All Forum Posts by: Sam Van Horebeek

@Enoch Benjamin The interest of investors here in China for those EB-5 programs is huge.  Every seminar that we are organizing that has an EB-5 component to it always sees a significant higher number of attendees. 

Having said that, it is a long process for those foreigners to go through...

@Account Closed We specialize on Asian buyers as we are based in China.  If you need any information, feel free to PM me.

It is a good question to understand what foreign real estate investors now think about the US real estate market and what they think that the implications are of President-elect Donald Trump.

So far, Trump seems to have a positive effect on Asian investors looking to buy US real estate:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alexfrewmcmillan/2016/...

Would be good to get insights around European and Canadian investors as well if that information is available somewhere...

this might be helpful - http://www.inman.com/2015/11/23/chinese-homebuyers-say-feng-shui-is-imperative/

@Samantha Smalpage We are based in Hong Kong and Shanghai and most investors that we see are Asian. However, there are Australian investors as well and I have heard that there are quite a bit of them....

Surely, you need to consider tax, financing, return and risk and that would be the same if you would be investing in real estate somewhere in Europe.  At least you won't have a language problem...

My suggestion is to formulate your strategy - are you looking for cash flow or appreciation, or a mix?  What is the amount of return that you are looking for coupled with risk you can tolerate?  What is your budget?  Answering these questions will help you in refining the area to do research on.  Feel free to PM me in case it is needed.

My initial response would have been that a Trump presidency would create unrest in both political as well as economic aspects, and cause challenges for the real estate market in the US.  However, the stock market's trend as of today (Thursday Nov 10) here in Asia indicates that most investors are now hopeful that his "business man" skill set will start adding positive effects to the US economy and the world overall...   We probably should keep our fingers crossed that he will be able to communicate his actions clearly and restrain from surprising announcements.  

@Jianheng Wang Thanks for sharing the information.  You mentioned that Hong Kong real estate prices went up 2000% in the past 10 years. Could you share the data behind that as it would be very interesting? 

From an Asia perspective, we still see strong interest in the Seattle real estate market.  The inquiries from clients have covered the following reasons for this interest (in no particular order):

- good schools in Seattle area

- close to Vancouver

- easy to reach from China

- good climate

- less expensive than San Francisco

- good long-term investment

Bellevue is of particular interest and some clients even mentioned specific zip codes that they wanted to focus on.

We believe that this interest for Seattle will continue to grow as China and other countries in Asia are still doing well (compared to many other countries) and wealth is being created every day.  There is new Chinese billionaire created every 5 days.

We have been contacted by a good number of Chinese investors who are now active in Houston, Dallas and Austin.  Other cities in Texas are not known to these foreign buyers.  While rental income is important, these foreign buyers do evaluate the potential increase in value as well which - they believe - is the best in one of these 3 cities. Another factor is the access to good schools which is very important for Chinese buyers. This could you help you in narrowing your search when you have made the decision on which city to focus on. Good luck!

There are American banks who will be lending to foreigners who do not have credit or income in the US.  It depends on the amount of mortgage that you are looking for.  The banks that I have seen doing it usually lend 300K USD or up (at interest rate of 4%).  

There are also hard money lenders but they are charging high rates so probably not suitable for you.

Once she acquires the property in the US she will have to file taxes in the US. She will be able to claim expenses against her rental income on her US tax filing papers. You might want to contact a local Australian CPA to see how it works for her Australian taxes.