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Simon,
As a Canadian, you might have a better chance than other non-resident investors, although I am not sure that buying thru the business is going to make it easier. Assuming you want to borrow 90% based on the value on the property and with no recourse to any other assets held by the LLC, you might have a hard time. We have tried to assist other foreign investors wanting to do the same thing, but we did not find a broker who could do it – a lot SAID they could do it, but in the end it wasn’t happening.
You might be able to find some with seller financing, what areas are you looking at?In my experience, it is an advantage to open the LLC in the state which you intend to invest in.
Sometimes the banks aren’t going to let you open an account with them unless you’re domiciled in that state (a Nevada LLC can’t open an account in New York, unless the LLC is either based “domestically”, or registers with the state, at a cost) although this seems to vary from day to day and branch to branch!
Either way, it is usually better to have the company at least registered in the state which you own properties, as utility companies etc often want to see paperwork that you are “domestic” to that state – don’t ask me why!
As for individual accounts, most of our investors have come to the U.S. at one point or another to open it up (best way in my opinion) although HSBC can also do it for “premier” clients, and I know E*Trade also offer an account, although I’d imagine it is pretty limited.
I have been reading the posts on this board for quite a while, although haven’t yet found the time to sit down and respond.
First of all, I am American myself, although have been outside the country for the last few years myself, and I am a professional real estate investor myself.
I can only agree with British Buyer – no matter what the banks might tell you, as a Non-citizen and resident, you are not going to get a mortgage in the U.S. Even for me it is a huge struggle, and I own bundles of properties. The main reason being that I work for myself, I have several LLCs that I use to invest in property – something they do not like to see.Hard money might be one thing to consider as a previous poster mentioned, as long as you know what you’re doing as they can get very expensive.
Florida as an investment – I happen to believe that there is a great opportunity right now, predominantly at the lower end of the market. I think the properties selling around $40-$50K and bringing in $400-$500 a month in net rental income are good deals, and a lot of them had very high sales prices back in the day. For the higher market (150K+) this may well fall a bit further, as there is not a lot of financing available for buyers.
Another opportunity that we’re active in are properties in places like Detroit and Indy – sure there are risks with it and we’ve had our share of problems but as part of a portfolio they are useful as the net yields is higher than 15% on average.
