American real estate in the eyes of China people: having a house is also a burden.

In America, owning a house is not a symbol of wealth, but probably the beginning of a burden. You have to pay property tax, insurance premium, high manual maintenance cost and so on.

Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, the American economy was severely hit, but the residential real estate market was an exception. Wing-ming Wong, a real estate agent and investor, believes that this is because there are various ways to buy and sell land in the United States, and everyone's demand for land is not completely affected by the macroeconomic situation.

Three years ago, Wing-ming Wong went to live in the United States and obtained a license as a real estate agent in Texas. In his observation, because the United States mainly practices private ownership of land, the way of buying and selling land is very different from that of China, and the reasons for buying land are also very different.

Among his clients, some people buy land to live in, buy a piece of land they like when they are young, and live until retirement; Some people buy land for hunting, others buy land for digging underground treasures ... you never know what value buyers are looking for in this land.

I interviewed him all, and asked him to talk about the American real estate market in the eyes of China people. The following is Wing-ming Wong's self-report:

I am a big fan of American TV series. In 20 15, the broadcast of American TV series in China was delayed for half a year. At that time, I thought, how can this work? I want to go directly to America to see it.

Two years later, I flew from Beijing to Houston without any relatives or friends. I realized that this was an opportunity to start over in a strange society. How to survive in an unfamiliar system and build your financial security? Suddenly feel very interesting. It may be more exciting than American TV series.

My occupation is real estate investment. I got a license as a real estate agent in Texas, USA, and live in Houston. Two companies are registered here, one is real estate investment and the other is investment training.

When it comes to real estate investment, people's first or even only reaction is to buy a house and wait for appreciation. But the American way is very different. Because 70% of the land in the United States is privately owned, the way of buying and selling is very different from that in China. More importantly, I don't need particularly strong capital to engage in this investment. You can even spend thousands of dollars on a piece of land, just to tie a few of your horses.

What I mainly do is tax lien investment, which is related to the property tax system in the United States. In the United States, individuals or enterprises holding real estate or land need to pay real estate tax every year. This tax varies according to the location and size of the land, and people are often unable or unwilling to hand over the money for various reasons. Then the government will mark the property that owes taxes and auction the tax lien of the house.

There are many reasons for tax arrears. For example, personal debt is too high to pay back the money. The household debt ratio in the United States is very high, reaching an average monthly household debt of $65,438 +0.45 million at the end of last year.

But more often than not, it is not because of lack of money. Communication reasons are common, but the government will not show mercy. Every year, the government will inform you by letter how much tax you have to pay and when. If there are problems in the delivery of letters, the owner, whether a company or an individual, may delay paying taxes for various reasons.

Once, a large parking lot of a chain pharmacy was auctioned off because of tax arrears, and the company faced an embarrassing situation. In America, a big pharmacy can't operate without a parking lot. He has to spend more money to rent the parking lot back. Later, his company went to find out the reason for not paying taxes, only to find that it was a misunderstanding caused by the mailing address, but there was no other way.

The American market contracted first. What we often encounter is that all the people in this land have died and have not paid taxes. Sometimes when the owner dies, the heir is unwilling to pay taxes, or unable to pay taxes, or does not know that he has inherited the land.

Once, we filmed a piece of land owned by a company. Two partners of this company died, but the company was not dissolved before their death. Therefore, the land is still held by the company, and no actual manager has the right to pay property tax. Have to wait for the auction to end.

In other cases, the owner is old and forgets to pay taxes on time, or after divorce, the husband and wife move out of their original place of residence, and no one thinks of paying taxes for the house they live together, so the lien on the house is auctioned by the government.

What we do is to participate in the auction as an investor, but the ownership you get is not the direct property right of the house, but the ownership of the debt. After the tax lien is auctioned, the owner can redeem it within a certain period of time. Different states have different regulations on redemption, ranging from about 6 months to 3 years. Then I can get some interest from it. However, if the owner still fails to redeem the house after the specified redemption time, then I can get the property right of the house at a very low cost. In this way, we can usually obtain the property right of a property or real estate at 5%~25% of the market price, and then sell it to the right buyer at the market price or slightly lower than the market price.

Then how do I find a buyer? The most important and simplest way is to send an email. We will send a lot of letters directly to these owners in an area, telling them what kind of land or real estate we have. The owner's name and mailing address are public information, which you can obtain through completely legal channels.

The demand for land in the United States is varied, the most is the builder, followed by self-occupation.

An American house sold in June 2020 +065438+ 10. Despite the epidemic, American real estate prices are still soaring. Source: AFP

Many people will buy a piece of land where they like when they are young, and then build a house on it when they retire. Usually, they look at some open spaces far away from the city.

Besides, many young people live in crowded metropolises, such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and new york. Their families live in a small apartment. They usually have a dream of moving, buying a bigger piece of land there and building their own house on it.

There are also wholesale sales. Bill Gates, a world-renowned billionaire, has purchased farmland in several states in the United States, covering a total area of 242,000 acres, making him the largest owner of private agricultural land in the United States. In the United States, land itself is also a means of family fortune's inheritance. Houses have a long life, but no one can destroy the land, so they can be passed down from generation to generation.

A farm source in the United States: AFP

In the United States, another popular real estate business is buying and selling self-service storage land. Self-service warehousing has no big market in China for the time being, but it is more than McDonald's stores in the United States. Because Americans buy more things and store more things, they can't put them down at home, especially in the consumer society, people buy more and more things, and electronic products are updated faster and faster. It didn't take long for the mobile phone to feel old after buying it home.

Because the landlord owns all the wealth underground. When buying and selling real estate in America, you never know what your buyer is thinking. In addition, the United States is an immigrant country, and people's cultures and values are very different.

I remember a colleague took a 20-mu plot of land in Arizona, and a seasonal river passed by. In a certain season, the river will flood, so this land has no residential value, so the price is particularly low, and it was bought for 800 yuan.

When the land was auctioned, a seller bought it for 9600 dollars. We have repeatedly confirmed with the buyer. Do you really want to buy it? The other party just said that he was looking for treasure. According to his research, there are gems near this seasonal river. Later, I lost contact with this buyer, and I don't know if he has found the gem now.

In addition to the investment income brought by the rapid resale of land, I am also slowly establishing my own passive income. In the United States, it is a loss to put money in a bank account, so everyone's money is put in retirement investment accounts, or funds, stocks, bonds, real estate and so on. My way is to be a seller of real estate financing. For example, I have a piece of land in my hand and you want to buy it, but you can't get a loan for various reasons, so you can sign an installment contract. For example, if the land sells for $80,000, you pay me 20% down payment, and the remaining 64,000 cents 10 will be paid back to me. In this way, I am both a seller and a bank.

The final return on investment is that I bought this land at a low price of about 25,000 yuan, I sold it to people in need at a price of 80,000 yuan, and the other party paid me 1.6 million yuan, and then paid me a monthly payment for one year. The cost has been recovered. If all goes well, by next year, my passive income can support my life in the United States.

When I first arrived in the United States, I was engaged in my old job, publishing and editing, but I soon noticed real estate because it was completely different from our real estate system. In the United States, if you buy a house for your own housing needs, it is pure expenditure and there are many costs. Such as property tax, home insurance, high labor maintenance costs, water and electricity costs and so on. There is a fixed expenditure of at least several hundred yuan every month.

Many Americans will choose to rent some houses to pay for their living expenses. So many people say that the price of buying a house in Beijing can be used to live in a villa in the United States. Although it is true, it is difficult to maintain such a life, because the bigger the house, the heavier the property tax and the high maintenance cost, and it costs 600 dollars to water the grass once a month.

On the other hand, real estate is indeed one of the ways to accumulate wealth and obtain passive income in the United States.

In order to successfully change careers, I will solve at least one problem every day and write it down in my notebook. In the United States for more than three years, I have been thinking about real estate except eating and sleeping. I kept a few books, which I call the 365-day victory.

Although I work at home most of the time, there is not much entertainment and socialization, but there is not much negative emotion. Sometimes I just have a flash of thought and feel very tired, but this idea may just flash by and then return to work.

I think I'm playing a real monopoly game. Although there was no miracle and I became rich overnight, I got a little reward for every step I took.