# Any Brits on the forum who own a home in America and pay a mortgage?



## Mortimer48 (Feb 4, 2021)

Hi



I am specifically looking to converse with someone who has done this.



You may be familiar with the program A Place In The Sun and in a recent episode they said they'd taken out a mortgage after getting the house.



That mortgage was with a US company so I was interested to know if anyone has a real-time experience of that on here.



We'd like to retire there one day each year for the time period allowed by law before heading back to the UK, but I have always thought that getting the house first and renting it out might be an early way of seeing how the process would work. See how the sums work out and all that.



As always, any help/information would be greatly received.


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## twostep (Apr 3, 2008)

Non-owner occupied single family dwelling mortgage for foreigner without legal residence. There are a couple of UK loan sharks working this niche. I remember a poster a while back mentioning it. Search option is your friend. Otherwise Google. With no US credit/employment history and security but a dwelling it will be a challenge to go through a local lender.

Taxes in Florida are not that bad. Insurance and flood coverage can be a surprise not to mention closing costs.

Have you had rental property, especially one you cannot access spontaneously, in the past? Are you familiar with maintaining it. Familiarize yourself with Florida law before considering this option.


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## Crawford (Jan 23, 2011)

The following article may be of interest to you:









Mortgages in the United States for expats and non-residents


An overview of US mortgages created for foreign nationals living in the US and US nationals living abroad




www.expertsforexpats.com


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## Mortimer48 (Feb 4, 2021)

Hi

Thanks for the replies, a couple of things are slightly different from what I thought I know, so that's interesting.

Here is a link from a highly reputatble website over here, do you believe the details to be correct or incorrect in it?






Getting a Mortgage for Property in the USA


Detailed advice about getting a mortgage for American property. Get information about the application process, mortgage conditions and the types available.




www.aplaceinthesun.com


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## Crawford (Jan 23, 2011)

Considering the article mentions 'sales in 2015' I would say that probably most of the information in it is out of date by now. 
The article is/was very general anyway.


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## Crawford (Jan 23, 2011)

If you are still thinking about a mortgage in order to purchase a property in the US, this is something I've learnt about the US market over the years:


cash buyers get first dibs
buyers who are pre-approved (ie have their mortagage all sorted out) are next
buyers who have homes to sell and/or mortgages to arrange are at the bottom of the totem pole.

Unlike in the UK, US sellers don't wait around for you to either sell your property or arrange a mortgage. Sure, they might take your offer, but they are unlikely to take the property off the market. If someone else come along in a better situation, they will take their offer and drop you. Chains are not common in the US - many buyers will buy the new property and take out a bridging loan until their old property sells; sellers will sell their property and move into rented accommodation until they find or are able to move into their new home.

It's a whole different experience to the UK where you can be in a chain for months on end.....


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## Mortimer48 (Feb 4, 2021)

Crawford said:


> If you are still thinking about a mortgage in order to purchase a property in the US, this is something I've learnt about the US market over the years:
> 
> 
> cash buyers get first dibs
> ...



Thanks for that information. Hopefully when our time comes it'll be cash anyway as we'll down size here as you can imagine


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