All Forum Posts by: Rami Holzman

Down payment isn't necessarily the issue, it's more the financing (since I won't have credit score/income history in the US etc.). I'll likely have a couple hundred thousand in cash. I need to talk to some lenders to get a better idea of financing requirements. I appreciate your reply, I certainly could do with looking into creative financing some more as it may be my only option for a year or two. 

 That's the goal. Just got to wait a bit to get financing. The downpayment side of things isn't the issue, just finding lenders I think. I need to do some research and message around a bunch of lenders to see what their lending criteria is for someone like me coming over on a non-immigrant visa (can be renewed indefinitely). From what I hear I think I'll be waiting perhaps 1-2 years till I can qualify for a residential mortgage. 

Thanks for the replies all, as suspected looks like I'll have to wait and build up credit to buy with a residential mortgage a year or two down the line. I certainly plan on utilising FHA loans if possible.

In which case is buying a regular rental property doable just to start building up a portfolio? I'm assuming down payment requirements will be higher but this wouldn't be an issue for me as I would be coming over with enough cash even if it's 30% or so. I'm not expecting great rates etc. just interested if financing is possible at all in this situation or if again I'm looking at needing to wait a year or two.  

Hi all, 

I'm hoping to move to the US hopefully this year (Tampa) and would ideally like to get into a house hack/my own property straight away as rent is rather expensive. However I don't think this is likely as I'll have neither a credit score or history of income (either in the US or in the UK) and don't have enough cash to purchase somewhere outright and doubt I'd qualify for a regular residential mortgage. I'm aiming to buy an existing business in the US though which would have proof of income that I could show if that would be possible. 

My question is whether it would be possible to get an investment/asset loan (based on the property income/performance not my own credit/income) itself under an LLC and rent it to myself. I'm aware that investment loans are strict on not being for owner occupied which is why I'm interested in knowing whether renting to myself gets around that? As a side question, if it's not possible to rent from an LLC which you own would it then be possible to rent from an LLC owned by a family member?

I'm just trying to think of a cost effective way to live without paying rent to someone else if I can rent my own property or from a family member and buy another property when I can qualify for a residential owner occupied mortgage. 

I appreciate any ideas and replies. I plan on speaking to some lenders but thought I'd ask here also. 

Thank you

Hi, 

I'm trying to learn as much about the development side of real estate as I can and am ideally looking to start with flipping lots. I'd really like to understand the costs of new construction/spec as much as possible though. Right now I'm trying to examine markets/neighborhoods and have been looking through new construction/spec homes built in 2020 and sold and trying to analyse cost etc. Here is one example I've found:

• Existing lot/home purchased: $130,000 Jul 19, 2019
• Sold: $665,000 Aug 6, 2020 - 3 Beds, 2.5 Baths, 2,293 Sq Ft (~$290 per Sq Ft)

Existing purchase price represents purchase price that's ~19.5% of sale price. From reading here and elsewhere this figure (depending on market, lot condition, gradient, sale price etc.) should be ~15-25% so this example gets a tick. 

So taking off the cost of the land total construction cost (including profit) would be ~$233 per Sq Ft. I decided to find the permits to get a better understanding of the cost involved in construction. The permit had a construction costs of $230,000.

Taking original purchase price and this construction costs on the permit brings us to $360,000 ($157 per Sq Ft). Now they clearly didn't make $305,000 in profit. I'm trying to understand the additional cost involved, here's what I've got so far:

• Financing
• Holding Costs
• Marketing/Sales/Commission

Am I right in understand that permits (thus the $230,000 shown) would only cover mechanical, plumbing, structural and electrical work? (I'm assuming this is different county to county? Does anyone have a list of work that would come under construction cost in the permit?) Thus these costs would not be accounted for:

• Landscaping
• Painting
• Flooring
• Appliances
• Cabinets and countertops
• Lighting
• Fixtures

Or am I missing some items in either list? I've been trying to follow this lists from NAHB: Costs of Constructing a Home article. 

Is there anyway to reverse engineer from a sold listing so you can work out the costs of construction (not including financing or selling/marketing the property) so you could essentially roughly know how much it'd costs to build a similar grade house per square foot? The article linked does have % breakdowns of costs by category in relation to sale price. Are there any rough estimate rules like construction costs (labor, materials, permits, site prep etc. basically everything without financing/marketing/selling) is usually equal to x percentage of sale price?

Apologies if this is a little long winded and may sound basic but I have a huge fascination for development and trying to learn as much as I can on the subject. Right now I've built a rough tool that maps out new construction and demolition permits for single family homes and I can filter by price, date, builder etc. in order to try and understand markets/neighborhoods further and see where certain builders are building so I could potentially find lots/property to flip.  

Hi all, 

My first post here. Been reading BP and watching YT videos etc. for a while now. Live in the UK but planning on moving to the states next year (Philadelphia) on the E2 visa. 

A big concern about getting into real estate is mortgage/refinance options. My primary aim is to get into BRRRR predominately along with buy and hold investments to build up a portfolio to retire in 10-15 years.

My question is, will I likely have to wait for two years to establish credit and have a history of tax returns before I can look into mortgage options? Are there specialist lenders able to cater to those in my situation? I understand rates are likely to be less attractive, but at the moment I'd like to know if financing is an option at all.

Thanks

Rami