Hey British Buyer,

Sorry about missing the REO deal. But I believe with your passion and determination, they’ll be another dream house around the corner!

Although things may not be going your way, I’m so inspired by how much you’ve learnt in just a few weeks! Why go to college when you learn so much more in real life, in real time! Fortune favours the brave – so good on you for having the guts to get out there and give it a go!

About immigration, I’ve been told by our relatives residing in the US, that since 9/11, its extremely difficult to get the Green Card. Understandably. We’ve actually successfully applied and received a B1-Business Visa. This is a non-immigrant visa, meaning that you need to prove that your base is still abroad. However, the upside is that the visa is for 5 years. You will still need to explain why you want to do business in the US and Homeland Security reserves the right to ask you to leave the US and re-enter within the 5 years, at anytime. I’ve been told that like a Chinese Business Visa, even if they ask you to leave after 6 months, you wouldn’t need to go back to your home country – you could say make a weekend trip to the Bahamas instead, then re-enter the US

Check out ==> https://www.usimmigrationsupport.org/b1-business-visa.html

Also in response to tips on building up wealth – I totally agree. The hard road will lead to the easy road; just as the easy road leads to the hard road. Just learnt something quite simple, but profound, over the weekend: “Economics is the study of choices”.

As for HSBC, the criteria for opening a Premier Account varies from country to country. Opening this account in Australia enables you to automatically qualify to open a Premier Account in the US. Also, good to note that $200k doesn’t have to be in cash only – can be in equity too. Just another option to perhaps re-finance some of your investment loans to HSBC, so you don’t have to leave as much of your cash in the account.

Buying under an LLC is like taking out private health insurance in the US. It may cost you abit, and you may never use it. Fine not to have it if nothing happens to you. But if you plan on having an extensive property portfolio – then the exposure may become too great.

e.g If ‘Tenant A’ in ‘Investment Property A’ decides to throw a pool party, the tiles get slippery near the pool and 3 people trip and hurt themselves; technically the Landlords insurance will cover it – under your Public Liability. But what if the injury is more severe and the Public Liability does not cover ALL the expenses? Then these 3 people can sue you PERSONALLY, and when the court finds out you have ‘Investment Property B and C and D’, then those assets will also be affected in the lawsuit. No Landlords insurance is going to exempt your property from being involved in an unrelated incident in one of your other investment properties!
*Technically you’d need to have a different LLC for each property to protect them fully – so I guess it really depends on how much each is worth and your risk tolerance.

Hi all,

Thank you so much for all your entries. My husband and I are going to invest in property in Miami – and as you can imagine, we have had all sorts of arguments against the decision from our friends (and ourselves). Its so encouraging to see that what we’re planning to do isn’t completely absurd and that there are others who hold similar worldviews.

Abit about us – we started investing in property almost 5 years ago. Last year, we became financially independent. Our next goal is to create some serious wealth!

I agree that ultimately, after all the due diligence research (and a sprinkle of speculation), picking the exact state and county to invest in the US will be boiled down to gut-feel. There’s so many pros and cons, so it really depends on what you want?

We’re planning our next US trip in early 2011, as we are still in the process of tying up lose ends and setting up our finances here.

The plan is to purchase property outright with cash, build up our credit rating in the US for 1 year, then re-finance the properties after 1 year to borrow more money and leverage. The other option some foreign investors are doing is vendor financing (more complicated, but at least some form of leverage – if you can’t get a conventional US home loan).

Looking forward to future posts by Steve (British Buyer).

I too am looking for someone to help with finance.

Are you guys from Melbourne?