My first USA property purchase!
Well approximately one year after seriously thinking about USA property, 6 months of solid research, an over-priced trip to the US and countless printing/scanning/phone calls & emailing – I have finally settled on my first US property purchase!!!
Details? (All in US Dollars)
Purchase Costs
Purchase price: $87,000
Closing costs: $895 (Including $260 in bank-related money transfer costs, grr…)
Insurance: $783 p.a.
Warranty insurance: $420 p.a.
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Rent Details
Rent: $1150/month
Property management: 10% per month
Leasing fee: Free for first tenant ($720 next time it is required)
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Gross Return: 15.86%
Nett Return: ? I don’t calculate nett return until after each year, who knows what will happen during the year! Hoping 10% will be nice.
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Costs I do not take in to account:
My trip to the USA (Approx. $4,500) – it also doubled as a holiday and hard to justify calculating in to the price each year. I plan on buying multiple properties prior to returning to the US again.
LLC, EIN, ITIN, bank account set up ($2,500) – As a once off fixed cost, it is hard to work in to calculations, I also plan on buying multiple properties under the same LLC.
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*Fingers crossed* it all goes according to plan!
First house was easy to finance. Second I think I can pull off by end of this year/start of next. Third house? I’m going to have trouble here – so I need help – are you interested in buying or forming a partnership in buying in the USA? Let me know, I’m definitely keen to work with someone…
myusapropertynightmare 
Did you buy with cash or get a loan?
I was lucky to get a loan from my parents for this purchase.
I am currently in the process of applying for finance, of which I am confident of getting at least 50% of the purchase price back.
Once you own a property outright it is much easier to get finance on it, so that is a struggle for a lot of people!
Awesome…sounds like a good strategy. Although, will it matter if the property is $30K in value or will banks just look at having some sort of ‘local’ guarantee? Also, have you looked into other states like Michgan, Georgia?
I don’t think you are going to find funding for a $30k house, to be honest. You’d need to consider spending at least double that amount to buy a decent house in a decent area.
I’ve looked in to Georgia and have considered buying in Atlanta – I’m going to take my time with Atlanta (planning for 1 years time) to buy there – I don’t think the property market will move too much between now and then.
Hi Anthony
I’d be interested in talking to you about a potential partnership in buying in the USA. Let me know if you’d like to discuss and I can provide you with my background etc. Will be heading to USA in May 2012 but wasn’t for property research purposes (but it could be).
BTW great blog – very useful stuff (albeit confusing – only because the US admin is so cognitively taxing!!!)
Jason