Buying U.S. Property from Overseas: What Banks Won’t Tell You

04:30
Robert Chadwick
Okay, thanks guys. Hi everybody, this is Robert Chadwick with America Mortgages. Thank you for joining our most recent webinar. I think you’ll find this one to be a little bit different than what we’ve done before. I think we’re going to focus a lot this time on just the general real estate market. As everybody is aware, you know, with the global issues, certainly we’ve seen some increase in rates when were hoping to expect a significant decrease in rates by now. However, I think this actually could be a unique opportunity and we wanted to cover this. And I really appreciate everybody tuning in and spending your time with us. So this will probably last about 30 minutes. The webinar will consist of some slides and then at the end, if you could hold your questions, there’ll be a Q and A in the webinar chat.

08:06
Robert Chadwick
As you’ll see. There will be a link if at some point you would like to schedule a time to speak with one of our loan officers. We have loan officers all over the world speak a variety of languages. So it’ll be in your time zone at your convenience and possibly in your language. So with that said, let me share the slides. Okay, so this will be the US Real Estate and Mortgage Outlook for 2026. What we feel that foreign nationals and US expat US investors need to know that often you will not hear or that banks do not offer. So the introduction why this webinar and why now? So as everybody on this webinar is probably aware, but every year non US residents.

09:12
Robert Chadwick
So this would be both, you know, foreign nationals or US Expats purchase in residential Property alone anywhere from spend as low as 30 billion, all the way as high as 100 billion. But last year they purchased $56 billion, which was a 33% increase. Yet still a lot of foreign nationals and US expats will pay cash. And a lot of that has to do with the inability to access proper Financing, which we feel at American Mortgages, we have accomplished, you know, mortgage rates, if you look at the last, say, 12 months, even with the global issues, they are starting to ease in 2026.

10:02
Robert Chadwick
We are starting to see or foreshadowing from some of our investors, you know, where we get our funding, that they do feel that we will see significant decrease in rates as the year goes on, the war stops and then potentially, you know, the economy increases or improves. But I think one of the things that we want to cover is something that’s actually been quite unique in the past. People have just looked at, you know, the major cities in the U.S. and this is, you know, where I’m going to invest, because this is what everybody tells me. I think we’re actually seeing a shift in this and we’ll go over that in more detail.

10:45
Robert Chadwick
And of course, you know, as we are America, mortgages go over the Financing options and what traditional banks just aren’t able to do and what we’ve been able to fill this gap in order to become the industry leader when it comes to foreign national lending. So, you know, why traditional banks say no. And, and this is probably very common. If you have any US Expats on here, you’ll probably understand this frustration. But in general, foreign income, foreign tax returns, foreign bank statements, they just don’t fit the domestic underwriting. And the reason why is, and it’s in every country, you know, most banks were created to service their own clientele, their own citizens. The fact that foreigners are investing into this market is absolutely fantastic. But they’re still not able to, for a variety of regulatory reasons, to kind of tweak those boxes.

11:51
Robert Chadwick
So if you don’t have US Credit in many cases, for many, you know, global US Banks, you’re automatically going to be declined. But I think what makes us unique and I think one of the things that, you know, you rely on expertise for anything, right? If you’re going to, you know, if you’re going to fix your plumbing, you’re not going to call an electrician. And this is where we come in. We see this probably 20% of the time with our business is a client will call us and, you know, maybe they have different expectations or, you know, maybe on interest rates or whatever it may be. And then we, I truly feel this, we tell people exactly the way it is, what the rate’s going to be, what the terms are, because again, this is all we do.

12:46
Robert Chadwick
And then like anybody, I mean, you should actually check around and see you know what other options there are out there. We, we absolutely do advise that. But if you’re not an expert in this industry, which most companies are not, then you’re probably going to get false information, you’re going to get a false interest rate. And half of the business that we see are these people that have gone down this road only to find out that it wasn’t as stated. So again, most foreign nationals or US expats that go out to a broker or a small bank or even a large bank, they rarely see you as clients and so they don’t understand the situation, you know. And As a result, 47% of the buyers tend to pay full cash.

13:36
Robert Chadwick
And it’s not because they want to, but it’s because no one showed them another path. The three paths to mortgage Financing. So of course this is, this one is our most popular and I think if you’re not familiar with this, you will be quite amazed. The, the easiest, most stress free mortgage that you’ll ever do in your life and certainly in your own home country. It’s called a DSCR Financing and DSCR stands for Debt Service Coverage Ratio. And basically what that means is if the rent covers the mortgage and taxes and insurance and so forth, then the loan will qualify. So no tax returns, no personal income. And with us, because you know, this is our focus on non residents, no US Credit, it’s highly important.

14:26
Robert Chadwick
If for some reason you do not, you’re not buying an Investing Property, you’re buying a holiday home or a second home or maybe the DSCR ratio doesn’t work, then we can qualify you on your foreign income. But unlike most lenders or brokers, we’re not going to ask you for your tax returns for your home country. You know, we’re doing loans all over the world. If we had to do that, it would be probably a disaster. So what we do is we have a template and you have either your employer if you’re employed, or your accountant if you’re self employed, follow this template and it simply states two years of income, current year to date and that’s it. So it’s a very straightforward, very fast way to document your income if you’re high net worth. This is a fantastic program.

15:19
Robert Chadwick
We do a lot of work with private banks. So private banks actually really like this product. We qualify you off of your liquid assets. So basically if you have a stock portfolio or cash in the bank, whatever it may be, we’re going to use a formula and we’ll go over that in one of the other slides. But that formula will allow us to figure out what your monthly expenses could be on a mortgage and without any encumbrance on that portfolio. So fantastic way to qualify. Again, everything that we do, we try to make this as simple as possible. And one thing that actually again, kind of makes us unique because all of our clients are living somewhere around the world.

16:05
Robert Chadwick
We have a full concierge service and there’s no extra cost for this, but it allows you to do everything from getting the mortgage to finding a realtor, to getting insurance on the Property to transferring funds at proper rates. You know, all of these things that you would need as a non resident investor. So with us, what do you actually need? Well, you need a valid passport, of course, you need proof of your current address. So, you know, we need to see that you’re living and working somewhere, you know, outside of the US down payment funds, they need to be seasoned for 60 days. What does that mean? It means that however, the funds that you’re going to use for the down payment on the Property, they need to be coming from somewhere, sitting somewhere for at least 60 days.

16:57
Robert Chadwick
And this is an AML policy, not really American mortgages policy. It’s, it’s a money laundering policy. We need to see it in some foreign banks, in some US Bank. We need to see, maybe you sold a stock and this is the money or this is from your retirement account or you sold a Property and this is the money or refinance, whatever it may be. We just need to be able to trace it back six months. I’m sorry, 60 days. What you don’t need is a Social Security number. You do not need US Credit, you do not need residency or you do not need a visa if you’re from a visa waiver country.

17:34
Robert Chadwick
And of course no tax returns unless you’re a US expat and you’re buying a second home or a primary residence, moving back to the US But I think more important, and this is something that we see across global markets because our parent company, Global Mortgage Group actually does mortgages around the world. There’s no aum. So all of our lending is dry lending, meaning that there is no requirement for you to, you know, sit funds in a bank account that you’re not able to use for the terminal loan. So the markets that people used to look at, and I mean, this is, I fell victim of this myself. It’s, you know, why I say here, it’s the old playbook. So you buy in the biggest coastal cities that you recognize everybody knows la, everybody knows San Francisco, everybody knows New York.

18:31
Robert Chadwick
But these days, where people are moving, especially out of certain markets like you know, say California or New York, they’re moving to less tax states or more business friendly states. These are probably the Property or the locations that you want to see for not only appreciation because the market is, you know, people are moving into the markets, but you’re also seeing increased rental yield. There’s still a massive shortage of properties in the US and so by looking at these markets that probably even US citizens that are, you know, not living in that state aren’t even looking at is a really good opportunity for our investors. You know, we’ve done a lot of research on this.

19:20
Robert Chadwick
We have a lot of data that we’re happy to share, but it will give you not only the target markets, but it’ll show you what the potential rental yields are in these markets. So I think depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a cash flow strategy, we suggest the Midwest, the Sun Belt states such as Arizona, where rent often will cover or often exceed what the mortgage payments are. And we’re seeing in these particular states gross yields of 7 to 13%. And if you have really good accounting, which, you know, part of our concierge services, we have a couple accountants that we can refer out to, then you’re going to really be able to maximize on your returns.

20:11
Robert Chadwick
If you want to go for, you know, growth strategy again, we recommend the Sun Belt and then some select, like secondary metro cities. You know, we’re seeing a lot of movement in Atlanta. If you look atlanta, there’s, you know, a lot of EV battery companies going in. A lot of industry is moving in there just because of the, you know, the business friendly society. So I think if that’s what you’re looking for, which you know, everybody is looking for when they invest, I think it may be time to kind of relook the locations. So if you’re going for the cash flow markets, so we’ve put a lot of research into this. Again, we’re happy to share what we’ve done. We have a complete book on this. Cleveland, Ohio.

21:04
Robert Chadwick
You know, frankly I’m an American, I’ve never been to Cleveland, but would I buy a Property there? Absolutely. With these numbers. So we’re talking about average gross rental yield at almost 10%. So it’s one of the highest yielding markets of any major US metro city. But uniquely it also has One of the lowest barrier of entries on buying real estate which if you, I think prices of average is 110,000. Now to qualify that we do have a minimum loan amount of $100,000. So a purchase price needs to be, you know, $140,000 ish to be able to work out. But if you want to buy multiple properties into a portfolio, we can certainly do that and we can go all the way down to 100,000 on the purchase price. So you can buy, you know, multiple properties.

22:00
Robert Chadwick
Indianapolis again, I’ve never been to, but again, fantastic rental yields, really friendly buyer’s market, a diverse economy, super low inventory. So you have a steady demand of, of properties. And again we’re seeing this with Cincinnati and also Birmingham which if you’re looking at the screen you can see has potentially almost a 15% return when it’s talking about the rental yield. So growth markets. So these are the markets that we’ve been monitoring, we’ve been seeing and we published a report that the, it has the highest concentration of people moving mainly from the coastal states into these states. And I think if you’ve been following anything with U S News, you can probably see why. But you have, you know, Dallas, Fort Worth, you’ve got Tampa, Florida, Charlotte, North Carolina, Nashville, Tennessee, San Antonio, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia.

23:01
Robert Chadwick
Now certainly Texas and Florida has always been a very popular investor location for us particularly. But you know, places like Tennessee and North Carolina are often overlooked. So if we look at what the rate forecast is in comparison to, I guess, interest rates, you can see that it’s gradually easing and I think this will happen as inflation cools. Will we see interest rates go down to say, 3 or 4%? Yeah, I mean certainly, I think, you know, Trump would like to see that. I don’t know if that’s going to be the case unless, you know, we see some serious improvements.

23:50
Robert Chadwick
But keep in mind one of the big factors that we’re really promoting about buying now as opposed to all of these people that are sitting on the sidelines waiting for interest rates to drop to say even 5%, you know, these people may be sitting on sub 3% loans that they did right, you know, right after Covid, these people are going to flood back into the market. And I think as you know, everybody realizes right now it’s still a buyer’s market, but as soon as that demand increases, you know, you’re going to be paying know, 10, 20% more for the Property tomorrow than what you can Pay for today. And this is where we get to one of my famous sayings is marry the, marry the Property. Date the rate you’re not always going to find.

24:44
Robert Chadwick
You know, especially when the market heats up, you’re not going to be able to find that Property that you love. You know, everybody was rushing into the market and they were just buying something that was getting accepted. But right now you have an amazing opportunity to actually buy that Property that you like. If you’re buying, you know, say you’re buying around a college campus, always going to be demand. You’re buying around a military base, always going to be demand. Like these types of markets are often overlooked except for by the, you know, real sophisticated investors.

25:17
Robert Chadwick
And if you look at what everybody’s probably seen, what some of these blackrock and so forth doing with the purchasing of large portions of residential real estate, if you look at their, I guess their thesis of how they’re doing it, a lot of times it is around military bases, that is in university towns where they know they’re going to be able to command a higher rent and the demand for properties is going to be significantly higher. So of course fixed rates, and we’ll go through this on another slide, but it makes the US super unique. 30 Year fixed rates. We even have 40 year terms with 10 year interest only.

26:02
Robert Chadwick
This is something unique to the US market and it really makes investing just much more, I guess palatable because you can buy better, more expensive properties because you’re able to go for a longer duration of the tenor. You know, we, we’ve saw this during COVID and I think we’re going to come into this market again is the refinance, the purchase, refinance, purchase, refinance. You know, it’s allowed a lot of our investors and I think if you go through our YouTube page, we even have a couple that over the last few years we’ve helped them buy 25 properties around the US and you know, these, I think she was a school teacher and he worked for the government. So they weren’t high income earners but they were able to build a significant portfolio where they were able to leave their jobs.

27:01
Robert Chadwick
And it was all through this process of you know, purchasing, you know, now potentially below market as the Property value increases, maybe they’re adding some value to it, they’re refinancing, pulling the cash out and buying new Property and buying a new Property. And you know, again, what makes US mortgage lending or US real estate investing quite unique is it doesn’t matter how many high loan to value mortgages you have. We can, if we’re pulling cash out, we can do a 65% loan to value if you’re a foreign national, up to 75% if you’re a US expat and you can take those funds and roll them into a purchase. And on a purchase we can go up to 75% for a foreign national and up to 80% on a US expat.

27:49
Robert Chadwick
So it really allows somebody to build a US portfolio actually quite quickly and quite easily. Okay, so what does the US offer as opposed to global investments now one of the biggest markets. And again, because our parent company GMG does mortgages all over the world, we also do mortgages in Dubai. You know, were getting a lot of questions of, you know, hey, I, I can make a better return if I buy a Property in Dubai or what? Well, I think we all saw how that’s gone. Now will it return? Probably. But you know, you have these economic and global insecurity issues pretty much everywhere in the world except for the US So now some people may argue with me about that, but I think that’s the way I look at it.

28:48
Robert Chadwick
But in general, these items are probably, I guess, the biggest reasons why people invest into the US real estate market. 30 Year fixed mortgages. Now keep in mind, a 30 year fixed mortgage in the US is not tied to your age. Now most countries the mortgage tenure, so how long the amortization period is, will be tied to either a working age or specific age. In the US because of anti discrimination laws, you cannot discriminate against age. And for that very reason, somebody that is 19 or somebody that is 99 deserves the same right to be able to purchase and to be able to finance real estate. So a 30 year mortgage, regardless of age, no stamp duties.

29:41
Robert Chadwick
You know, I’m based in Singapore and I can tell you there’s, if you’re buying an Investing Property and you’re not a Singaporean or a couple other nationalities, there’s a 65% stamp duty which, you know, it’s meant to obviously control the real estate market and not have it heat up, but it also impacts the growth of a Property, the capital appreciation, the potential rental yields if you’re going to invest it. The US has no stamp duties. Now certain states, California, New York being those two, they do have something called a mansion tax or mortgage recording tax, but it’s still minor. I think the highest is in New York and it’s like one and a half percent DSCR. Qualifications. Again, you know, we talked about this earlier, we’ll go over this in a little bit more detail.

30:34
Robert Chadwick
But being able to qualify for a mortgage without personal income, you know, we deal most and probably most of you on this call may be self employed. Self employed people in general, they don’t show their true debt serviceability. So with that, you know, it may often be difficult to qualify, especially if you’re qualifying for multiple properties. Again, this loan qualifies based only on the rental income. And one thing that’s not listed on here, we have another page, but is because all of our funding is done onshore, meaning that we’re not funding from, if you’re in Singapore, for example, we’re not funding from a Singapore bank. This does not affect your ability to borrow in your home country.

31:24
Robert Chadwick
So this debt will not show up on your local credit report, which is actually something that is pretty valuable, especially if you’re looking at investing locally and globally. And of course the rule of law in the US is very, very transparent. It, you know, depending on the state that you’re in, it can either be very, you know, lender friendly or very borrower friendly. But you know, the states that we recommend and again, you know, we’re happy to share this handbook tend to be very landlord friendly. So if there’s an issue with maybe somebody isn’t paying their rent or whatever it may be, you know, we recommend these certain states USD. You know, again, people may have differing opinions but you know, having an Investing, you know, in US dollars, you know, is, you know, who knows what happens in the world. We never know.

32:26
Robert Chadwick
Day to day is actually something that should probably be considered in general market depth and liquidity. No other country in the world. Absolutely. And, and this has to do with the US having a very vibrant secondary market. But there’s $2 trillion and this is only residential real estate, mind you, of annual transaction purchases, not counting people refinancing, pulling cash out, releasing equity, whatever it is. So no other country can offer this type of scale transparency and more important, exit liquidity. You need to sell a Property. Certainly right now it’s maybe not the best market, but you still have active buyers. It really just depends on what you’re willing to sell it for. So how to build a US real estate portfolio without living in America.

33:20
Robert Chadwick
So the first thing, and this is something that I think maybe some people overlook, but I’m glad everybody on this call obviously has had some connection with American mortgages, you need to get pre qualified. This is paramount. It’s number one. You can do this within 24 to 72 hours. How it works, if you’ve gone through this process, you talk to one of our loan officers again, they work 24,7 depending on the country you’re in and they’ll explain the, the loan programs that are available. You explain your situation, you explain your requirements and we’ll tell you, okay, we can do A, B, C and D. Very transparent. The only thing that you’re going to do is they’ll send you a secure link. You’ll complete the application literally takes five minutes and it populates our application. You’re going to upload your passport.

34:18
Robert Chadwick
If it’s a purchase, you’re going to be able to show that you have the down payment plus any kind of reserve requirements or closing costs. If it’s a refinance, you’re going to submit I think the Property insurance or the Property information and then we’ll issue a pre approval letter normally within 24 hours. And once you have that letter, then you can go shopping. It’s game on. The realtor will want the letter specific for the Property that you’re finding. But in general, you know, when you’re looking for a Property, when you’re identifying this Property, it always seems to be you find the best and the perfect Property when you’re not pre approved.

35:05
Robert Chadwick
So once you have this letter is actually, we say it’s good for, you know, six months or three months but it really, as long as your financial situation doesn’t change or the loan program doesn’t change, then that letter is good. And, and again when you find that Property, it can be very specific. So if you have a realtor, fantastic. You know, we suggest you stay with that if you’re comfortable with it. If you don’t and you would like to have a realtor that likely we’ve worked with in the past, we can do that. So we, if you say, you know, hey, we’re looking in this location, in this city, at this price range, we’ll try to match you with a realtor that we’ve worked with that also understands the uniqueness of non resident buying.

35:51
Robert Chadwick
And I think when you go through the process, you’ll see why that’s important. Now if you’re buying under a DSCR, again using the rent to qualify, that’s why it’s important to actually use a realtor that understands this as well. Because the only properties that they’re going to show you are the properties that should or will qualify for the DSER program. Now, closing your Property or closing the mortgage. We get this question on a daily basis what makes again us unique? Because this is all we do. And you’ll hear me say this over and over, but it’s highly important is we have a variety of ways to close. So if you’re in a, a Hague Convention country, then you can sign at your local notary office or your local attorney office and they’ll apostille it and that will be sufficient.

36:49
Robert Chadwick
If you prefer to go to a US Embassy or a consulate, we can set that up. If you’re flying to the US you don’t actually have to go to that particular state. We can send a notary even to the airport to meet you to sign your closing documents. Some states allow us to even sign over a digital signature. So it’s basically, you know, a zoom call and you’re completing everything over a zoom. So no matter what it is, we have the ability to close it on time and at your convenience. And then again, if you’re buying it for an Investing, you want to make sure that you use a professional Property Manager, someone that understands your, you know, your need, how they’re going to be wiring it and is familiar, of course, with, you know, foreign national holders of properties. So scaling your portfolio.

37:40
Robert Chadwick
We talked a little about this, but I’ll, you know, I’ll go over it quickly again, but it’s just common sense. And again, what makes the US Unique is we can do as many of these mortgages as you would like or you feel comfortable with. So you buy, you either improve the Property or you wait for the appreciation. You refinance, you pull the cash out, you take that, those proceeds, which would be seasoned, by the way, because you had owned that Property, and you use it to purchase another or maybe multiple properties. And we can all, we can do this all in conjunction. So you’re closing one. Those funds are being transferred into escrow and they’re using. Those funds are being used to purchase the other.

38:25
Robert Chadwick
One of the things that actually we’re not, we don’t quality, we don’t cover on our slides is, and I think it’s quite important, especially these days, no money is ever sent to us. There’s no, we don’t receive any funds directly from you as the client. Everything is done either through an escrow agency or through an attorney, depending on which state it is. So the general mortgage overview, so we’ll do Purchase, we’ll do refinance, we’ll do cash out or equity releases. Again, if you’re a foreign national, you can get up to 75% loan to value US expat up to 80%, 30 year mortgages regardless of age. One thing I didn’t cover this earlier, but this is a very unique program and it was created actually when interest rates started to climb.

39:12
Robert Chadwick
And again, what makes the US quite unique is because of the liquidity in the secondary market, they can be very creative in how they I guess originate or structure loan programs. And this one actually is perfect for this. So as interest rates are, you know, a bit higher than maybe what some people would like to see, they we can do a 10 year fixed interest only. So it’s a fixed rate, you’re servicing the interest for only for a 10 year period. And after that 10 year period we don’t know where rates are. Right. So I mean they could be higher, it could be lower. But the beauty of this program is you know exactly what your payments are going to be over the entire time of the loan. Because as that 10 year interest only expires, the rate does not change.

40:05
Robert Chadwick
The only thing that changes is now you’re paying principal and interest. So you assume with rental, you know, rental prices increasing, this makes an absolutely beautiful loan for an investor. So we have loan programs in all 50 states. You qualify on the rental income, not your salary. You, if you do want to qualify in your salary, we allow foreign income. So again borrowers, non US citizens, US Expats, no US credit or residency required, no aum. The loan process in general for the loan approval takes 72 hours. And so once you find a Property, we submit all of your paperwork to our underwriting. We are a direct lender and we’re a broker. So we will find the best program for you that’s out there.

40:53
Robert Chadwick
But it takes about 72 hours to be able to issue that approval, which normally is, you know, I guess earlier than what a normal contingency in a purchase contract is. So it still gives you time to kind of like say, okay, this is a really great program. This is perfect. This is where I want to go. 30 To 45 day closings, very common in the US and again you can sign, you can open your application and sign your closing client closing documents from your, from the country that you’re living or your home country without ever having traveled to the U.S. but you still are able to travel to the U.S. if you want.

41:28
Robert Chadwick
One thing that we are super proud of and I, we’re certainly leading the industry on this and this really has to do with the DSCR loans, but 97% of our loan applications are approved. So if you’re wondering, you know, can I qualify, you know, will I be able to get a loan? As long as you have the down payment and whatever the reserve requirements are, you absolutely can get the loan. Again, we have 30 loan officers in 12 different countries speaking your language 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have this number at the bottom of the page. You might want to take a picture of it or you will receive this, the slide presentation after. But, but you can call this number and you can speak to anybody at any time.

42:22
Robert Chadwick
So the loan programs, this will go over quite quickly and then we’ll get to the Q and A, the AM rental coverage. Again, this is a beautiful loan. It allows you to qualify on the rental income and not your personal income. So loan amounts as low as $100,000. 30 Year fixed rates. You know, some people now are asking for, say I want a five year fixed, you know, the difference right now between an ARM, like an adjustable rate mortgage where it’s fixed for a short period of time but amortized over the, you know, the entire 30 years, there’s not really much of a difference in rate. So there’s not much of a difference in the savings. Certainly we offer it, but most people will choose to do a 30 year.

43:10
Robert Chadwick
If you look at the how it’s explained below, if you have the gross expected rental income, as long as it can cover the mortgage payment, taxes and insurance, and if there’s an hoa, then the loan will qualify. Now probably the biggest question that we get on this is does the Property have to be rented when I buy it? And the answer is no. So what we do and how we come up with this 2400 number is when we order your appraisal, which will be the only thing that you’ll pay out of pocket when you’re buying the loan, we also order a supplement for it. And as the appraisal tells us what the comparison sales are to make sure that us as the lender and you and the buyer are getting a fair and equitable deal.

44:00
Robert Chadwick
And it also does the same thing for the rent. So when we get the appraisal, it’ll tell us this is the rent that you should be able to get for that Property. And that’s what we will use to qualify. Now if you’re buying a Property that is already tenanted and they have A rental agreement that may be exceeding what the appraisal says, it may be possible to use that rent. And that’s, it’s kind of an underwriting loophole. But it’s either way it’s, it’s a fantastic program. Okay, if you’re a U.

44:40
Robert Chadwick
S expat and you’ve gone through, you’ve gone to bank of America or your local bank that you’ve banked with for like 20 years and you’ve tried to get a loan, you’ll find that as soon as they find out that you’re, you know, have your income in euros or in pounds or wherever it may be, you’re going to be immediately excluded. With us, we know that you’re going to be earning foreign income. We know that your bank statements are going to be income. We know you’re probably not going to have a W2. As long as you’re filing your US tax returns, that is perfectly fine. You still have to maintain US credit with at least a 600 or 640 credit score.

45:23
Robert Chadwick
But what you’re going to do is to qualify with the same exact loan programs, the same exact rates as if you were living and working in the US now for this program and you can see the example below, you still need to use the debt to income ratio which is 43%. So if you’re making this is based off of your gross income. By the way, if you’re making $10,000 a month gross, your mortgage payment and taxes and insurance and HOA have to below $4,300 and it’s easy to qualify the AM Investor Plus. So say you found a Property that does not DSCR or you’re a foreign national and you want to buy a Property as a holiday home or a vacation home. We can absolutely do this. We don’t use your tax returns from your home country.

46:17
Robert Chadwick
We’re going to use the letter that we discussed earlier. So if you’re employed, it’s from your employer. If you’re self employed, it’s from your accountant. You can get up to 75% loan to value on this on a purchase and up to 65% on a, on an equity release, 70%. If you’re just refinancing for a lower rate. Again, this works just like it would for a US citizen that was filing taxes. It’s going to be based on the debt to income ratio. The debt to income ratio. And this also is for expats as well. It qualifies or the debt that we’re using is the debt for your residents in the country that you’re living in and not your cumulative debt. So it’s a little bit unique way to look at it. So we talked about this again earlier.

47:13
Robert Chadwick
If you’re a high net worth client, we can look at your liquid portfolio. The only caveat to that is that portfolio has to have some attachment to the US So if it’s in a bank that is in your home country, there also has to be a bank in the US because they need to be able to verify it. But we take, this is an example of how it works. If you have $5 million in a liquid portfolio, again stocks, bonds, whatever it may be, we’re going to use the fixed term of the loan. So we’ll average it out over 60 months. We come up with an income. As long as it’s below that the mortgage payment is below that the loan is going to qualify. So now we’ll get to the Q A section.

48:00
Robert Chadwick
I, you know, hopefully people have been entering the questions into the chat. I’ll go through them one by one and you know, if you want to ask more questions through that then we can absolutely do that as well. This is our contact. If you scan this, it’ll bring us, I think it brings you either into the loan programs or our WhatsApp. But either way, you know, we, again we can be reached at the 845-583-0830 number 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Within the chat you will see a, a link in there if you want to schedule an appointment to see speak to a loan officer. So let me pull up the chat, the Q and A. Okay. Second, Okay, first question. What’s one thing banks typically don’t tell foreign buyers that could make an impact on difference to their Investing returns? Wow.

49:09
Robert Chadwick
It’s a good question. You know, I don’t think that they, I mean certainly banks will never purposely mislead the borrower. But I think when they don’t provide certain loan programs, if they don’t tell you like for example US expats probably 10% of our business every month comes from a few US expats that go through the process with their local bank only to find out that, you know, they’re two weeks into it that they, the underwriter finally looks at the file and says, you know, oh, I’m sorry you’re earning, you know, your money in euros or in sing dollars or Hong Kong dollars, whatever it may be, and then the loan gets declined. So that’s probably maybe the, and it’s not that they’re not telling you, it’s just, it just doesn’t come up until, you know, towards the end.

50:04
Robert Chadwick
And if your loan officer is not familiar with it, then it becomes an absolute disaster. With all the uncertainty around interest rates, would you recommend buying now or waiting to see if rates come down further? That’s a fantastic question and I absolutely recommend buying now. I think you have a lot of. So if, so if I go back and I take a look at a lot of the investors that we work with on a regular basis, these are very sophisticated investors. I, I mean, I can tell you we have one client that, and there’s no exaggeration, owns more than 400 units in one city and it’s a secondary cities too.

50:46
Robert Chadwick
So he’s kind of controlling the market, but he’s been just when interest rates go up and there’s no buyers, that’s when he’s going in and he’s acquiring these properties because he can get smoking deals, he can go in there and he can negotiate all sorts of things. You know, the closing cost paid for, you know, reduction in price, all of these things that he’s not going to be able to get when that market heats up. So that answer would be absolutely yes. Next question. Are there any particular US cities or regions you’re especially bullish on for 2026 and what’s their factor? Purpose? Investment. Yeah, again, we have an entire book that we put together on this and I think it’s quite hefty. I think it’s like over 100 pages. But what it does is it breaks down the specific markets.

51:34
Robert Chadwick
And if you now with AI, it’s so easy to type in what’s the biggest metropolis in the US where it has the most incoming? You know, whether it’s foreigners, foreign workers or US citizens that are moving in to fill a certain industry and it’s going to spit out a bunch of cities. So I think, you know, you have to be open to looking at things that, you know, are not sexy. You know, like if you’re buying something indianapolis, that’s not sexy. But if you have something in New York, certainly, you know, I own a Property in New York, but I think if you’re looking for pure Investing, which I think, you know, all of us are, then you have to be very open minded in how you’re looking at it. Next question.

52:24
Robert Chadwick
I am in Singapore and have never owned a Property in the US before. How difficult is for a foreign national to qualify for a mortgage compared to a US resident? Well, again, great question and I think up until, you know, we started America Mortgages, it was extremely difficult. You know, I’ll just, you know, again, because I’m living in Singapore, so I think I have a unique perspective on it. Singapore banks will offer loans. You know, if you want to buy a Property in Australia and the uk, Thailand, wherever it may be, they were offering loans us they’re not. Foreign banks in general are not offering loans, meaning that you probably wouldn’t be able to go to your local bank. And this is the reason why America Mortgages was created.

53:09
Robert Chadwick
We wanted to be able to provide US mortgage Financing for both foreign nationals and expats exactly the way it should be, but more transparent and actually easier. So to get to your question is kind of a long way around buying a Property in the US Especially if you’re using a DSCR method which is qualifying on the rental income. You will find this to be the most easy, the most straightforward and the most stress free transaction of your life. Next question. For someone looking to build a portfolio rather than buy a single Property, what Financing strategies tend to work the best? Well, I mean and I can, if you go to our YouTube page, you can go back and you can see a video of a couple that we helped and I talked about this earlier.

54:02
Robert Chadwick
This is only one, this is, there’s been many of these similar stories. You know, again, the US is quite unique because you can buy, you can refinance, you can pull the cash out, you can buy again with no limitations on the number of mortgages that you can have. So you could have 175% loan to value mortgages that are all cash flowing, all appreciating. And then you know, you’re, as you go, maybe it’s six months to a year or whatever it is, you’re pulling cash out of these properties and buying additional ones. That is the best way to do it. There’s something called a Burr method which I think is like buy, re buy, refinance, repeat, refinance, repeat. And it’s for that, that very reason. Okay, I’ve heard that some Investing Property loans don’t require traditional income verification. How do this?

54:57
Robert Chadwick
So I just covered that, you know, on I think the earlier question. But the DSCR loans, which is the debt service covered ratio loans, will qualify only on the rental income of the Property. Now one of the things, and I think we’re actually very unique in this market and is, and actually not just foreign nationals, but in this market in general is we actually have loan programs that have no DSCR ratio. So as an example, you find a Property that you love, you know that this Property is going to appreciate, you’re going to be able to do a value add to it, whatever it may be. And, but the rents right now in that area are not covering, but there’s a, say there’s a power plant that’s being built and they’re going to need, you know, 10,000 engineers.

55:45
Robert Chadwick
This is a, this is a type of Property that for almost every lender gets turned down because the rent’s not going to qualify. We actually have a loan program that’s a no ratio, meaning that even though the rents don’t qualify, you’re still able to purchase the Property. The loan to value is, you know, because there’s more risk as a lender. So the loan to value is decreased by 10%. So instead of max, you know, 75, it’s at 65, but it still allows you to acquire that. Are there any tax or ownership structures that international buyers should consider before purchasing their first Investing Property? Again, all these are fantastic questions. Most people will buy a Property in a US LLC and there’s a variety of reasons why they do this. Certainly, you know, tax benefits is one of them.

56:36
Robert Chadwick
But it also, and again, I think this is unique to the U.S. it shields you from liability. So you know, as a real estate investor, you buy, you know, you buy a Property, you rent it out, say something happens in that Property and you know, God forbid somebody gets, that’s killed. You know, the US is a litigious society of course, and say they try to sue the owner of the Property, they’re only going to be able to sue up to the LLC level, meaning that, you know, they’re not going to be able to go after your personal assets and whatever country you’re living in or other assets that you may have in the US So a lot of people will choose to, who hold a Property for protection in the LLC.

57:18
Robert Chadwick
But it’s also a beautiful way to use it as a business where you know, you have certain write offs and so forth. If you have proper tax accounting and we can refer you to somebody that isn’t, then you can actually, you can almost, I mean, I don’t want to guarantee this, but if you have proper tax accounting, your Income that you’re going to earn on your US Property, you will not have to pay taxes on it. Next, how do DSCR terms differ from short term rentals versus long term rentals? Again another good question. The, the long term rentals versus short term rentals, it becomes a little bit challenging. We can get a report on a short term rental. Your loan to value may be reduced a bit.

58:08
Robert Chadwick
Again there is a bit more risk because you know of how it’s, it’s, you know, the short term rentals are structured but it’s just a matter of ordering the correct report. And again because this is what we do, we know exactly if you say hey, I’m going to buy this and use this as a short term rental, then we’ll know exactly how to structure it. Who are the investors? Not sure I understand the question. I’m if you’re talking about who are the investors in US real estate, it’s everybody. As long as you’re from a non sanctioned US country, which there aren’t that many, then you’re going to be able to get a U.S. mortgage. Do you service local loans? Not quite sure I understand that.

58:58
Robert Chadwick
But all of mortgages in the US if you’re familiar how it works is, you know, although we’ll fund the loans get sold into the secondary market. You have a servicing agent that will always be collecting, you know, your payments. But who actually owns that mortgage could change throughout the life of the loan. It doesn’t impact the terms or anything to do with the loan. Everything stays the same. It’s just, you know, your servicing agent may change. Is leverage the benefit of a loan over cash? Absolutely. You know, every time, yeah, every time I hear that people are paying cash for a Property, I always think why? Because you know, with proper tax planning you can really mitigate and improve the yields.

59:55
Robert Chadwick
And if you’re looking at appreciation, which the US is fantastic for in many markets, you’re going to be able to make more money in the long run off of using a mortgage than you would, you know, with reasonable interest rates of course than you would be just paying cash for one Property. Question, what do you mean by no minimum deposit required? Aum. Let’s say if the Property is selling for 150,000 and we have a down payment of 15,000, is that doable in any way? That’s two questions. So first question is AUM. It just means if you take HSBC for example, HSBC, if you want to get an international loan, I mean they’re Kind of pulling back on a lot of that. But they used to require you to open up an account with them.

01:00:47
Robert Chadwick
And it was, I think depending on the loan size, you had to park between 50 and $100,000 sitting in that bank for the entire time that you have that loan, which is absolutely ridiculous. With us, we only do dry lending, meaning that there is no requirement to open up a bank account with the lender. You know, if we’re the lender or we broker it out. And then your question is, if you’re looking for $150,000 but you have a $15,000 down payment, is that doable? Unfortunately, the minimum down payment for a foreign national is 25%. So in this particular case, you would need a minimum of $50,000. Plus you would have to show that you have six months reserves and you have to be able to pay for the closing costs.

01:01:34
Robert Chadwick
So you’re going to have to get a little bit more cash and then certainly we can assist. Next question. Are there ways to lower the down payment if I have US Credit score? Unfortunately, if you’re a non US Passport holder and when, I mean, you don’t have a green card or you don’t have residency in the US Then you’re going to be treated as a foreign national, regardless if you have US Credit. Now, if you have an itin, there may be some special pricing or some LTV options. And I think, you know, you should probably speak to one of the loan officers about it. But in general, kind of across the board, you’re looking at a 25% down payment if you’re a foreign national, 80%. I’m sorry, 25% if you’re a foreign national or 20% if you’re US expat or green card holder.

01:02:25
Robert Chadwick
Next question, how do loans work in other countries for people located in Singapore, specifically in Thailand. Sorry, a bit more Asia focus. I know. Okay, so our parent company, Global Mortgage Group, does offer loans in Thailand. And I’ll cover this quite quickly, but it’s a 50% loan to value. I think the tenor is like 10 or 15 years and I think the interest rate is around 9%. But there are certain caveats to qualify. If you want, you can email me directly and I’ll put you in touch with the person in our office that handles Thailand. Okay, hold on. There’s a couple more questions in the other chat. One second. Oh, Jason, a lot of questions. Okay. What kind of properties do you specialize in? Is it only one to four, a single family.

01:03:27
Robert Chadwick
No, actually so if you’re, if you, if it’s considered a residential mortgage, which makes it very easy and very easy to qualify, then a one to four unit, you know, you get the highest loan to value you can qualify on DSCR and the best rates. Now we’ll do everything, we’ll do commercial, we’ll do multifamily. So whatever you have in mind, I would suggest speaking to one of the loan officers and actually, you know, going over or if you have the, the listing, if you can share the listing with them, they can tell you quite quickly what you can qualify for. Thank you for the compliment. A lot of insights. Thank you. Perhaps I missed it. Is there a non recourse loan option as well? Purely DSCR? There is not.

01:04:16
Robert Chadwick
But I mean to be quite frank, you’re, you have the only time that there’s a recourse, truly true recourse on a loan where they’re going after you for, you know, you foreclose on the Property, they only go after you is if they can’t recover the, you know, the money that they’ve, that they put out, the principal on the loan, you know, plus with any kind of penalties and interest at the loan to values that we deal with really a recourse on, you know, one, if it’s a foreign national living abroad, it’s, I mean they’re not going to go after you in your home country and likely they’re not going to go after you and if they can’t recover their loan. So I, I know that seems to be a question.

01:04:59
Robert Chadwick
A lot of people have recourse and non recourse, but it’s really, it’s not, it really is not a factor on these types of loans, is there? Oh, we talked about that question. Okay. Given the emphasis on stability and liquidity in the US market, what are the most overlooked risk foreign investors still underestimate when investing today? Well, I, I think it’s one of the items that I, I talked about earlier. I think people are aware that you can hold the Property and entity and I think it gives you a lot of unique opportunities besides treating it as a business, but some, you know, security and some protection to, you know, kind of ring fence your, that Property to all of your other assets. So I think that’s probably one thing that maybe people don’t consider.

01:05:54
Robert Chadwick
You know, you certainly can buy in your personal name, but we always recommend buying in an entity next Question. Oh, we already answered that one. Okay. Do you help with identifying properties that may DSER? So we’re not realtors ourselves, but we have an amazing realtor network. So if you tell us, you know, hey, this is what I’m looking for. This is what, how much down payment I have. This is sort of what my expectations are. Will put you in touch with a realtor that actually can find a perfect Property for you who forms an LLC. Well, an LLC, you can do this online. The LLC, it costs a couple hundred dollars and we actually have a link on our website of somebody that can assist you with that. The thing that actually takes a while.

01:06:47
Robert Chadwick
And so why you should actually prepare the LLC, maybe the same time you’re getting pre approved for a loan is they have to issue a tax identification number. And if you’re a US citizen, you get it almost immediately. But if you’re a foreign national, it could take up to 30 to 45 days. So it’s kind of important if you’re going to do an LLC, to do it right away, even if you don’t use it. I mean, it’s only a few hundred bucks. So it’s easy to kind of just put out there and hold. Okay, another question. Looks like the last one, it says, as an American expat, how wise or unwise is it to buy Property in a city one is unfamiliar with?

01:07:25
Robert Chadwick
Well, I mean, I think 20 years ago it was probably, maybe not the wisest choice, but these days it’s so, I mean, you can get on a Skype and you can talk to your Property Manager. You can, you know, you can go online and you can view the street. There’s so many ways that I think that, you know, the real estate investing market, you know, has shrunk to where it really doesn’t matter where that Property is located. You know, again, we have, all of our clients are based overseas and they’re buying a Property that’s, you know, thousands of miles away as long as you have a good Property Manager.

01:08:06
Robert Chadwick
And that’s kind of crucial and it really shouldn’t matter where the Property is as long as, you know, it’s in a, you know, it’s in a location that you know is going to appreciate it’s, you know, it’s going to be rentable and you’re going to be able to make sure that you get your rent. Next question. I own a Property in Atlanta. Great rent to mortgage ratio. Can I use a DSR to take money out and renovate the existing Property? Absolutely. And this is something that we highly encourage. Again, the US has such a unique ability for people to build wealth through real estate. And especially with these loan programs right now. I mean, who knows how long the US Changes all the time.

01:08:52
Robert Chadwick
We hope this DSCR will be around for decades, but for right now, you have the perfect opportunity to be able to use a DSCR loan to be able to build a real estate portfolio. Potentially when you retire, you have this passive income. You want to pass it down to your children, whatever it may be. Okay, I think one last question says I’m just starting and would like to have an estimate about how much a minimum down payment is. I should prepare just to start owning a Property, I’m assuming to buy a starter Property at the moment. So again, our lowest loan amount that we’re able to go down to is $100,000 with a maximum loan to value. I mean, with the. Yeah, maximum loan to value of 75%. So you’re looking at a purchase price of say, $140,000 as a minimum.

01:09:45
Robert Chadwick
That is where you should start. Now, of course, just because you’re buying your first Property at this level doesn’t mean your second or your third or your fourth Property. You know, you can ratchet these up. Yeah, we do get a lot of this. And we see this quite often where people will see these auction properties or these properties that are selling for like $40,000 and they’re in really bad areas, but they think, oh, this is section eight. I’m going to be able to get the government. This is filled with problems. And I think going back to Nick’s question about buying in a city that you’re not familiar with, buy in a city that you’re not familiar with. But make sure you buy a quality Property and a quality location with quality renters. If you do that, you can, you will never go wrong.

01:10:36
Robert Chadwick
Okay, So I think that is all the questions. I really appreciate it. Looks like pretty much everybody stayed on even through the Q and A. And I really appreciate everybody’s time. We’re going to try to do more of these. We used to do a webinar once a month. We haven’t had one for a while. We’re going to try, you know, as I think the market is going to start heating up, we’re going to have these more often. And we try to have like an expert, like a tax expert or a legal expert or a realtor or whatever it may be. And we’ll try to do this going forward in the future. So, again, within the chat, if you want to schedule an appointment with one of the loan officers, please click on there. Again, you can schedule it 24 hours a day.

01:11:13
Robert Chadwick
I really appreciate everybody’s time. You know, thank you for your trust that you put in with American Mortgages, and we look forward to working with you in the future or currently if you have something going. Thank you very much.

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