geekguy

Hi,

We're in the last stages of the final move to the USA and looking to buy a home. In the UK we have an excellent credit history, and are happy to share it. I can provide "excellent" ratings from both Experian and Equifax, obviously I have no TransUnion credit score as their US only.

Here's the problem, I can find mortgages that are happy to take my scores and reports from the UK Equifax and UK Experian, but only if they can "search" for them, they're not happy about me providing them. However Equifax and Experian have said that they do not have this kind of information sharing between the UK and USA divisions.

I'm trying to find a flexible US mortgage broker that doesn't follow a procedure so strictly that they can gather information from other sources. As I said I can provide excellent references, including at least 6 years of current mortgage statements, a letter of recommendation from my existing bank, a credit report rated "excellent" from both Equifax and Experian, and debt to income ratio that should make any lender happy.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Regards

GG

dunroving

Is there a credit union associated with your new employer? Sometimes they can be more flexible and helpful.

caleyjag

For the OP: a credit union is a bit like a building society.

For what it's worth I exclusively use credit unions for all my financial transactions. They tend to be a bit more human than banks.

NatashaB

We used BOA. We had to jump through bazillions of hoops (mainly around a paper trail for our deposit to prove we hadn't laundered the money) but got there in the end. 4.5% fixed rate for the whole 30 year period, FHA loan with 3.5% down. They used a company called Landsafe to build a credit profile based on our UK accounts (basically we supplied the details of the accounts we had open and they conference called them with us on the line to confirm security details, then asked them about the account status/whether payments were up to date).

If it's any help this is the guy we used at BOA, he's with a different company now.

http://www.marcedelstein.com/

Bob

The broker isn't the problem, it's the under writer.

Also, those credit agencies are separate entities to their US counterparts, so nothing in common but the name.

But really, if you're only just arriving, it really is a crap idea to buy without renting in the area first for the first 6-12 months anyway.

dbj1000

You're the one that needs to be flexible.

After all, it's not the mortgage broker who's going to be bending over in this transaction...

geekguy

Yup, I'm beginning to see that, although Natasha's information has been invaluable, there are agencies out there whose job it is to help people convert UK credit, and scores, statements, etc in to a form that underwriters in the USA accept.

Thanks, my wife lived in the neighbourhood for over 12 years and we have several friends and relatives that live there currently, so I think we've got that covered.

GG