and equity release. This is how it works.

32:17
Robert Chadwick
It’s quite simple and very easy to understand. If you have a gross rental income of, as an example, $2400, and your mortgage payments including taxes, principal, and insurance are $2,400, the loan qualifies. This is absolutely fantastic. And just for the sake of an example, if the rent does not cover as much as the mortgage payment would, it does not mean that the loan does not qualify. All it means is the LTV may need to be adjusted. Either way, this is almost an assurance that you will be able to get this loan at a very market rate. Our AM Investor+ has no tax returns required. So rather than using tax returns, and because this is mainly done by clients that are from Sydney to Shanghai and in between if our underwriting was having to go through the taxes and the tax filings of a variety of countries, it would almost be impossible.

33:33
Robert Chadwick
So rather than asking for tax returns, or NOAs or W-2s, or whatever it may be, we’re going to use a letter from your accountant if you’re self-employed, or a letter from your employer, if you’re employed. And that letter just states two years of income and the current year to date. Quite simple, quite straightforward, and a great way for you to document your income without having to go through multiple hassles. Again, for all of our programs, no US credit is required. Minimum loan amount, $150,000. In this loan program, we can go up to $3 million.

34:08
Robert Chadwick
No minimum deposit, meaning that there’s no AUM required. And again, 30 to 45 day closing in the country you’re living in. How to show this, or the example of this? It’s off of a debt-to-income ratio. Based on the gross income that’s shown in that letter. It has to be 47% or below. Our high net-worth mortgage program is becoming increasingly popular, especially with our private bank clients. High net worth individuals have normally very complicated tax returns, multiple jurisdictions. They may not show what their true serviceability of debt is. So rather than going off of tax returns or even an income letter, we go off of their liquid portfolio, cash, stocks, bonds, something that could be liquidated, that could potentially be used for income calculation.

35:21
Robert Chadwick
We take two months of those statements. There is no encumbrance of those assets. The only encumbrance is on the actual property that you’re buying or refinancing. All we’re using is these statements to qualify for the loan. The day that the loan closes, you can trade it, you can sell it, you can do whatever you choose. This is merely to show what the person’s net worth is if they were to liquidate that asset and be able to pay this mortgage. This loan program starts at a minimum of $3 million and can go up as high as $100 million if that’s required. So how that would work? It’s a very interesting calculation. We take the two-month average of $5 million portfolio over the fixed term of the loan. Say, in this case, it’s five years.

36:14
Robert Chadwick
It would give you an average income of $83,000 approximately. As long as your mortgage payment is below that, the loan will qualify. The great thing about this is you’re using those assets only to qualify for the loan. But there’s no encumbrance or no requirement for you to move that to any other account, et cetera. If you’re a US expat, we try to make this like you’re walking into the bank and working in the bank. No W-2 is required. We realize that you’re earning your income in foreign dollars. Probably 20% of the business that we get every month is a US expat that went to a local bank or even an international US bank, and then they find out at the very end, wait a minute, you guys are earning your income in Hong Kong dollars or euros.

37:08
Robert Chadwick
Sorry, we can’t accept that. Our loan programs are specific. 100% of our clients fall into the category of not living and working in the US. So we’ve made these programs exactly like you were living in the US. Two years of tax returns, pay stubs, and bank statements, are exactly what you would provide for a US loan. Same loan programs and same pricing. There is no premium just because you’re living abroad. How it works is, again, it’s on a debt-to-income ratio of 47%. So as long as you can qualify for that, just as you would qualify in the US, the loan should be fine. AM Student+ loan. Maybe we can cover this too with Steadily, but if you have children who are going to be studying in the US, you don’t want them living in the dormitories.

38:08
Robert Chadwick
You want to buy them a property that maybe after they finish school they can keep. You are going to qualify only on the rental income, the potential rental income of the property, even though your child will be living in that property. This is a great program. Happy to discuss this further. Also, you can add your child to this loan, which helps them build US credit, which is paramount once they graduate from school and choose to stay and live and work in the US. Again, how this works is very similar to the Express+ loan. It’s going off of the projected rental income of the property. We have an office in Texas and we also have our main office and our corporate office, which is both for America Mortgages and Global Mortgage Group in Singapore.

39:00
Robert Chadwick
Our contact information is on the right. If you want to scan, that will bring up all the contacts. In the chat, there are links to both America Mortgages and Steadily, if you would like to schedule an appointment. We will go into the chat and we will answer some questions. I will start off, I’ll read the questions, and then if you have any questions that relate to Steadily Insurance, we’ll get those answered. Anything related to Mortgages, I will answer as well. Let’s get to the questions.

39:53
Lucas Ramos
We’re in the Q&A, questions and answers box.

39:56
Robert Chadwick
We’re in the Q&A section. I’ll read the questions. Lucas, if it’s directed to you, I’ll ask you to answer it. If it’s directed to me, then I’ll answer it. And a lot of times, maybe it will even be for both of us. So first question is, does my insurance policy provide coverage for wear and tear? Good question.

40:17
Lucas Ramos
That is a great question. And the answer to that question, 99% of the time is no. Wear and tear would be something that would be covered by a home warranty plan. So again, as we discussed during the slides, it would be like if your AC or your HVAC unit breaks down because it’s old, then that’s something that’s considered wear and tear. Or if your roof is 30 years old and it’s very worn down and you need to get it replaced, that’s something that would be considered wear and tear. So those things would not be covered on your dwelling insurance policy.

40:50
Robert Chadwick
Okay, next question. If the tenant leaves a property in an unfavorable condition, is that covered under a Steadily Insurance policy?

41:02
Lucas Ramos
Tenant leaving the property in an unfavorable condition on any dwelling or landlord insurance policy, 99% of the time would not be covered. When we rent out the property and we have a lease agreement in place with our tenants, we also are taking security deposits for issues. So if the tenant leaves it unfavorable, they didn’t take care of it, and you have to go in there and fix up what they left in a mess, then that’s something that we would keep the security deposit. And anything after that, we would most likely have to go directly to the tenant and try to collect the rest.

41:38
Robert Chadwick
Okay. Would you recommend investors purchase an extra insurance policy on top of the standard policy for acts of God like storm damage, et cetera?

41:50
Lucas Ramos
I would not. I’m speaking to you not only as an insurance agent but also as an investor, special form DP3 policies have a lot of coverage for things like acts of God, storm damages, or anything weather-related, storm-related, tornado, hurricane, or tropical storms. That would all be covered under your special Form DP3 policy. You would not need another policy to help you protect that.

42:23
Robert Chadwick
. This is not a question, this is just something I’m adding. I think what makes the US unique as well is that in most countries when you get a mortgage, you’re required to buy life insurance on that policy. The US does not have that. But do you recommend something like that? Or is that something possible that people should consider? Especially if they’re buying investment properties to pass these properties down to family members at some point?

42:54
Lucas Ramos
for that purpose, yes, I’m a stickler for exposure. The more liability, the more protection, the better. So I’m never not going to say no to that. So any more protection that we can get to protect our investment, our assets, I would agree with and say, yes, I would do that.

43:12
Robert Chadwick
Perfect. Next question. Hi, Lucas. Does my insurance policy also provide property and liability protection for my tenant?

43:21
Lucas Ramos
And the answer to that question, straightforward, is no. Your tenant has no insurable interest in the property. You are the owner. So, that policy is meant to protect you as the owner. And that’s why it’s always a good rule of thumb that when you’re going to rent out the property to a tenant, as part of your lease agreement or your lease requirement, is to have them get renters insurance. Renters Insurance is what provides your tenant with the liability protection that they need. And the property itself would only be their personal belongings. So that would be their personal belongings that would be covered under the renters insurance.

44:04
Robert Chadwick
Okay, great answer. Next question. Can you add the URL in the chat for the Ambassador program? Sure, we absolutely will. Next question. How long is the pre-approval letter good for? In general, once you submit all your documents and we issue the pre-approval letter, that pre-approval letter is good for 60 days. As long as your financial situation doesn’t change or the loan program that we put you in doesn’t change, the letter is pretty good for a long time. Normally when you are going to put an offer in on a property, we can also refer you to vetted realtors, much like Steadily, in all 50 states.

44:57
Robert Chadwick
So the realtor that is referring you will want the letter to be specific for that property, just so the seller’s agent can see that it’s not a blanket offer that’s being thrown out all over the place. But we have a 60-day expiration of that letter, so you just may want to get it renewed, or if it’s for a specific property, get it made to that property. Next question. Are there restrictions on the number of properties that we can mortgage and finance for? Technically, no. As long as the properties qualify or you qualify as the investor, you can buy 1 or 1000 properties. We do have portfolio loans, meaning that you can buy multiple properties at one time or refinance multiple properties into one loan, which makes the administration of this much easier.

45:57
Robert Chadwick
As an example, we have a client living in Asia that has over 400 units in one city. Can you imagine the administrative nightmare of having to write out 400 checks? So he just chooses to do, I think, it’s per 100 properties, but absolutely. And the great thing is, unlike most countries, there are no restrictions on the loan to value. So you can have one property at 75% or 80% loan to value or you can have 100. There are no limitations or restrictions. Any issue with purchasing a couple of low-value properties that would total a similar amount of $200,000? Unfortunately, yes. If you’re going to buy an individual property, there needs to be a minimum purchase price of $200,000.

46:49
Robert Chadwick
If you’re going to buy multiple properties, and this would be five or more properties, you could probably go down as low as $100,000 per property and do it in a portfolio loan. If you’d like more information, it’s probably better to talk to one of our portfolio specialists and they can explain the process and the minimum requirements for this, but it is possible. Any special considerations for getting a mortgage on properties in certain states or regions? No. In general, we have loan programs in all 50 states. Some states have quirky issues with them. But what makes the US unique, especially if you look at global investing now, one, that there are no stamp duties, so you’re not going to be paying a premium to the government to be able to buy a property.

47:44
Robert Chadwick
And there are no restrictions on foreigners buying in any location. This one is for you, Lucas. Does the landlord insurance always include a minimum of six months of lost rent coverage? Besides just that question, maybe you can go into what is lost rent coverage and what exactly that entails.

48:11
Lucas Ramos
That’s a great question. Landlord insurance typically offers twelve-month loss of rent coverage 99% of the time, unless the investor or the insured, which would be the owner, wants to exclude loss of rent coverage. Before we go into what loss of rent is, I can say that if you do have a mortgage, you’re going through a mortgage company, ten out of ten times, for an investment property, you’re going to need loss of rent coverage, rental income coverage, and you’ll also need replacement cost on your house when you are working with a mortgage. Loss of rent coverage means, let’s say you were renting out the home for $2000 a month. Let’s say six months later, your tenant has an accidental kitchen fire, and it’s not liveable.

49:08
Lucas Ramos
Your tenant has to leave the house because it’s not liveable. You file the claim and the house needs to be repaired. If the tenant is not living there, you’re not collecting rent. And if you’re not collecting rental income. And this is where this comes in to replace that. It’s up to that amount. So whatever the total amount is, times 12, 2000 a month, that’s what the insurance policy will offer you for the year. But it’ll give you in the months that the tenant is out of the home. So if it took three months to fix the house or to fix the kitchen or whatever it took to get the tenant back in there, then you would get three months’ loss of rent.

49:47
Lucas Ramos
So if it was 2000, then the insurance company would give you $6,000 back for loss of rental income.

49:54
Robert Chadwick
Very interesting. Next question. Do you require a roof inspection before issuing a policy?

50:04
Lucas Ramos
That sounds like a Florida question. I’m appointed in all 50 states, guys, but I am in Florida, and the state of Florida is a whole different animal when it comes to insurance. Most carriers here are going to require a roof inspection on your policy or to get a policy with them. For homes that are 15 years and older, typically for homes that are 15 years and less, most carriers should not be requiring a roof inspection.

50:43
Robert Chadwick
Okay, another Florida question. Do you cover Florida property where the risk of hurricanes is high? Isn’t that all of Florida?

50:52
Lucas Ramos
Great question. Yeah, that’s all of Florida. Not only with Steadily but Steadily is partnered with maybe over 20 carriers in Florida right now. For the individual asking this question, if you have properties in Florida, I think we all know right now that the insurance market here in Florida is an absolute crisis. We’re one of the states that’s in crisis for many situations. But yes, we do have partners that offer property insurance, and we’re even partnered with the state insurance, which is Florida Citizens, which is a nonprofit. And if that has to be the last option, if you can’t qualify for any of the other carriers, then we do have citizens where everyone typically goes as the last option.

51:43
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Next question. Do we always require the wind mitigation inspection and four-point inspection? If we can’t have that, what will happen? Will this be an add-on to the premium?

52:01
Lucas Ramos
That’s another Florida question. Definitely Florida, maybe coastal Louisiana. If the house is 15 years old, tip of the rule of thumb, 15 years or more, then you’re going to need a wind mitigation and four-point inspection. If you don’t have one, some carriers will give you a premium or will give you an insurance policy without it. I mean, it still has to be favorable, the roof, everything, the four point has to come back favorable. Typically, you would have to go to a specialty market carrier, which Steadily also has in their book. Lloyds of London, a Spinnaker Specialty, are all specialty market carriers that will not require or do not require a wind mitigation or four-point inspection. And the premiums will typically be higher because you’re not providing that.

52:55
Lucas Ramos
For carriers that do want a wind mitigation or four-point inspection, one of the main reasons they ask for that, is to make sure that the house is in good condition. There are no issues with the roof or the four points. So when you say four points, just to explain to everyone, the wind mitigation is a full inspection report about the roof. That’s it. What the roof is, when it was replaced, what it was built with, and how it’s attached to the dwelling. That’s your wind mitigation. Four point is the four points of the house. It’s everything else. How old is your HVAC, your water heater, your AC unit, what kind of wiring do you have, electrical in the house, things like that.

53:40
Lucas Ramos
For carriers that do require wind mitigation and a four-point, if it’s favorable, you do get some pretty good discounts with wind mitigation, especially if you have hurricane-related discounts on that wind mitigation inspection report.

53:56
Robert Chadwick
Super interesting. I wasn’t even aware of that. Great question. The next question, which came from Facebook Live. This would be for me. Do you do credit checks in other countries for individual borrowers versus LLCs? We require you to provide your foreign credit report if available. In some countries, we realize that there is no credit reporting agency. That’s fine. There are ways to get around it. The actual score on your credit is not going to be looked at like it’s looked at in your home country. Certainly, we don’t want to see bankruptcies or recent bad issues, but all we’re looking at by asking for a foreign credit report is do you maintain US credit and whether are you responsible for your US (foreign) credit. That’s quite different.

54:56
Robert Chadwick
When it comes to individual borrowers LLCs, it’s the same thing as all of these loans will require someone to be the borrower, but the property itself can be held in an entity like an LLC. Next question. Would your program allow low mortgages against a US property to finance a property purchase in other countries? And does it apply to commercial properties or just residential? Very good question and something that we get regularly. Because all of our clients are living somewhere abroad, and this is also vice versa, they think that they can get a Norwegian mortgage to buy a US property or a US mortgage to buy a Norwegian property. Unfortunately, it’s always onshore.

55:52
Robert Chadwick
But what we do recommend is if you’re looking to buy a property in a country where maybe mortgage financing is very difficult, or if interest rates are high, you could always remortgage your US property, pull the cash out, and then use it as a cash purchase. To answer your question, no. That’s unfortunately not possible. I think that is everything, Lucas. Lucas, thank you very much for your time. Thank you for Steadily being a fantastic partner for America Mortgages. We appreciate it. And if anybody again would like to speak to anybody at Steadily or anybody at America Mortgages, there are links in the chat. You can click on it and schedule an appointment. Lucas, do you have any final parting words or anything you’d like to say before we sign off?

56:51
Lucas Ramos
And the feeling is mutual with Steadily and American Mortgages. Just so you know, that partnership we appreciate. The final words are here at Steadily, we care about your investment property. I know I do. And all the agents that are under me do. So, it’s always going to be about exposure. We want to look out for your best interest. When you start buying your investment properties and you come to us, we’re always going to discuss everything and give you all the knowledge that’s needed to make sure that you’re protected. And then once you get that knowledge, we can come to an educated decision together to make sure that your properties are insured the right way.

57:26
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Thank you everybody for your time. We sincerely appreciate it. We will be having the next webinar which will be discussing properties in Southern California. It might be something very interesting if anybody is looking at eventually purchasing California property or looking to pull cash out from their existing California properties. Lucas, thank you. Thank you to everybody and we will see you next time. Bye.

57:56
Lucas Ramos
Have a great evening.

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Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated, so kindly pardon any transcription or grammatical errors that may be present.

00:19
Donald Klip
Hope you enjoyed that short video showcasing Irvine and a taste of some of the homes there. For those of you who remember, the song in the video was from the hit TV show The OC, Short for Orange County. The topic of today’s discussion. My name is Donald Klip, co-founder of America Mortgages, the world’s Only US mortgage broker based outside the US, focusing on overseas clients looking to obtain financing for US real estate. Welcome to our Realtor Talk series, where we invite experts to bring knowledge, awareness, and opportunities in specific areas of the world to our international audience.

In today’s episode, we’re very excited to have our next two guests talk about an area in the US that is not only close to my heart, having done my undergraduate degree there, but frankly, the most beautiful and perfect place to live in the US. This area is known as Orange County, which is south of Los Angeles and home to Irvine, California, which will be the topic of our discussion today. Honestly, the pictures you’re going to see in the presentation will not do justice to what it’s like to live, grow up, and of course, own real estate here. It’s truly an amazing place. Now, the goal of this talk is to bring awareness to our audience and to talk about why Irvine has been one of the most gentrified cities in the US for overseas Asians, and in particular the Chinese.

I’ll stop rambling here and bring on our guest speakers, and from time to time ask some questions or highlight key points that I may feel are important to our international audience. So please welcome Lily Lyn Ly of Realty One and Jennifer Mualim of Home Smart Realty.

05:09
Lily Lin Ly
Hi, I’m Lily Ly. I have been an award-winning realtor with over 16 years of experience. UC San Diego graduate, have lived in Southern California for 35 years, and have lived in Irvine for 20 years. I formerly worked at Yahoo, Capital Group, and New Century Mortgage. Since I’ve been in this marketplace for many years, I’ve established an extensive professional network and I also speak fluent Chinese.

05:39
Jennifer Mualim
Thanks, Lily and Donald. My name is Jennifer Mualim and I’ve been a realtor for more than four years. I’m also a UC San Diego graduate and a resident of Southern California, in particular, San Diego for over 40 years, and I have been a resident of Irvine for many years as well. I also come from a business background working for KPMG and PriceWaterhouse Coopers. You can count on me for reliable contacts within the real estate industry.

06:10
Lily Lin Ly
Consistently ranked as a top producer for Realty One Group West, a five-star rated agent on Zillow, Trulia, and Yelp, an official member of an industry trade organization, and a published author and speaker at real estate events.

06:28
Jennifer Mualim
Why is Irvine so appealing? Irvine is home to many of the biggest Fortune 500 companies and continues to attract a growing number of tech and pharmaceutical companies. Here are some examples: Google, Disney, Alteryx, and Broadcom, just to name a few.

06:54
Lily Lin Ly
there are about 44% Asian population out of which 30% is Chinese. The higher Asian population leads to more resources and businesses catered to Asians such as a variety of Asian super restaurants, children after school programs, and senior centres to name a few.

07:20
Jennifer Mualim
Irvine is conveniently located an hour away from Los Angeles Airport and only another hour and a half away from Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, an hour to UCLA and USC. So, you can see it’s very convenient. Irvine was ranked among the best places to live in America by Money magazine.

07:45
Lily Lin Ly
Irvine’s median age is between 33 and 35 years old, with many young families establishing roots here and their parents soon to follow. Irvine has excellent schools and master plan communities, with each community having pools, parks, sports courts, trails, and much more. Irvine’s residents, the city government, and Irvine Company’s main goal is to provide an excellent school system for growing families. Hence people enjoy working and living in Irvine. There are many highly ranked schools, one of which is University High School, which is ranked number 35 by US News in the Best High School in California. Some of the students here have gone on to the top Ivy League universities.

08:39
Jennifer Mualim
Living and shopping in Irvine is super convenient. No matter which neighborhood you live in, it’s a five to ten-minute drive away from the closest Asian supermarket. We are also a stone’s throw away, about 15 minutes away from the West Coast’s largest shopping mall, South Coast Plaza, where you can find your top luxury name brands such as Hermes, Prada, and Chanel. In addition, there are an abundant number of shopping and entertainment centers throughout Irvine, like a minute Drive to Irvine Spectrum Center or a close drive to the Irvine and Tustin Marketplace.

09:19
Lily Lin Ly
In the next two slides, I’m going to be talking about the Irvine housing market. The average price for a single-family house in Irvine is around 1.8 million. For condos and townhouses, it is a little over a million. It’s been up 10.9% and 8.4% year over year as of September 2023. The median rent price has also increased by about 8% and currently stands at $4,100 per month. In the local market update, we have highlighted the new listings and the pending sales have come down and it’s due to limited inventories. However, the days on the market until sale are shorter, 19 days versus 31 days as compared to last year, and the medium sales price is still climbing up. Demand is still very strong with many first-time homebuyers accounting for 27% of the marketplace.

10:30
Lily Lin Ly
Many of them are buying due to life events such as getting married and outgrowing their current space. Cash buyers also account for 29% of the real estate market.

10:45
Jennifer Mualim
on the next two slides, you’ll see what Lily just discussed. You’ll see the data and the graph of the average sales price and the days on the market until sale. As you can see on this graph, there has been a steady and consistent increase year over year in home sales and a decrease of days on the market on the next slide where most homes are sold within the first ten days.

11:17
Lily Lin Ly
This slide shows the OC Mac market snapshot and that includes Irvine and neighbouring cities. The general theme is that the medium sales price has increased year over year, the number of homes sold has decreased due to limited inventory and the number of days on the market has shortened as well.

11:47
Donald Klip
I want to jump in here really quickly and want to highlight and emphasize these points. What drives property prices, wage growth, employment growth, and quality of education? Irvine has ticked all of these boxes. As you can see, in a world that saw mortgage rates quadruple last year, geopolitical issues everywhere, and abundant inflation, Irvine saw increases in home prices. Keep that in mind. We don’t see this trend changing anytime soon.

12:28
Jennifer Mualim
In the next few slides, we’re going to show you what you can buy in Irvine. The first example here is a typical attached condo in the beautiful Eastwood community, a three-bedroom and two-and-a-half-bathroom home with a square footage of 1714 sqft on an oversized lot of 5548 sqft for this price range. It’s shy of 1.6 million. However, it sold for more than the asking price due to multiple cash offers. As you can see, the highlight of this home is the large backyard, making it a peaceful oasis for gathering with family and friends.

13:14
Lily Lin Ly
This second attached condo is also in Irvine in the Stonegate community. It’s also an attached condo, with three bedrooms, two and a half baths, 1823 sqft, and a little shy of 1.4 million. I know this house also is in the pending stage and it’s being sold for more than the list price. This is a beautiful, spacious, functional floor plan, a light and bright kitchen, and a great room.

13:52
Jennifer Mualim
Here we have a single-family home again in the beautiful Eastwood community of Irvine. It’s four bedrooms, three bathrooms, 2259 sqft on a 3496 sqft lot and the asking price is just shy of 2 million. In the pictures, you can see that it has abundant natural lighting and a spacious open-concept kitchen and living room area.

14:24
Lily Lin Ly
This property is an off-market single-family house. This is through the network I’ve established. It’s a tip from one of the realtors. I know it’s in a gated Turtle Ridge community in Irvine and Turtle Ridge is very close to Newport Beach and Newport Coast. It’s adjacent to Newport Beach. It’s a single family, four bedroom, four and a half bathroom. And what’s unique about this property is that it’s on a corner lot with no neighbors behind or to one of your sides. Its interior size is 3520 sqft on a 12,000 sqft lot. The asking price is 4.7 million. This property is just stunning and everything’s been done to the nine. You’ve got a beautiful pool, spa sitting area, and a ping pong table to the side that you can’t see here. It’s got beautiful Carrara marble throughout the bathroom. It’s moving and ready. It’s perfection.

15:38
Jennifer Mualim
Here are some examples of our client testimonials. Thank you so much, everyone, for your time. And thank you, Donald, for giving us this opportunity. We look forward to helping you find that California dream home. So please don’t hesitate to contact us.

16:12
Donald Klip
Fantastic. I don’t think that Turtle Ridge home is going to be staying on the market very long after this webinar. What a fantastic property that is. Thank you, Lily and Jennifer, for this informative discussion. Now, I’d like to introduce you to America Mortgages. America Mortgages is owned by Global Mortgages, our parent company. And America Mortgages is the only US mortgage broker outside the US, focusing only on non-resident borrowers, both expats and foreign nationals. While our registered office is in the US, our teams are based in twelve countries in the world, with our global headquarters in Singapore giving us the ability to speak to our clients in their time zone, in their language, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

American Mortgages was founded in 2019 to address the problem of securing a US mortgage while living overseas. Fast forward to 2023. We have over 150 lenders and have created loan programs to meet the exact requirements of our overseas borrowers, which I will discuss shortly. Here’s a small sample of what makes us unique aside from being based in the US. There’s a common myth or misperception that you have to be a US citizen to own property there, that you need US credit to own property there, or get a mortgage. You need to have a bank account and be a resident. These are all myths. For our loan programs, you do not need US credit. We can accept foreign credit. We don’t require assets to be deposited in the bank accounts at all times. Foreign income is allowed.

18:23
Donald Klip
All of our loans are similar, if not exactly like going into a bank in the US and they’re 30 years fixed, which means that if and when rates come down, you can just refinance it to a lower rate. Even as a foreign national, you can get up to 75% of the property value as a loan in terms of loan to value. I’m going to discuss the loan programs, starting with our newest program, which is AM student. The reason why we’re discussing this first was that especially in Irvine, with all such brand name schools around and great high schools, which Lily and Jennifer discussed earlier, oftentimes you want to buy a home so your son or daughter or child can live there while they’re attending a university nearby, as opposed to living in the dorm.

19:21
Donald Klip
Most lenders, in fact, all lenders, will not take the mortgage payments that are coming from your child till now. So, we’ve created a loan program where we take the mortgage payment on that property and we analyze the comparable rents in that area. If the rents cover the mortgage payments, then you qualify. It’s a fantastic way for you to have a property, and have your child stay there. If and when they graduate from the university and they want to stay in the US, you can transfer the title to their name and have them build credit. Or likely, the property would have increased in value over four or five years. Or if they’re Asian, they’re probably going to get their master’s and PhD.

20:19
Donald Klip
So over the course of that time, you sell the property and you would have paid for their college degrees. This is a fantastic new program and it’s been very popular with our Asian borrowers. The next program is AM Express, and this is very similar to the AM Student. In that, we take the mortgage payments and if the rental income that you will be receiving from renting this out covers the mortgage payments, then you qualify. This is very convenient because we use the income that the asset is going to generate to cover the mortgage payments. So, it alleviates a lot of the underwriting criteria. That’s been probably our most popular loan program this year. The next loan program is AM Investor. This is your classic bank-type mortgage.

21:32
Donald Klip
What makes this unique is that we’ve created this to accept overseas income to qualify. We’ve used a way to get your local accountant to write a letter qualifying your income, and that substitutes the need to show tax returns, for example. Again, this goes up to 75% loan to value for our overseas borrowers and all of our loans that we’ve discussed today can be closed within 30 to 45 days. The way to qualify for this loan is very standard across all banks in the US. You need to have a debt-to-income ratio of at least 47% of your gross income and here’s the calculation. The next loan program is probably well suited for Irvine, California. But this is our high net worth loan program.

22:39
Donald Klip
In Asia and many parts of the world, the affluent are very busy running the factories, making money, and seeing clients. Oftentimes, they prefer to have a hassle-free experience where they don’t have to show too much documentation. And a lot of times high net worth individuals report low income because they keep their assets high. They have a large investment portfolio. Given these types of clients in Asia in particular, we created a loan program where we said, okay, you don’t have to show your income because you’re an executive and you’re a business owner. All we need to see is your investment portfolio, which all high-net-worth individuals have. That consists of your stocks, your bonds, or your liquid instruments. And we say, okay, you’ve got X amount.

23:35
Donald Klip
If you divide that by 60, which is five years, if you divide that by 60 months, if that covers the mortgage payments, then you qualify. Now what makes this super cool is that we don’t encumber those assets. We don’t say, give us those assets to sit on while you repay the loan. No. We just look at two months of bank statements from your fidelity account or your local investment portfolio. If you qualify, that’s it. No questions asked, hassle-free. That’s been super popular with our high-net-worth clients this year. And last but not least is your typical US expat. This is for a US citizen living overseas.

24:30
Donald Klip
A lot of times, myself included, you get sent overseas to work and you start getting local credit cards and you start relinquishing your US credit cards. You think, well, maybe I can’t qualify because my credit isn’t good enough. But that’s also a myth. We’ve created loan programs that are exactly like walking into a bank in the US. The only real difference here is that we accept your US tax returns. And number two, you qualify for using the same rates and terms as if you were living in the US. The difference between the foreign national loan is that the loan to value is at 80% versus a non-US citizen at 75%. The qualifying criteria are generally the same. These are standard across all banks in the US.

25:41
Donald Klip
I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode of the Realtor Talk series in Irvine. We will be dropping this video into your email soon, and we’ll be posting this across all our social media platforms. Feel free to drop me a line if you want to get in touch with Lily or Jennifer and learn more about Irvine and its real estate opportunities. Thank you very much.

26:08
Lily Lin Ly
Thank you.

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Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated, so kindly pardon any transcription or grammatical errors that may be present.