Based out of Canada and interested in US Real Estate

[William Wong]

Hi,

My name is William and I am from Canada. I was hoping to get some guidance on how Canadians can start investing in American Real Estate?

Is there anyone who has done this before?

Thanks.

[Account Closed]

@William Wong

Welcome William!

I'm a recent transplant from Canada to the US.

I remember looking at US properties as a Canadian, and one of the challenges I hit alot was financing; US institutions wanted to see US based W2 income and US credit history (assuming say a pretty straight forward conventional investor mortgage, not a commercial mortgage) that felt like a significant roadblock.

One thing to note though is that some of the major Canadian banks (BMO, TD, RBC) have major US operations; and with those, comes the ability to secure financing based on your Canadian source income, and Canadian credit history.

This is a phenomenal resource for most Canadians (albeit you're limited often to only one property purchase as part of these programs, and some will restrict it to "vacation/second home" only, no investor/rental). Worth checking out (some googling should get you the programs - TD Cross Border Banking is the one I've used personally to handle all my cross border banking needs, although never got a mortgage with them).

Hope this helps - I'm sure if you give some more details around what hurdles you're trying to get past (financing, finding properties, property management, cross-border tax issues, etc.) you'll get lots of advice!