petepete99

Hello,
My fiance and I are keen on buying a house in Florida. She doesn't have a great credit score/profile as she is self employed and doesn't pay herself very much! My L-1B is up for extension on December 31st of this year, which my employer has already started preliminary work. We are also getting married in Scotland in July this year. If it's an option we'd like to look into the mortgage before we're married.

We would like to start the process of buying a house in the coming months but not sure where we'd fall in eligibility. Obviously we'll talk to a mortgage advisor to get the full story, but has anybody on these boards been through a similar journey?

Thanks!
Pete

petepete99

Forgot to say, we'll apply for marriage Green Card immediately after the wedding.

Noorah101

I don't see any problem with your plan.

Rene

Pulaski

Income, and how much someone pays themself if they are self employed, has no bearing on their credit score. Having low income might reduce the willingness of lenders to lend, but that it not because of a credit score.

petepete99

I understand that, that's why I said "profile" in addition to "score". I was correcting myself as I went along. I was referring more to affordability on paper, such as DTI ratios etc...

robtuck

We applied for a mortgage and were successful with 14 months left on our L1A and L2 at the time of completing. To be honest, they seemed utterly non-plussed by the temporary nature of our existence! What did create some effort was creating the necessary proof of a "credit file" if you like, to satisfy the underwriting process. Lots of bank statements, wage slips etc. from the UK given only a year and a half of being on file in the USA and having only two tax returns, with one being a partial year. Our credit scores were no stellar by that point by any stretch of the imagination.

petepete99

That sounds pretty reassuring. I guess my biggest qualm is the fact that my L-1 'expires' at the end of the year. Having said that, the actual visa still has an expiration date of December 2022, but the point of departure is the end of this year as that's the end of the 3-year mark. I'm not sure which date financial institutions typically follow in the underwriting process.

What kind of company did you use for your mortgage? And what rate did they give you? Was it an FHA? Or conventional?

civilservant

Banks aren't going to care about lending on a mortgage for someone that it is not a PR, because they have a secured US based asset that quite literally cannot go anywhere. You cannot sell it without making them whole.

Might be a different story when trying to buy a car or taking out a personal loan however.

Pulaski

An asset that they probably only lent 80% of the value of, and if they did lend more, then there is indemnity insurance to cover the excess over 80%.

petepete99

These were my initial thoughts too. They have a lot more security in lending to a house-buyer than a car buyer/credit card application!

jammiie

I bought a house in Florida 12 months into my L1-B visa (wife on L2) without any issue. We had to supply three years' worth of proof of income so that meant sending them past UK P60s in addition to the US W2s that we had. Due to the short timespan of our US credit history, the eventual rate was slightly higher than typical but that was still worth it for our particular circumstances. I'm a further 18 months in now (just renewed visa) and am in process of remortgaging on a better rate.

petepete99

Great to hear. What mortgage provider did you end up using? Did you have to shop around to find the right provider?

civilservant

That is always recommended to get the best rate. Never take your first offer, espeically when you have a slightly complicated application (as you do having not been in the US all that long)

petepete99

Agreed. But is there a way to do this without having several credit report pulls?

civilservant

No. Honestly, you shouldn't worry about multiple pulls in a short period for one type of product. The FICO algorithms recognize this as 'shopping around' and only ding you one time for the inquiry.

It will probably cost you 5 points, but that 5 points will pay for itself many times over if you are able to secure a rate even a quarter point lower than you got if you didn't shop around.