How to borrow against my US properties as a non-resident?

[Kevin Stembridge]

Hi all,

My wife and I live in the UK and we own a couple of properties in the US. Both of these properties are free and clear and are worth about $300K - $350K in total. My wife is a US citizen but I am not. I've been talking to some mainstream banks in both the UK and the US about borrowing against these properties with the intention of getting into REI. No luck so far.

To give a little more background, one of the properties is a SFH in Tennessee that my wife's Mother lives in. It's worth about $100K to $120K. We make no rent on it. The other property is a 10 acre vacant plot in North Carolina that we hope to one day build a family home on. We paid $230K for it 4 years ago. It also makes no income.

Ideally, I'd like to get a line of credit against one or both of these properties but being a non-resident has proven to be a stumbling block for conventional lenders. Does anyone have any advice on what other options I should look at?