Can you get a decent home loan if you are on a work visa?

Question

My friend wants to buy a house but he is on a work visa, can he get a decent loan?

Answer 1

There are no citizenship requirements. It's based upon creditworthiness just as with anyone else -- credit score, verifiable income, loan to value ration and debt to income ratio. I work with several folks on work visas who bought homes here and none of them had any problems at all.

Answer 2

Yes.

If you have all the paperwork to be here legally it's not a problem. There is such a thing as an international credit report and it will take the place of the traditional FICO score reports that is normally used.

Beyond this normal loan criteria applies. Collateral(house value), Character, Capacity to pay (income and assets).

Bigger financial institutions like Bank of America and Countrywide have underwriting guidelines for these situations

Expect the rate to be slightly higher than a normal conventional loan.

Good Luck!

Answer 3

In general, the banks don't want to mess with any foreign government red tape. Your friend can't invest for dividends with bank funds for instance. About all he can do is open a checking account if he has a mailing address. Don't walk into a bank with more than $9,999.99 cash or they notify the Justice Dept. and they take the funds until you prove it's yours. In short, you will have to have the funds on record, either in America, or foreign bank, to get a loan. The work visa cannot count as verified income.

But hey, pursue your dreams. I just responded to inform you of some of the life experiences I have witnessed.

Answer 4

Bank of America is now giving home loans to legal and illegal immigrants - with no credit check.
I live in california and as you can imagine there is a hugh uprising against this...but BofA is still doing it.

good luck

Answer 5

yes you can, it is called a foreign national loan. It requires a big down payment though, the down payment usually is atleast 20%-30% of the purchase price of the house.