No matter the political climate, the US immigrant population continues to rise. Many of these new residents want to buy homes. This is particularly true in the Seattle area where we’ve seen an influx of individuals and families from countries in Asia.
As an immigrant, what sort of home-buying challenges do you face that a native-born homebuyer doesn’t? We’ve outlined the most common hurdles below:
Documenting foreign financial info can be a challenge.
The process of establishing a credit and employment history for an immigrant is the same as a US citizen. It takes time and good credit sense.
As an immigrant, if you’ve taken the time to establish a trustworthy history, the process will be a relatively smooth and ‘normal’ one.
If you haven’t had the time to establish a strong credit and employment history, that is an issue. As an immigrant, it’s much more difficult to establish yourself financially. This is due in large part to the fact that any such documentation is coming from abroad.
Sometimes the documents need to be translated English. Other times it needs to be translated into a format that matches one we use here in the US. Additionally, there’s the larger issue of verifying the validity of any information coming from aboard.
You might do the majority of your transactions in cash.
It’s not uncommon for immigrants to pay the majority, if not all, of their bills in cash. Cash payments have the obvious perk of helping you to avoid serious debt. However, they don’t allow you to turn your regular spending habits into a strong credit history.
When your credit is run, those cash payments can’t be tracked. Essentially, it’s like they never happened. This is true even if you were never late on a single payment and always paid them in full.
How can you overcome these major hurdles? Talk to a loan officer today.
