Hey everyone, figured this was the best place to post. I'm a tax accountant in Australia with a strong background in property investment here, so pretty knowledgeable of the general gist of property investment and given my current investment strategy and goals I've ended up looking towards the US for my next, hopefully, few investments.
I'm looking for buy and hold investments with good rental returns on them on low cost of entry.
The basics of my situation are that I'm a US citizen who has never lived/worked in the US, have a stable job with reliable income in Australian dollars (the exchange rate is brutal these days!), looking to buy somewhere around August onward but happy to get in earlier if plausible, will have somewhere in the $40k USD deposit available at that point with the potential to get substantially more but the desire to use less and stretch it as far as I can across multiple properties if possible. Aim is to acquire multiple properties over the next few years if possible with strong cash flow to enable this as a priority. Capital growth is realistically a bonus outcome but obviously very much desired.
The areas that I'm not certain and looking for pointers in the right direction are as follows:
Investment Structuring - I'm pretty ignorant on this area in the US from both a tax and legal perspective. I know the absolute basics of the available structures and from my, admittedly, very basic understanding I would probably be best suited to investing through a LLC or perhaps a S or C Corporation. From a tax perspective the ideal result would be for the entity to be separate from myself as Australian tax rates are extortionate and my income is already in the extreme brackets of that, if it's possible to only have it be US based that is the ideal result. Legally I want the standard asset protection. I'm woefully ignorant on state taxes and their potential impacts in all this as well. I'm full bottle on the Australian tax aspects but the US part is still very hazy to me.
Financing - This is another area that I have a strong understanding of in the Australian market but I'm pretty ignorant in the US and finding information for my specific situation is generally pretty difficult. My understanding is that a good amount of lenders will lend to US citizens on foreign sourced income without any issues. So basically looking to understand LTV scenarios, interest rate penalties and the like as well as an understanding of what type of lenders are the best to be approaching for this.
Markets - This is the part that is probably easier to find options but I'm very much open to more suggestions. Based on what I'm seeking the markets that seem to consistently appear within my desired prices/returns are Cleveland (Ohio in general), Detroit, Memphis and parts of Alabama. Basically any other areas that fit in similar profiles to these players will be great suggestions for me to dig into. I understand the broader demographics of these markets but still very much in the early phases of delving deeper though I must say Cleveland has definitely shown some early appeal.
Other Costs - I'm just looking for a general idea of what to expect on this front of things, things such as land tax (if the US has it), Stamp Duty (again if it exists), insurances (required/desired), management fees (I want a property manager in place due to time zones/distance/peace of mind), etc, etc.
Finding a Team - This is one of the harder parts, I'm not averse to a trip to America for some research later in the year (if Australia ever opens its damn borders again!) but ideally I want to try and get together a team in my market that can handle most of the transaction and potentially future transactions. I personally think this is probably the most significant part of the overall process for me being where I am and with where I want to be.
Other - Any other general tidbits I should be aware of that are unique to the US market for anyone going from afar, or just in general.
Basically I'm looking for any suggestions that people have in relation to anything. Web material, books, etc, if you can answer anything then that is an even bigger bonus as time is money but happy and even eager to put in the hard yards just really looking for some direction to avoid wasted efforts.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far and really appreciate any advice :)
