sas

I was wondering if it is it possible to get a good mortgage to buy a house if I am not a permenant resident or citizen??.

I am fed up wasting money on rent when I could be investing it in a house.

I'm on a E2 visa (4 year) and have been in the USA for about 18 months, I have enough money stashed away for a good deposit of 20-40% depending on house cost

SS

Ray

Of course you can ..very easily with a 20 or 25% deposit..

dbark

My reply would be dependent on your credit score. As discussed at length previously on this forum, you would find it difficult to get a mortgage/loan/credit agreement unless you have some credit scoring in the US. Your excellent credit in the UK means nothing to them. But if you have regular employment, and several lines of credit, you should have no problems.

Debbie

dbj1000

My reply wouldn't agree entirely with either previous post

Yes, you can certainly buy a house without Permanent Residency.

If you have >20% deposit then your credit history won't be too important - you might not get the best rate on the 80% lone, but you would certainly find lenders willing to loan you the money.

If you have >10% deposit then your credit rating could be slightly more important, but again not much. To avoid paying expensive insurance on your mortgage you can take out an 80/10/10 loan, where the mortgage is 80% (thus avoiding the insurance), you take a second loan for 10% at a slightly higher rate, and you provide the 10% deposit. This is the path we took, with only 9 months of credit history over here, and we got 0.1% higher than the best rate on our 80%, and 1.2% higher on our 10% loans, which seemed pretty reasonable.

Finally, if you have <10% deposit, you probably need a good credit history built up over here. There are "zero down" mortgages out there if you qualify, but the rates will be significantly worse than other options, and you'll need at least some credit history.

The key in all of this, though, is finding a lender or morgage broker who can get their narrow mind around the fact that you're foreign and don't have much credit history and that this doesn't make you some kind of high-risk freak

With a helpful mortgage advisor who is willing to "work the angles" to find you a deal, you won't have any trouble, in my experience.

Ray

About 10k-20K Non-resident aliens have bought a house in Orlando and the surrounding area... and I consider that a conservative estimate... and not a SSN or credit rating among them

dbark

Okay, well my experience was that, although the mortgage broker was friendly, understanding of my circumstances, etc, the harsh reality was that the banks "sell on" mortgages soon after you obtain them, and it is the companies that buy them, that will not buy them if the mortgagee (?) is "high risk" by their standards.

Englishmum

You don't need a credit rating in the US at all to get a mortgage. We bought a house immediately upon arrival in the States - we're on L1 and L2 visas - and the mortgage broker at the realtors (Weichert) arranged to have an international credit search checked out in the UK and Singapore (where we moved from).

We also had copies of bank, building society and credit card statements going back for at least 12 months to show to the mortgage broker and letters of introduction from our banks which said that we had conducted our accounts satisfactorily.

dbark

Maybe I was just unlucky then. We have accounts with two different banks here, and were told that I should set up credit with local businesses in my name, so that I have credit of my own. But guess what? The local businesses couldn't give me credit either, because ..? I don't have any credit!!! The secured credit cards which people here have advised me to get, won't give me a credit card either, because I don't have a job yet! Yes, I have a house (with only my USC husband's name on the mortgage), and a car, and money sitting in the bank, but no credit rating.