Buying a house in America

What do you want to know about buying a house in America? Fang Hui Mei has compiled some common things for you:

1. Can non-Americans buy a house in America? Are there any restrictions on buying a house in America?

There is no doubt that the answer is yes. America is a country of immigrants. It welcomes foreigners to invest or buy real estate in the United States, and there are almost no restrictions on buying a house.

Second, do people have to go to the United States to buy a house in the United States?

In theory, you don't have to go to America to buy a house. But in the process of looking at the house and choosing the house, if you can choose the best one yourself. Or in practice, you can entrust your relatives and friends in the United States to help you look at the house and choose a house. You can also entrust a trusted broker to do the transaction on your behalf. Some transactions only need a notarized copy of the power of attorney, which is an ideal way to buy a house without leaving home in the United States.

3. What's the difference between buying American real estate and buying China real estate?

Buying a house in America has to go through complicated and rigorous procedures. This will also reduce the chances of fraud and default in the transfer of real estate, and make the buying and selling procedures strictly standardized. In order to provide trading services to clients, brokers in the United States need to obtain professional real estate licenses from various States. The overall level is very high, and the professional ethics is much better than that of domestic real estate agents. So, if you can choose a responsible and experienced broker as your buyer's broker, you don't have to worry too much about other things.

4. What kind of house can I buy?

As far as housing is concerned, it is usually divided into independent houses, townhouses, condominiums and apartments. Have the most independent house. The so-called independent house means that there is only one house on a certain piece of land, and there is no wall with the next-door neighbor. Housing property rights in the United States include land and buildings, which China calls villas. But sometimes, American villas are not the correct explanation, because detached houses are old and new, luxurious and shabby. For those old detached houses, they are not villas, but detached houses. A villa can be called a luxurious detached house.

* * * Duwu is generally a row of houses connected together, five, ten or even more. You can have one of them, in the form of one, two or three layers. The houses in the city are not much different from those in the ferry. Generally speaking, urban housing is luxurious, which usually consists of two or three buildings. Houses in cities are usually one or two floors, and the third floor is rarely used. * * * The land owned by ferry houses and city houses is only part of the building, and sometimes there is a small part of the yard.

Apartment buildings usually have dozens or even hundreds of households using one building. These buildings can be high or low, generally only have the right to use, but one or several of them cannot be purchased separately. In addition, there are some mobile houses, commonly known as tin houses, which are only houses with the right to use, and they need to pay the land use right fee every month.

5. Are the apartment buildings in the United States the same as those in China?

In the United States, there are apartments similar to those in China. The difference is that there are many households in this building, all of which were bought in the United States as commercial houses for investment. Therefore, this apartment complex is a commercial building, which is bought by investors as a whole and rented separately instead of sold. It basically belongs to the category of commercial real estate investment.

6. What real estate can I invest in the United States?

In addition to the houses mentioned above, there are warehouses, office buildings, shopping centers, apartment buildings, hotels and land in the United States that can be invested.

7. What are the investment risks of various investment projects?

The lowest investment risk is housing, because there is demand for housing, as long as the population increases, there will be demand. Because commercial buildings are greatly influenced by the market, the investment risk is usually high. For example, when the economy is good, the occupancy rate of office buildings will be high, and when the economy is bad, the occupancy rate will drop. So is the warehouse. When the economy is good, the circulation of goods is fast, and the price of warehouses will rise. When the economy is bad, the trade volume will decrease, and the demand for warehouses will also decrease. The biggest investment risk is land, and the biggest investment return is land, a barren land. If it is developed, it will skyrocket overnight. Similarly, it may be idle for 50 years, and of course there is no profit at all. In short, the higher the return on investment, the greater the investment risk.

8. Can I buy a new house when I buy a house in America?

The newly built houses in the United States only account for more than 10% of the total housing sales each year, and are not the main body of the housing sales market. Houses built in the United States generally have a service life of over 60 years. If the house is well maintained, it is not surprising that it will take hundreds of years.

The location of the new house may be in a newly developed area or in a relatively remote place. In the same area, the price of new houses may be higher than that of old ones. In addition, buying a new house may require building a courtyard and interior decoration. This is not a small expense, and buying old houses, many things have been done in front of the owners, relatively speaking, can save a lot. Because when buying a second-hand house in America, the original owner will tell you the fixed decoration, such as floor, carpet, curtains, stove, balcony and so on. , are included in the sale price, and movable furniture and appliances can be left to the new owner through negotiation. Can be settled before the transaction.

I heard that buying a house in America is cheap, but the cost of holding it is relatively high. Is that so?

A: The main cost of owning any house in the United States is property tax. The property tax varies from state to state in the United States, and is generally 1%-3%. In the newly developed areas, the real estate tax will be higher. At present, the average median price of a house is about $300,000, and its annual property tax is between $3,000 and $6,000.

X. Houses in America are usually divided into detached houses and urban houses (townhouses). Besides the property tax, what other expenses may occur?

1. Family insurance. For a house of 300,000 to 500,000, the housing insurance premium is usually between 600 and 900 dollars per year. Usually natural disasters, such as tornadoes and fires. If you want your house to be guaranteed, you must buy home insurance. Many people don't buy insurance when they buy a house in China, and there is no concept of buying insurance in their minds. Whether to buy insurance or not is actually your own choice, but in the United States, if you borrow money to buy a house, the bank must ask you to buy insurance before lending it to you. If you buy it in full, you'd better buy a basic home insurance. Otherwise, in case of disaster, no insurance company will pay for your loss.

2. Another holding cost of a house is yard maintenance, such as mowing, but in the United States, more than half of families have their own lawn mowers, maintain their yards, exercise and save money.

3. If you buy a house (townhouse) in the city, there will be a community fee (called property management fee in China), which is generally between 150 yuan and 350 yuan, depending on the cost sharing of various public facilities in the community. For urban houses with community fees, the community fees already include fire insurance, so there is no need to buy additional fire insurance. Because houses are connected, if one family catches fire, others will be affected, so their fire risks are shared.

I hope I can help you, and I hope to adopt it!