hey guys!
since housing prices in the US are dirt cheap nowadays (and to top that dollar has lost a lot of value), it has almost gotten to the point where a higher-end summer home south of Lima is as expensive an upper-middle class summer home in Miami or Ft Lauderdale, so my sister is buying a summer home/appartment in Miami, FL, she has no SSN, but has gotten a $100k mortagage, with a $100k down payment, which is enough to buy a summer home.
Ill be getting married and moving to Alabama next year, for school, and probably will be living for a good 2-3 years in the good ol´US. Now, rent being $600, it will add up to about $20k over the course of my stay. Seeing some house are dirt cheap (Ive seen some for as little as $80k, granted they are pretty basic, but i dont care really), it might make finantial sense to purchase a home for my stay, and sell it after I return to Peru, and save on rent.
now the tricky part. about 10 years ago, i lived in the US for a couple of years, so i got a ssn, but since i was 17 and an idiot, got a credit and was very irresponsible. my credit must be rotten. how do i figure it out?
will i be able to get a mortgage and buy a house? how much down payment should i need?
my future wife will get a new ssn, should i buy the house under her name?
man, i have so many questions about finances in the US, and am pretty much clueless on how the paperwork works out..... should i call an attorney? accountant? do laws vary too much between florida and alabama, that i need different consultations?
can the house be sold while mortgaged? can you sell a mortgage in the US, or i have to pay off the house completely before selling it?
since housing prices in the US are dirt cheap nowadays (and to top that dollar has lost a lot of value), it has almost gotten to the point where a higher-end summer home south of Lima is as expensive an upper-middle class summer home in Miami or Ft Lauderdale, so my sister is buying a summer home/appartment in Miami, FL, she has no SSN, but has gotten a $100k mortagage, with a $100k down payment, which is enough to buy a summer home.
Ill be getting married and moving to Alabama next year, for school, and probably will be living for a good 2-3 years in the good ol´US. Now, rent being $600, it will add up to about $20k over the course of my stay. Seeing some house are dirt cheap (Ive seen some for as little as $80k, granted they are pretty basic, but i dont care really), it might make finantial sense to purchase a home for my stay, and sell it after I return to Peru, and save on rent.
now the tricky part. about 10 years ago, i lived in the US for a couple of years, so i got a ssn, but since i was 17 and an idiot, got a credit and was very irresponsible. my credit must be rotten. how do i figure it out?
will i be able to get a mortgage and buy a house? how much down payment should i need?
my future wife will get a new ssn, should i buy the house under her name?
man, i have so many questions about finances in the US, and am pretty much clueless on how the paperwork works out..... should i call an attorney? accountant? do laws vary too much between florida and alabama, that i need different consultations?
can the house be sold while mortgaged? can you sell a mortgage in the US, or i have to pay off the house completely before selling it?
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We have excellent credit scores (720+) and are paying 3.5%. Credit being the way it is now your at minimum going to have to cough up 20% of loan value, so if you buy a place for 80K your going to need 16000 cold hard cash. Probably wont cost you anything to buy in this market (walk away from anyone who won't pay closing costs) but you'll take a hit of anywhere from 4-8% to sell in 3 years (assuming things continue to stagnate, which IMHO seems likely), so even if your original 80k house makes it to 90k in that time it will cost you/you lose 3600-7200 dollars to unload the house. Plus insurance, utilities, upkeep, etc. Again, these are VERY broad generalizations/assumptions on my part based on my own experience and fascination with the housing implosion. Your results may very and markets in the South East might be very different. As far as where to look I would start with teh google for the state tax rates on property, historical housing prices, utilities costs etc. Zillow.com is a site I use for online house shopping. I've found that their "Zestimates" for housing values are fairly accurate, and they also have a tool on the bottom of each individual house page that includes an estimated cost per month including mortgage taxes and insurance. You can fine tune it for what you think a likely mortgage rate would be, (I would start with your current 10.5%) and make a rough guess as to what your monthly costs might be. In my experience it tends to undershoot, but not by much.
. I have never met a mechanic who hated his job.