Canadian friends, partnering up and investing in the US

[Erjon Hoxha]

Hello BP,

I feel that I am at the information overload stage from all the amazing stuff I've discovered on this site. I have made notes as I read through the forum posts but have yet to consolidate them.

As it stands, I am hoping you can provide some information on my situation.

So a good friend of mine and I decided to give our best shot at this and ultimately invest in real estate in the US. We are not handyman by any means, as we both work in the corporate world, but we make a decent stable income and have adjusted our goals accordingly.

We are particularly looking in Ohio(Cleveland and Columbus) and Indiana(Indianapolis, Noble County). Obviously these are huge geographical regions but this is where we have started and we hope to narrow this down by as much as we can. (As a side note, my favorite discoveries was this article by @James Wise https://www.biggerpockets.com/blogs/4704/blog_post....)

Depending on the financing, we are looking at properties that are below 100k. I am mostly interested in residential, but my friend has had exposure to the manufacturing industry so he knows a few things about commercial (quite minimal though) as well. Our starting combined capital will be about 25k USD. We are looking for a buy and hold and long term cash flow.

1) What would you say would be the best way to structure our “group”? At first we thought to create a corporation in the US, but I have seen many suggesting LLPs? I know ultimately we have to hire a professional but what options would you guys have avoid or consider?

2) What are some good lenders we can use? We can use one of our Canadian banks for a 5yr mortgage (if we go in as a corporation), but I was hoping to find more options. What are some institutions you would suggest (particularly in Indiana and Ohio)

3) Mostly to Canadians – seeing that I am settled in Canada, with a girl who will probably be my wife, will this impact my ability to use my RRSP funds under the First Time Home Buyers plan?. The capital I'll be using in the US will strictly be cash from my chequing account. My girlfriend and I are looking to buy our own property in the near future in the GTA and I would like to be able to use the rest of my savings, including my RRSP, towards this. Will venturing out to the US with my good buddy have an impact on my ability to borrow, use RRSP funds, or in any way that I am not aware of?

I apologize for the wall of text, I tried to be as brief and clear as I could. I’d really appreciate any information you might have.

Thank you,