Repatriating and want to House hack, but worry about financing

[Rusty Hitt]

My wife and I are currently living in South Korea, and have done so since 2009. We have been employed by South Korean entities for the entire time. We will be moving outside of Chicago and looking for a MFH around 160k - 200k. We have 60k-70k for down-payment, repairs, and updates. The rub is we will need to finance the remaining amount, but have had no taxable US income for the last 7 years. We have filed taxes and have evidence of foreign employment. We are taking over a well-established family business, so we won't have contracts or salaried jobs. How do we get financing?

[Daniel Ryu]

@Rusty Hitt

Hi Rusty. There's a bunch of us out in Seoul who meet regularly to talk real estate. We've had many BiggerPockets members as Skype guests. Check out my signature for website info. 

As far as financing - Fannie Mae accepts foreign income as long as you have the fight documentation. When my REI partner applied for conventional financing while living abroad, I helped him put together a loan package that educated the underwriter on the foreign income exemption as well as Fannie Mae guidelines. He also worked for a Korean company and after 2 months of phone calls and emails, he was pre-qualified.

Here's a link to the step by step guide to putting together the loan binder. This is key as you'll need to educate as well as show your knowledge/professionalism:

http://seoulreimeetup.com/articles/applying-for-a-...

We've got MUCH feedback from our lender and other lenders that the binder really blew them away and made us look like we were underwriters ourselves. 

I'm assuming you're talking about a 2-4 MF which I believe is treated the same as an SFR in terms of financing.

My advice: Get started now. Reach out to loan brokers and let them know your situation. Put together the packet and gather your paperwork needed (including documents from work). If they give you Korean docs, get them translated. We used Rev.com

You can also try contacting Ben Hauser through our meetup site and ask him some questions. I'm not sure if his lender is licensed for Illinois, but if so, you can start there. 

Let me know if you have any questions.