American living abroad and looking to invest in the US

[Caroline Tiala]

Does anyone have experience or knowledge regarding finding finance through banks without an American salary to show?

My husband and I have lived in Sweden for 10+ years and we both have full time jobs here (I am Swedish and do not hold a green card, so will not be able to co-sign on the property).

My husband is originally from Kansas City and we are looking to find properties in or near there.

He can show his income from Sweden plus a good-sized investment portfolio in the US.

He has started to build a credit score since a few years back and it is a little over 700 now.

He has declared his Swedish income to the IRS annually and he has an address in the US that he uses for banking etc. (at a relative's home), although he is not paying rent, mortgage or anything like that at the address.

He has not owned a home in the US before.

This would be the first property we buy with plans to buy many more.

We had a brief meeting with a bank a couple of weeks back and they basically told us that it would not be possible to lend to us because we lack US income and because we are not living in the US and they cannot legally enforce guarantees.

We already understood this would be challenging, but we also feel that there surely is a way to get through the red tape. We have a brief business plan that we are currently working on extending before we talk to another banker, we are also planning on having all the members of our team lined up to show the banks that we are prepared and have done our homework.

So, back to our question. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions of loopholes or ways to work around this? Knowledge of banks that are friendly to (foreign) investor in the KC area? Good ways to pitch ourselves to the banks?

We are grateful for any advice we can get!

Warm regards,

Caroline & Ben