Investing from overseas

[Agha Abbas]

Hi all,

I am from London, UK with 10 properties under my portfolio in TX, GA, FL and MI. All of these properties were bought through companies facilitating international investors, which is convenient for me but they of course charge a premium for their service. I just wanted to get an opinion, if it would be wise for someone like me (I have LLCs set up, have a bank account and a leverage facility in USA), to approach the realtors directly and cut these third parties out for my further investments?

[Ali Boone]

Hi Agha!

The biggest risk in doing that of course is you are nowhere near the area to be able to check up on what the agent is doing, or any of the team members working on the house. You would want to do mega due diligence and form a team ahead of time.

I will say though, I used to talk directly with all of those overseas companies who help buyers get hooked up in the US and I can say for sure, at least how I was working with them and the companies I worked with, they don't charge a premium to you or bump the property price. You would buy the property at the same price anyone from the US doing it on their own would buy it.

Well, I take that back for a couple instances. Some companies, but very few I ever talked to, would charge their fee to the buyer rather than collect from the seller. Chinese companies were the biggest for that and I know a couple smaller outfits that would. But for the most part, the companies get their money from the seller rather than the buyer. You can always ask them where their fee comes from.