American Living Abroad Trying to Start Out

[Timothy Benford]

Hey BiggerPockets People,  

I’m new to BiggerPockets, Real Estate, and Investing.  This is my first post and I’m sure many more will follow.  As mentioned above, my family (wife and two kids) have been living in Manila for almost 9 years now.  We were teaching in Phoenix and the education system just ‘crapped out’ there.  We looked to overseas teaching and landed an amazing job in Manila.  This job has aloud us to pay off all debts, improve our credit to 800+ and save money.  The goal now is to build wealth!  

As an overseas worker, I have no tie to a particular state. This affords me the opportunity to choose the best markets to invest in. We are eager to start the BRRRR process with Single or multifamily homes. The areas we are looking into are Fairfax Virginia, Charlotte and Austin.

The advantages we have being in Manila are: great savings, freedom to choose an area to invest in, and we can invest 2 months during the summer in full time focus on real estate.   The disadvantages are: trouble finding funding because we receive income from a foreign employee, not in country most of the year, and building a business from abroad.  

  I am extremely motivated! I know this will happen no matter how long it takes.  The goal of this post is to find some answers and get some advice to make the process a little easier and run smoother. So three top questions are:

#1. Do you know of finance companies/banks/institutions that will lend to overseas workers for BRRRR?

#2 If you could choose any market in the US that will grow in value over time and is also a great area for rental property investments.  

#3 Anyone out there who has been in a similar boat (Overseas foreign investors and US citizen) that can give me some tips?

Thank you for reading this post and I look forward to gleaning some wisdom from you all.