06:50
Robert Chadwick
Hi, everybody, this is Robert Chadwick with America Mortgages. Thank you always for joining us for our regular webinars. Today we have something special. My co-founder, Donald Klip will be joining us. We will be talking in this webinar about the strategies that will come into effect if interest rates get reduced. And we do think that interest rates will be reduced in the U.S. as we come closer to the elections. Donald will also cover what the market trends are for the U.S. as a U.S. real estate investor. This is our first masterclass. We’re pretty excited about it and we’re going to try to continue this as a series as we go. So with that, Donald, thank you for joining today. It’s been a while since we’ve partnered up on a webinar.

07:45
Donald Klip
Thanks, Robert. It’s good to be a part of the action here. It’s been a while since we co-hosted one of these events, and I’m excited to kind of share our findings with the audience. There’s been a lot of anecdotes in the news about how unaffordable housing is. It’s going to play into a topic in the upcoming elections. But I want to lay the foundation for how we’re thinking about the U.S. real estate market and why structurally, we don’t see that prices and rental yields can fall. We’re expecting them to increase quite a bit. And there’s a structural reason for this and I don’t think it’s something that can be fixed anytime soon. So I’ll go through some of the slides on what we’re thinking.

08:42
Donald Klip
We’ll showcase some rental yield comparisons with global cities and it’s going to be interesting. Stay tuned. At the end, there’s going to be some Q&A. Ask us about anything. But in particular, if you want to ask us about U.S. real estate and investing, we’re here to answer any questions. So stay till the very end. Is this the best time to invest in U.S. real estate? And the answer is yes. And we’re going to lay down a systematic approach to explain why we think that is the case. In any investment, there’s always a reason. It could be your friend giving you a hot tip. You like to buy Apple because you like the phone. You like Bitcoin and gold because of certain reasons. Whatever it is, we need to apply the same approach to real estate.

09:46
Donald Klip
So with U.S. real estate, we need to go a little bit, not too long, a little bit back to see the sequence of events leading till now, which has created this dislocation in supply and demand, which makes it the investment opportunity that it is now. I hope most of you in the audience are old enough to remember the dot-com bubble. That was the late nineties, early two thousands. So the dotcom bubble burst. There was a global recession, and then there was an unfortunate event, September 11. But two things happened at the same time or close to each other. One, China entered the WTO in 2001, so China entered the global marketplace. And two, over the next two to three years, the Fed lowered interest rates steadily to 1%. So, low rates, while China entered the global marketplace.

10:44
Donald Klip
We all know what that did to asset prices worldwide till now. There was a big push for government homeownership at the time. And home prices in the U.S. rose on average 55% between the years 2000 and 2007. That’s a national average in some places, like LA and some other markets, Seattle, I mean, home prices doubled, tripled as well. So this started to lay the foundation of when things were about to go, as I say, nuclear. Now, that was a bubble, we can kind of agree. Now, in every bubble, there tend to be three consistent things. There’s greed, which gives fruit to bad actors. So bad actors are born to take advantage of greed. And then there’s usually a lack of compliance. Now, classic examples. Recently, FTX, Sam Bankman Fried, was a bad actor.

11:50
Donald Klip
And some other people in the industry have been taken out of the system. And now Bitcoin, for example, is something that people feel a little more comfortable with. Now, in the U.S. real estate, the same thing happened. There was greed, there was over-leverage, and there was fraud. And the last thing is, that regulations always move slower than greed. Here’s where it gets really interesting. So home prices fell only 8%, actually, in 2008. A lot of people kind of lost their houses. If you worked at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, obviously that wasn’t good. But generally speaking, things could have been a lot worse. But what the Fed did at the time was they put the problems on their balance sheet using various tools.

12:47
Donald Klip
Another thing that happened was the government instituted a bank regulation that made it restrictive for bank lending. A typical scenario would be like, listen, we don’t want this to happen again, so we’re going to implement this regulation so that doesn’t happen. But with interest rates so low, market forces still wanted to buy property, right? So that grew something called wholesale lending. It always existed. But this gave birth to this new growth of wholesale lending, which is a bank, that doesn’t take depositors say, doesn’t have savings accounts or checking accounts. And because the role offering mortgages is in the hands of a private institution, they’re just a lot more common sense with how they offer their mortgages. So the fraud is taken out of the system, that is bad actors.

13:37
Donald Klip
Interest rates are still low and this is where this asset price inflation starts to take off. And this is where you’ll read things like the debasement of currency and those types of things. And in a debasement of currency world, you want to own scarce assets. What are scarce assets? That’s gold, real estate, and bitcoin or crypto. And you see these things kind of playing out at the moment. But why is real estate scarce? You can just build whenever you want. But that’s not the case. There’s a massive dislocation in the supply of U.S. homes in the U.S. Now why is that? Unlike Singapore where housing is subsidized by the government, in the U.S., the major home builders are listed companies.

14:29
Donald Klip
They have CEOs that fly around in private jets and they get paid and compensated by how their share price performs. So imagine you’re this listed company. The world exploded, and housing prices collapsed. The last thing you’re going to do is go to your board and say hey listen, I want to build 1000 homes. So that took a little while to play catch up. But with low rates, China coming into the market, demand was high and a lot of smart people came in and bought homes at low levels and home prices rebounded. Now, so since then, till now, home builders are still playing catch up. So there’s an incredibly severe housing shortage in the U.S. So these are, this is factual information from 2012 to 2022. Last ten years, more or less, 6.5 million households were formed.

15:29
Donald Klip
And this is according to the Census Bureau, were formed versus homes built. 6.5 million more homes were created versus homes built. There’s a current 5.5 million home shortage just to meet demand. Now there are all sorts of things that play into account. There are labor costs and raw material costs. It’s really difficult to get zoning done in the U.S. so home builders can buy. And that just causes a tight supply. And of course, we all want to fix this problem, but we think that this problem isn’t going to get fixed anytime soon, which creates an unfortunate opportunity for renters, but an incredible opportunity for investors. So, more on supply. So there are two types of supply. New homes are being built and there are existing homes. We’ll start with existing homes.

16:27
Donald Klip
So of all the existing homes in the U.S., 80% of the ones with the mortgage have their mortgage rates fixed for 30 years under 5%, and 40% of all mortgages are fixed for 30 years under 3%. So what that means is that up to 80% of all mortgages in the U.S., they’re not selling their homes, because if they want to buy a new home, the rates are going to be higher. And if they sell their home, they’ll have to pay capital gains or they’ll have to buy a more expensive home using the 1031 exchange and pushing out your capital gains. In a nutshell, those existing homes are stuck. They’re squeezed. Nobody’s moving. And then the new homes, as I said earlier, there’s a big shortage because home builders aren’t building.

17:18
Donald Klip
If you Google institutional buying of single-family homes, you’ll see a laundry list of articles that seem to not make it to mass media, which is institutions like Blackstone and Blackrock, which we can argue are fairly good at what they do, and classic Blackstone real estate playbook and they’ve said this, is that they identify supply-demand imbalances like single-family homes. They invest billions to create ginormous landlords, charge fees, and dictate rental. You can Google, all the information is there. So we think, isn’t it smart to invest alongside these institutions? Because they seem to have a pretty good track record of getting it right. So you’ve got this happening in the background. So now we go to demand. Work from home was already happening.

18:18
Donald Klip
10, 20, 30, 50 years from now, none of us are going to be going to the office. Work from home was growing at 2.5% to 5% per annum. Now, what COVID did is that went to 100% overnight. And it’s hard to scale back that once you reach 100%, work habits are not going to reverse. Now, of course, companies want you to go back to the office, and that is happening at the moment. That’s one. There’s a big demand to kind of find a place that’s maybe close to driving distance from your office where you can rent and live. One of the most underappreciated aspects of the U.S. is the ease at which you can gentrify state to state.

19:02
Donald Klip
If you can’t afford to live in California, you can rent a U-haul, drive to Texas, start a new life, get a job, and kids, go to public school, and make it work. These tend to be states with lower cost of living and lower state taxes. And that’s what’s happening now. If you think about all the cool and exciting companies that we hear about whether that’s Tesla, Nvidia, Facebook, or Amazon, they were all created in the coastal states. And once those companies get big and hire tens of thousands of people, nobody can afford to live in those states. And they all kind of migrate to places like Texas, Florida, and Georgia, which we’ll talk about in a bit because those are just cheaper to live.

19:45
Donald Klip
And there’s no surprise that Dallas, Texas is the headquarters of the most Fortune 500 companies in the world. I mean, Tesla just moved there, I think, two or three years ago. It’s the who’s there, right? Another thing that through our research we found is that there is a new movement to earn side income, side hustles, the gig economy, whether that’s drop shipping on Amazon or doing stuff on TikTok or whatever it is. But now when a small couple or two roommates say, let’s rent a place for 1000 sqft, they say, well, let’s add 200 more square feet so we can set up lighting and a camera. And that additional square foot demand is causing this increase in demand. All these factors are causing this massive increase in demand, especially in these lower-cost-of-living states.

20:42
Donald Klip
At the same time that supply is severely constricted. So we all know what happens when demand outstrips supply, right? Prices go up. Here’s where it gets super interesting. Like, so this is a snapshot of where people live in the world. Now, if you look at the G7, it’s kind of known as G20, but say the biggest countries in the world, you look at the rental yields, not that exciting, 4%. Japan is popular right now, but the rental yields are very meager. You look at the Asian nations, including Australia, also barely above 4%. Indonesia is 4.5%, but they have to deal with currency issues. You look at Vietnam and the Philippines. These are the two hottest real estate markets in the world over the past few years.

21:36
Donald Klip
Just because price appreciation goes up doesn’t mean that rental yields go up. In fact, quite the opposite, because there is a theoretical cap on how much you can charge somebody for rent in countries. UAE is a unique situation. It offers low inventory. A lot of people are trying to move there because of the ease of immigration, and low taxes. A lot of emerging countries are moving there. So, it ticks all the boxes. You get rental yield and price appreciation. That market hasn’t been around for a long time. The U.S. on average 8%, mind-boggling, ranked 12th in the world between one and twelve is very not insignificant, but smaller countries in Latin America that nobody buys property to invest in anyway. The point is 8% us dollar growth, market supply shortage, and massive demand, I’ll take that any day.

22:32
Donald Klip
That was surprising when our research team unveiled the results of the work that they did. Here’s where it gets super interesting. Look at the rental yields of these cities. Detroit, 32%. Now these are city center rental yields. So this is a real shock when people see this, they can’t believe it, but it’s public information. Just go on Zillow and you can find all this information. Now all of these cities represent something different. Detroit is kind of more industrial, some of these are college towns. Miami is just a lot of people moving there because it’s kind of a cool place to live. Atlanta is a place that I like, which I’ll talk about in a little while. And all of these cities have different price points.

23:27
Donald Klip
Miami is a higher price point and maybe, I don’t know factually, but let’s just say New Orleans might be lower. Ann Arbor, obviously that’s a college town. Las Vegas, a lot of expo traffic is going there. So in the U.S., it’s something for everybody. You’ve got trophy assets in Miami, Beverly Hills, and Park Avenue in New York, and you’ve got affordable investment starter homes that you can buy and earn rental income. And there are also different strategies. The BRRRR method, which I’m going to talk about student housing, you can bet on this new trend in EV factories being built in the southeast corridor. So, I’m going to talk about it in a moment. Okay, so the BRRRR method. This has been popular recently and the numbers here are an actual client of ours who used our loans to achieve these economic outcomes.

24:32
Donald Klip
In fact, in three short years, they own 15 homes, quit their job traveling the U.S., and live the dream and we help them to achieve that dream. So I’ll give you an example. I’m going to speed this up a little bit so you don’t get inundated with the numbers, but from 2021 to 2023, they bought three homes, $85,000, $182,000, and $125,000. And the cumulative rent for these three units is about $4,300. Okay, so the BRRRR method is you buy them, you can use various ways. You can use our loans, you can use a bridging loan, but the key is to find a somewhat mispriced home in an area with transparent pricing. So if all the homes are $200,000 and this one’s $100,000, $125,000. You’re like, that’s interesting.

25:26
Donald Klip
So you go in, you get your contractor, and you’re on the ground team, and you say, hey, listen, if we put 20,000 into this, could we reappraise it up? And that is what they did, they put a little bit of money, $20,000 to $30,000 max, in these properties. Just two months ago, these were all appraised. So the cumulative purchase price is $390,000. It reappraised for two years. Less than two years at $570,000. So you can see the average increases there. So what they did then was they used our loans to refinance 60% of the $569,000 for $341,000. Okay, so this means that 390-340 is $50,000, which means their net outflow is $50,000 and they’re earning $4,300 in rent a month. That’s gross.

26:25
Donald Klip
you take off half a mortgage, tax, and all that kind of stuff, you’re still at $2,500, which means if you annualize this, you make your money back in two years, and then it’s all upside. This is how you use debt to your advantage. I mean, there’s a famous book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and he talks about smart debt. Because in the U.S., the system allows you to use debt. It’s not taxed. There’s a lot of benefits. So this is the BRRRR method. It’s super popular, and we have a lot of information on this, on how to achieve this when you’re ready. So the next one is student housing. Our friends at Blackstone are kind of onto this idea. But if you think about it, over the past 2030 years, how many four-year university universities have been built?

27:15
Donald Klip
No new universities are being built. There’s been additional facilities being built, but student housing isn’t being built like the facilities. So you have China, a lot of these countries, over the last 20 years, a lot more applicants have, in fact, 15 times more applicants since 2000 till now, applying to U.S. four-year universities. But the supply of these universities and housing hasn’t moved. So a lot of demand, and supply hasn’t changed. Student housing has to go somewhere. The schools don’t have enough, so they have to find off-campus housing. So our friends at Blackstone are onto this. In 2022, they spent $13 billion to purchase off off-campus community near Austin. And these are dorms, with no rooms, or beds. And these things are going for $1,300 a month. So the top college towns that we think are good for these are listed.

28:16
Donald Klip
Austin, Ann Arbor, Provo. I’m not going to go through all of them. You can have the slide later. But again, you know Blackstone’s real estate playbook, you find out where there are supply-demand problems. You own as many as you can and you ride the trend. Now, this is a little more old-fashioned investing. I like Atlanta. Atlanta is the busiest airport in the world. Many people don’t know that, but it’s geographically situated in the area of the United States, where it’s just easy to get around. It’s a beautiful city, but it’s benefiting from three things aside from the low cost of living and people moving there for the reasons I mentioned in the previous slides. One, U.S.

29:01
Donald Klip
So when they host the World Cup, I think 2026, maybe the U.S., it’s going to add to all the excitement for obviously Messi has put the U.S. on the map, but that’s a big event. The second is it’s the Hollywood of the south. You’d be shocked at how many Hollywood movies are being produced in Atlanta. They have tax incentives for more movies being produced there. It’s a low cost, good transportation. People can fly back to their fancy places in New York and Beverly Hills very easily. And last but not least, nine EV factories are being built in the southeast corridor. So that’s Georgia, Louisiana, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. And each one of these EV plants hires thousands and thousands of people. And when I look at it is, these are thousands and thousands of potential renters.

29:55
Donald Klip
So Atlanta gives a good combination of capital appreciation plus rental yield. Plus you’ve got these macro drivers of people potentially moving there for Airbnb and living there and moving there from the other cities. That’s Atlanta. This is almost the most popular question that we get asked. Like, should I buy now? And I always say the same thing. If you can make the numbers work now, they’re only going to get better. So here’s an example for illustrative purposes. So say you see a house that you like, it’s $500,000. You come to us for a mortgage, and we give you a 75% loan to value, even as a foreign national living overseas. So the loan is for $375,000. You put down $125,000. This is just an example. It’s fixed for 30 years at 8%.

30:54
Donald Klip
So your mortgage payments are $2,500. It rents for $4,000. So you’re making a gross $1,500. You knock off half of that 800 and some change times twelve. It’s a decent cash flow. All right, so the numbers work in 2024. In 2026, let’s just assume that home increases 5% per annum. And we all know that actually, it’s going to go up more than that because, because of all the reasons I just said in the previous slides, 5% per annum is the historical average. So that home now is $550,000. Now, what you do is you refinance that new price of $550,000. 75% loan to value. So you’ve refinanced $412,000. But the rate now is 6% for 30 years. So we assume that rates fall over the next two years.

31:46
Donald Klip
So now your mortgage payment is $1,800, and rents are going up for the reasons I just mentioned previously. Unless, for argument’s sake, let’s say they go up 10% per annum. So now it’s renting for $4,800. So now your gross rental income is $3,000. Now, that’s the game that we’re playing. So you can wait for the interest rates, but if you can make it work, you should pull the trigger, because prices are not staying where they are. I think it, for me, from my slides, I think the next portion, Robert, will talk about the mortgages, different strategies, how to qualify, all that stuff. Then at the end, we’ll just open it up for anything you want to ask us, specifically with real estate or other things, and look forward to hearing all of your questions.

32:39
Robert Chadwick
Thank you, Donald. Super, super insightful. I know you spent a lot of time doing this research along with our team, so thanks to everybody involved. Just to kind of touch on a few things that you talked about. When do you think U.S. interest rates will go down, especially as we near the elections? And what do you think rates will come down to?

33:05
Donald Klip
Yeah I mean, there’s should they be lowered, and will they be lowered? Like the U.S. economy is gangbusters. A lot. A lot of that was COVID rebound, but it is accelerating. But there’s an election coming, and there’s all sorts of things happening behind the scenes that that are in play. Do I think they’re going to cut? I do. I think they’ll cut no more than two times in the second half of this year. Or maybe it’s just one. It’s quite well-telegraphed by Jerome Powell. But you get the benefits. The underlying issue is that people are unhappy because they can’t afford anything.

33:56
Donald Klip
If you’re a wage earner, you can’t afford your rent and you’re kind of forced to rent, but this is, you have to put on a different lens to say, actually that means it’s a good time. That means you can’t buy. The average person can’t buy, he has to rent, and landlords will have the pricing power in this new world.

34:19
Robert Chadwick
I think you’re spot on. And I find our more sophisticated investors tend to be buying now because they do realize that when interest rates go down, people are going to start rushing back into the market, especially the owner-occupied borrowers that have just been sitting on the sideline like you mentioned, guys that were sitting on sub 4% rates. As soon as rates go down, you’re going to have this frenzy again and I think it’s going to be something similar to COVID. So if the investors buy now, they’re going to almost get instant equity as soon as the market churns. So with that, I will start my slides. We’ll talk about the various loan options that are available to nationals and expats.

35:04
Robert Chadwick
And after we will do a question and answer session so you can drop your questions into the chat and we’ll address them towards the end. Also, keep in mind there is a link in the chat that will allow you to book an appointment with one of our loan officers. We have loan officers all around the world who speak a variety of languages. So the calendar is open. Twenty-four-seven at your convenience. So U.S. mortgage loans for international clients. As a company, our only focus is providing U.S. mortgages for foreign nationals and expats. 100% of our clients fit this criteria. There truly is nobody that does this better. In all of our loan programs, no U.S. credit is required. We prefer if you have credit from your home country. Makes things a lot easier. But in the event, in certain countries such as.

36:11
Robert Chadwick
UAE now has a credit reporting agency, but prior we would have alternative means for that. No AUM is required. And what exactly does that mean? We do not require you to fund a U.S. bank account with a certain amount of money that needs to be held in that account for that term of the loan. Which one of the major banks that also does international mortgages is a requirement? So you can use your money at will without any requirement for this. Foreign income is allowed. Whether you’re a U.S. expat or a foreign national. We have loan programs in all 50 states, so regardless of where you choose to invest, we will be able to assist. If you’re a foreign national, we can get up to 75% financing on a purchase and if it’s a refinance, we can get up to 70%.

37:04
Robert Chadwick
So pulling cash out, you can get up to 70%. If you’re a U.S. expat, we try to make it exactly as if you’re walking into a U.S. bank, living and working in the U.S. No W-2 is required. Same market rates as you would be able to get if you were to go to the big bracket banks. But they cannot help you. Normally once you submit all your documents, we can issue a loan approval in 72 hours. This is a great way if you’re looking for a property to obtain a pre-approval letter, so you have this. When you find that perfect property, you do not have to wait. You can submit it with your offer. The average U.S. closing time is 30 to 45 days and you do not have to travel to the U.S.

37:52
Robert Chadwick
There are at least four different ways that we can sign your closing documents. In the country that you’re living in, we offer purchases, refinances, and equity or cash releases. 30-year amortization regardless of age. Super unique for the U.S. I think it’s probably the only place in the world where you cannot discriminate against age. So the U.S. feels if you’re 19 or 99, you should still have the same benefits and opportunities. So you can still get a 30-year or even we have a 40-year mortgage even if you’re 99 years old. Ten-year interest servicing only loan. This is fantastic what this does, especially now that rates are a bit higher. You can fix your rate for ten years, paying only the interest portion.

38:47
Robert Chadwick
After those ten years, you would expect that rate to readjust to the existing or the current rates at that time. That rate stays fixed at that amount. All it does is turn into a 30-year amortized principal and interest loan. So you have a total 40-year tenure, but you also have 40 years of surety of knowing what that mortgage payment is and what Donald had explained in the previous slides about rents going up. Think of the passive income opportunities you’re going to have if you hold these properties for a long period. We have loan programs that are common sense underwriting. What does that mean? Well, if you’re going to buy a commercial property such as a building, you’re not going to qualify off of your rental income or your income earned.

39:37
Robert Chadwick
What you would qualify for is the cash flow of the property. That’s how we qualify the rental properties. It makes sense. If the rental income qualifies on the property, the loan qualifies. And I’ll go into that in another slide. We are very proud that 97% of our loans get approved. If for some reason it doesn’t get approved, it’s normally because of the property and not the borrower. As we mentioned earlier, our calendars are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with 30 loan officers working in 12 different countries, speaking a variety of languages, and working in your time zone.

40:24
Robert Chadwick
No longer do you have to be up at three in the morning to talk to a loan officer in New York and explain why Hong Kong doesn’t have a zip code? That no longer exists. You can work at your convenience. So here are our loan programs. This is our most popular loan. This is what I was talking about earlier. This is just pure common sense underwriting. No personal income is required. What you’re going to qualify on is the rental income. And how that is determined is when we do an appraisal for the property, we also do a supplement for the rent. And just like they would do comparisons of the property value, they do comparisons of the property rent. That is the income that you qualify on. And it’s normally a one-for-one basis.

41:16
Robert Chadwick
We have loan amounts as low as $150,000, and with an LTV as high as 75%, you’re only looking at a $200,000 purchase. This means almost anybody can be a real estate investor in the U.S. with 30-year fixed interest-only programs available, and the average closing time is 30 to 45 days. Now, how this loan program works is if you take the gross expected rental income, and in this example, we use $2,400, the total mortgage payment, which includes the principal, the interest, the tax, and insurance, is $2,400. The loan qualifies. We even have a loan program that dips a little bit below that. There is a premium in the rate, but it allows you to qualify even if the rental income only meets up to 75%.

42:10
Robert Chadwick
So if you have questions on this, we can cover it at a later date, or you can make an appointment to speak with one of the loan officers. Our Investor Plus Mortgages. This uses income and has a little bit better pricing, but there are no tax returns required. I mean, can you imagine? We’re doing loans all around the world. If our underwriting had to go through tax returns from a variety of countries, it would just be a nightmare. So how we do it is we qualify the borrower using an income letter. If they’re employed, it’s from their employer. If they’re self-employed, it’s from their accountant. And that merely states two years of income and the current year to date.

42:51
Robert Chadwick
We have a very easy template that either your employer or accountant can follow, and it’s a very simple, easy way to verify income. Again, no us credit or residency is required. Loan amounts to $150,000, 30-year fix, 75% financing, and a quick 30 to 45-day closing. How this works is we need to be at a debt-to-income ratio of 43% or less. So in this example, we use $10,000 in income. As long as the mortgage payments, principal, taxes, and insurance are below $4,300 or below, the loan qualifies. And again, on any of these programs, if for some reason it doesn’t say it doesn’t meet the debt-to-income ratio, or you don’t have enough rent to cover the property, it doesn’t mean that the loan doesn’t qualify. It just means maybe you won’t be able to get the maximum loan to value.

43:47
Robert Chadwick
So our U.S. expat mortgage is very popular. We do a lot of expat loans. We tend to see a lot of loans where somebody would go to one of the big us banks and they go halfway through the process, and then the underwriter says, oh, wait a minute, you’re earning your income in euros, and we can’t accept that. So we see a lot of fallouts from this. For us, foreign-earned income is allowed. We need two years of tax returns, just as you would file in the U.S. You do not need a W-2, which is a huge thing if you’re a U.S. expatriate, you qualify the same as if you were living and working in the U.S. We do require right now that you have a minimum credit score of 680.

44:34
Robert Chadwick
But that seems to be fairly obtainable these days, so it shouldn’t be too much of a hurdle. Again, the loan amounts from $150,000, and in this case, all the way up to 5 million. How it works is we need a debt-to-income ratio below 43%. So again, in this example, $10,000 total mortgage payments of principal, tax, and interest are $4,300. The loan will qualify. So this is a very interesting loan. We work with a lot of private banks. As wealthy people have very complicated tax returns, multiple jurisdictions, multiple agencies, whatever it may be, we’ve tried with, like, all of our loan programs to simplify this as much as possible. So, for our high net worth program, we do not want your income. So we don’t want your tax returns, we don’t want your pay stubs.

45:34
Robert Chadwick
What we’re going to do is qualify you on a two-month average of your liquid portfolio. That’s cash, bonds, stocks, crypto, etcetera. There’s no AUM required, meaning that you do not need to pledge this portfolio, we can do these loans from $3 million to as high as $100 million. The LTV is probably around 60%. Sometimes we can push it a little bit more. But the fantastic thing about this loan program is you’re using these assets to qualify, but there’s no encumbrance on these assets. This means the day after this loan closes, you can trade it, you can sell it, you can do whatever you want, but the loan qualifies using it. Fantastic program. How this works is we take a two-month average of the portfolio. Say in this example, you have $5 million. We divide it over a fixed period of the loan.

46:35
Robert Chadwick
This certainly could probably go over 30 years, but in this particular case, the client only wanted a five-year fixed, amortized over 30. So we take 60 months. It averages to $83,000, approximately a year, I mean, a month. And we use that as your mortgage payment. So in this case, it’s $80,000. Mortgage payment and loan qualify. This, again, super popular program. A lot of our clients have children that are attending school abroad in the U.S. Often after the first year, they want to buy a property for their child to live in. There’s a variety of reasons, and there’s even a way for them to build U.S. credit, which is paramount if your kids intend to live in the U.S. after graduating.

47:25
Robert Chadwick
The great part of this loan program and what makes this super unique to American Mortgage is you do not have to use your income to qualify. Now, a lot of times on these, when you’re buying a property for your student, it would be treated as a second home, meaning that you would have to carry your local housing debt along with the new housing debt in the U.S. And often it doesn’t work. In this case, we do it just as we would do the rental coverage loan. We’ll get an estimation of what the rent will be. We’ll use that as the income to qualify, even though your child will be the renter. But that’s how the loan qualifies super easy. Again, as low as $150,000, all the way up to $3 million.

48:10
Robert Chadwick
An example of that is exactly what we saw in the rental coverage. So as long as the gross rent can cover the mortgage, the loan will qualify. So that is it for my presentation. If you scan the QR code on there, you can get all of our contact information and information on loan programs. I’ll open this up now to our question and answer. Looks like we already have quite a bit, Donald. So let me read the questions and then pertain to you. Jump in. Pertains to me on the mortgage side. I’ll jump in and then we can kind of exchange some ideas on it. First question, should I wait until interest rates get lower or buy now, Donald?

49:01
Donald Klip
Yeah, so that was one of the slides. Should I buy it now? You should not wait because rates may or may not fall. We think they will, but we can almost be assured and went through the argument that prices are going up. So even if rates quadrupled in the last two years and property prices still went up across the board in the U.S., imagine what happens when rates do go down. So what is that saying you like to say, Robert?

49:38
Robert Chadwick
You marry the property and you date the rate. I mean, it’s very appropriate, especially now. And I think if you look at what our investors that have a lot of portfolios, this is where they’re jumping in. This is where they’re buying, because they know as soon as interest rates do go down, there’s going to be a frenzy. You can always refinance the property, but you’re not always going to be able to get the best purchase price. Okay, next question. Donald, you can take this one again. In your opinion, which areas are great for buying now?

50:19
Donald Klip
Yeah. The answer to that is you have to kind of look in the mirror and do your homework and say, what are you buying the property for? It’s just like any investment. If you’re looking for a place to have so you can go visit your child when they’re in university and using our AM student plus mortgages, that’s a different kind of rationale. If you’re looking for just, I want to buy a place and hope it goes up. Well, Detroit has 30-some percent rental yields. I personally like Atlanta. I’m not saying that’s what you should buy there. You should do your homework. It depends on what you’re looking for.

51:08
Donald Klip
I think the southern states are good. Texas and Georgia are kind of interesting to me just because they’re just cheaper.

51:20
Robert Chadwick
I agree. I think if you look, especially at the global markets, look at Canada, for example, look at how the prices have skyrocketed almost to a point where you really can no longer be a real estate investor, at least without having a big checkbook anyway. Next question. Any risk of waiting for rates to drop? I’ll jump in here, and then, Donald, you can kind of add to it. But I think the biggest risk, and we saw this during COVID when rates were super inexpensive, people were bidding 5, 10, 15, 20% even higher over properties just from this fear of missing out. I think when interest rates drop, we’re going to see this again. Again, everybody waiting on the sidelines. I think the risk is paying more for a property. Certainly, again, marry the property, and date the rate. You can always refinance, but you’re not always going to be able to get the best rate. Donald, do you have any?

52:22
Donald Klip
Yeah, totally agree. Well said. It’s if you do the numbers your net cash expense is more sensitive to the property price than the actual interest rate. By the time you wait for the interest rate to fall to where you want it to, the property price is going to be 20% higher. And that’s what you risk.

52:44
Robert Chadwick
And if you look at our journey with our clients, it’s not a one-time transaction. If rates drop dramatically, we will let you know when is a good time to refinance. And we’ll work out the numbers for you to see when to break even on the cost to refinance. Next question. Are there age restrictions for retirees applying for a mortgage? And I had covered this in one of the slides, and I think a couple of times the U.S. is very unique. Besides the fact that we have very long, fixed tenure opportunities, there are no age restrictions. So again, I’m not sure what age you are retired, but you can go as high as you want. Hopefully, you’re living to 100, still investing in real estate. Next question.

53:42
Robert Chadwick
What are the four different ways of closing on a property? Speaking as an expat in Hong Kong. So it depends on the state, the title company, etcetera. But on average, you can go to the U.S. embassy, which is the easiest. It’s not that easy to get appointments. That can be a little bit challenging, but certainly available. There’s something called a RON, which is a remote online notary, meaning that you’re signing on a Zoom that’s a little bit more iffy. Not all states allow that. Still, you can do a power of attorney again if that is allowed, meaning that you could have a trusted advisor sign on your behalf in the U.S. The most simple way is you fly to the U.S. You fly to the U.S. and sign.

54:39
Robert Chadwick
And there’s even a little bit of tax advantages for that because if you’re using it and buying properties as an investment, there often can be a deduction for the trip. Okay, next question. Does being an expat without a W-2 affect mortgage rates and terms? Fantastic question. We get that all the time. Not. We do not require a W-2 as a us expat. Again, we try to make it look like you living and working in the U.S. and just walking into the bank. Next question. What are the maximum LTV foreign investors? Is it income-dependent? So the maximum loan to value is 75% and it is not income dependent if you qualify on the rental income of the property, which is probably the most common mortgage option or mortgage program that we have. Next question.

55:42
Robert Chadwick
If I want to buy a property for my daughter attending school in the U.S., how would I qualify? Personal income question. This goes actually to the question that we had earlier. We, most of the student loans that we do, the borrowers choose to qualify on the potential rental income of the property. Now, I realize your child is staying there, but this is still used. And I think the reason behind this, I know the underwriting reason behind this is normally you’re not buying a one-bedroom apartment, you’re buying something that can be shared and can be rented out as well. Next question. Are you able to connect foreign investors with local realtors in a support network, i.e., contractors, property managers, and insurance to invest in the U.S. market from a distance?

56:37
Donald Klip
Yeah for the people that kind of are knowledgeable about the U.S., they have their means, but sort of new investors need a little more handholding and more education. This is where we come in. So we have all the pieces to the puzzle. We have accountants who can help you set up LLCs, and give you tax advice. We have a realtor network in all the major cities that we trust and we use that we can refer you to. And we also have. And this is the key. A trusted property manager that operates in most states in the U.S., and they’re quite reasonable. So we have all the people that you need to develop your on-the-ground team. We have those relationships and we’re happy to share those with you.

57:28
Robert Chadwick
There’s a portion on our [email protected], it’s a concierge section. As Donald mentioned, it’s everything from connecting to a realtor to, if you need proper FX, transferring funds when you’re buying everything that you would need to be able to successfully transact a U.S. real estate transaction. I missed a question. What is the average mortgage rate for foreign buyers of U.S. properties at 75% loan to value through America Mortgages? This is a really good question. It’s normally approximately 1% higher than what a us citizen would pay. So right now, if you’re looking at U.S. citizens with excellent credit buying an investment property, they’re going to be in the sevens. As a foreign national, you’re going to be in the 8% range.

58:28
Robert Chadwick
Now, again, we do expect these rates to come down, but when you factor in programs such as a ten-year fixed interest only, it brings the interest rate down, especially, as the property values go up. Not the interest rate. The mortgage payments. Next question. Does the rental coverage plus program require tax returns?

58:51
Donald Klip
It does not. What makes this program super simple and very easy to qualify for is it qualifies only on the rental income of the property, which, if you think about when you’re buying an investment property, is the proper way that you should qualify for an investment property. So to answer your question, no. Next question. Do you provide loans to renovate and flip properties? It’s a question we get often, and it’s a very good question. Yes and no. Yes, we provide, but it’s very difficult for a foreigner to qualify unless they have extensive experience. So I think they need to have done this, I think five times to qualify for a fix and flip.

59:47
Robert Chadwick
So there’s not a lot of investors, maybe the Canadian or the Mexican investors may have that option, but in general, it’s very difficult to obtain those loans. Next question. How do some recent changes in the commission laws impact the whole process? I’ll answer this, and Donald, if you have anything you want to add, but the commission laws impacted the realtors. It doesn’t impact the mortgage lenders at all. I believe it’s state-specific. I know in California it’s caused quite an uproar, but when it comes to obtaining financing, it won’t affect your mortgage or the loan programs that we offer, if you have anything.

01:00:41
Donald Klip
That’s good. There’s one on the bottom. Do you have any thoughts on investing in Durham, North Carolina, in terms of rental yield? Again, anything I say does not constitute a reason to be buying in these places. I just wanted to get it out there, but the thinking is sound. North Carolina, is part of that southeast corridor 40% of it is Charlotte. Of the top cities in North Carolina, 40% are our renters because it’s a market where people want to live. It’s a good quality of life. It’s a higher standard of living, but nobody can afford to buy, so they have to rent. And in fact, Durham gets the flow down from Charlotte and Raleigh.

01:01:39
Donald Klip
So those places, it’s kind of like you can’t afford to live in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, so you kind of move down to San Diego, which is also expensive. So Durham is interesting. There’s a big population growth in Durham because people just can’t afford to live in the bigger cities. So, yeah. It’s interesting. I think the rental yields, if I had to guess, probably 15. It’s just a guess, but information is readily available. So if you google rental yield, Durham, North Carolina, I’m sure it’ll just pop out.

01:02:13
Robert Chadwick
And we’re coming up with a report. You can download it from our website or our weekly mailers if you’re receiving them, and it’s going to cover all 50 states and our opinions on the various states where rental yields are and why we think it’s a good state to invest in. The minimum loan amount is $150,000. Can it be lower? Yes and no. On special occasions, we can get maybe an exception to go as low as 100,000. But if you own multiple properties, we can group the properties to be able to meet the minimum loan amount on a portfolio loan. So that’s something we can look at. I would highly recommend making an appointment with one of our loan officers.

01:03:12
Robert Chadwick
And again, the link for that is in the chat, so you can go and book a meeting again twenty-four seven. And I think besides the questions that came up, there’s probably a lot more questions. Getting pre-approved for a loan is free. So if you are considering buying a property, the most important thing is to get pre-approved for a mortgage, get that pre-approval letter, and then once you have that letter, you can go shopping. So it looks like that’s all the questions. Donald, I don’t know if you have any closing remarks.

01:03:47
Donald Klip
No. We act as a financing partner for your journey into U.S. real estate investing. But use us for information, for a sounding board, for tips. Aside from the financing, we’re trying to educate the people outside the U.S. on how amazing this opportunity is that we’ve been given, and let’s take advantage of it. Make some money.

01:04:15
Robert Chadwick
Fantastic. Thank you, everybody, for attending. Our next webinar, I think will be in three weeks. I’m not exactly sure who it’s with yet, but it will be with a very exciting partner. So again, thank you, everyone, for your time. Good evening, good day, good morning, wherever you may be. Thank you.

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Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated, so kindly pardon any transcription or grammatical errors that may be present.

09:22
Robert Chadwick
Hi, everybody, this is Robert Chadwick with America Mortgages. Thank you for joining another one of our webinar series. This time it will be on property management in the US. We will be joined by Phil Gerathy. Phil is the CEO and managing director of Austplan, which is very similar to us, a foreign national and expat-focused property management company in the US. What that means is their main focus is providing US real estate or property management in particular for foreigners that are investing globally. So, Phil, maybe you need to turn your camera on and welcome.

10:24
Phil Gerathy
Thank you, Robert.

10:25
Robert Chadwick
Yeah, thank you for joining us once again. We appreciate it. Why don’t you kind of introduce yourself and give us an idea of what you do, and what Austplan does, then I’ll share your website, and then we can go through the slides and you can talk a little bit more in detail.

10:47
Phil Gerathy
Thank you. So, my name is Phil Gerathy. I’m the CEO and managing director of Austplan Management. We are an international property management company specializing in the United States. So we manage properties on behalf of expat US citizens, as well as citizens of several other countries. Our specialty is unique. If we could start the slides of the website, Robert.

11:33
Phil Gerathy
There we go. So one of the unique factors of Austplan management as a management company is to demonstrate to owners of properties that we are absolutely in their corner, that their properties are being professionally managed, and that even though they may be living in Singapore or Hong Kong or China or wherever they can go to bed in the evening and confident that their property has been managed by a company with over 50 years of property management experience throughout the United States. So we’re actually in most major states, as you can see by this slide, in Washington state, in California, Texas, Florida, New York, New Jersey, Michigan. So we are, if you like, in the major areas or states of the US that offer great value for money for investment properties.

12:43
Phil Gerathy
And the total number of assets under management last year in 2023 was over $100 million of assets under management. That will certainly increase again this year as we are constantly receiving referrals from our clients to manage additional properties on behalf of those folks and additional people.

13:11
Robert Chadwick
Thanks, Phil. I think for us, because our clients are only foreign nationals and expats, the biggest concern is always, if I buy this property, I’m able to obtain financing, how am I going to manage it? So I’ll start the slides now and you can discuss how seamless this is and how easy and hassle-free that you at Austplan make this. So let me share your slides. One second here, a little bit of technical difficulties. Phil, there you go. The floor is yours.

14:14
Phil Gerathy
Okay, so as I said in the introduction, Austplan Management is a company that was started 16 years ago and has been in business constantly since then, and has grown exponentially throughout the United States and manages properties all over the US as I mentioned. Robert mentioned a moment ago the fact that whilst obtaining mortgage finance is relatively easy for expat investors in the US for property investment, one of the key issues that come up regularly is, well, how do I know my property is being managed professionally in a way that I am confident that my return on investment is going to be generated and that I can be confident that I have contact with people anytime I would like and I can go to bed at night sleeping in peace, knowing that my asset is growing in value? Thanks, Robert.

15:22
Phil Gerathy
Austplan management is, as Robert mentioned, a seamless process. We’re, if you like, a one-stop service management company. We’re a little unique in this space. Most other management companies in the US and other parts of the world just specialize in management, that is, obtaining a tenant and putting them into the property, collecting the rent, and distributing the rent. We provide a service that covers a whole range of issues. For example, before your property is about to close, we’ll provide a full rental and market analysis. We’ll attempt to find a tenant before the closing. We’ll attempt to sign a lease agreement and of course complete a detailed walkthrough of the property to make sure that before the tenant moves in, the property is in excellent condition now. After the close, that’s when the real work starts.

16:23
Phil Gerathy
That is we provide the financial support, that is the accounting financial support, the hands-on management, and then the value-added services kick in. If you want to sell the property at some point down the track as an investment property sale, then our role is to analyze the market for you, provide any of the renovations or repairs that are necessary to bring it back to first-class condition, prepare your tax return, put it on the market, and sell it for you. So it is a seamless process within our organization. This gives you a summary of what were just talking about.

17:11
Phil Gerathy
So all of these particular items, if you like, are free and we provide them as part of the service in that seamless process, the free walkthrough before the closing to ensure your property is in first-class condition before it’s handed over to you. In some cases, the homeowners association requires approval for tenants. That’s our job to make sure that we do that and that we get the necessary approval from the HOAs. We research the rental market. We’re looking for the maximum that we can obtain in rent to maximize the return on investment. The ongoing management also is a process where we’re in constant contact with the tenant, of course, as well as the owner. Because we deal with the extensions of leases, people from time to time want to extend their lease beyond one, two, or three years.

18:14
Phil Gerathy
Our role is to facilitate that on your behalf and of course, to obtain rental increases as we go along year on year. The process is two-pronged if you like. That is our main priority is the property owner. We are managing the property on behalf of the property owner so that the property owner is confident that this place is being looked after. But also on the other side, we have to have regular contact and communication with our tenants. This, of course, aims to resolve any conflicts that might occur with the tenant or any other issues that might crop up from time to time that we can resolve so that you as the owner have no concerns or issues that you have to contend with.

19:11
Phil Gerathy
Maintenance services. As a professional manager, we have to provide ongoing and hands-on management, not only from an accounting viewpoint, but also from a repair, if you like, and maintenance issue. So we start with, of course, the lease agreement and make sure that the tenant is compliant with the lease agreement. We provide regular maintenance as and when required. We provide regular inspections of the property, which are usually done every six months. Any renovations that may be required from time to time, we handle and manage that process. And again, that’s a free service. Emergency repairs might crop up from time to time. And the last thing you as the owner want to be worrying about is emergency repairs.

20:04
Phil Gerathy
Our job is to jump onto that very quickly and have those emergency repairs resolved so that your property is maintained in the way that it was at the very beginning. Repair costs, we provide an audit on those and we make sure that the dollar amounts that are being spent, you are the one that is making, obviously, or giving us the approval, but we provide a complete audit of that. On the financial side of it, we’ve got this three-pronged attack, if you like. At the very beginning, it is identifying the property for you, looking for a way to facilitate the purchase of an investment property, closing the investment property, looking for the tenant, securing the tenant, and then ongoing management. But the other side of it, of course, is accounting, and this is very important.

21:03
Phil Gerathy
So first of all, if necessary, we can arrange an LLC, if that’s the way that you would prefer to be done, or if in fact, the mortgage lender would prefer an LLC. Our in-house accountant will provide profit and loss statements every month, which will provide you with income and expenditure each month, and that report will be sent to you via email. That accountant will also complete your tax return at the end of the financial year, which is December of each year. Of course, the returns are done in March. We hold a security deposit for all tenants, and that’s in our security deposit account, which is reconciled monthly.

21:51
Phil Gerathy
And if a tenant is either slow on paying their rent or behind on their rent or requires some work to be done to the house after the tenant’s vacated, that security deposit is used to cover those costs. We can arrange an ITIN number if necessary, or a Social Security number if you don’t have one. But an ITIN number is sufficient to make sure that from a tax viewpoint, you can dilute your tax liability as best you possibly can. Remembering that from a tax viewpoint, we’re aiming for a zero tax at the end of certainly the first two or three years. As I said, the profit loss statement will detail that each month, as your income comes in and your expenditure goes out. This is the value-added service. This is very important.

22:48
Phil Gerathy
So it’s about balancing the relationship between the owner of the property, but also the tenant. And we try very hard to make sure that the balancing process is equal in terms of the return that we’re looking for on investment, but also that you, as the owner, are deemed to be the most important part of that process. We represent you at any meetings that might be held by the homeowners association. They happen from time to time, and if necessary, we attend those meetings on behalf of the owners. Of course, naturally, we arrange your property insurance with reputable insurance companies in the event of a claim. We manage that process totally, so there’s no involvement in terms of your hands-on work. We do everything in terms of insurance. Regular market reports, usually we provide these every year.

23:48
Phil Gerathy
So we give you an update on what your property is valued at, so you can see that your capital growth is moving in the right direction. One very important thing that several property managers fall on, and that is communication. Our whole focus is communication with the owner. Now, because we have offices in China, Australia and Southeast Asia, and the United States, of course, it doesn’t matter what time zone you live in. There is always somebody that you can talk to, either by telephone, email, WhatsApp, or whatever other communication platform you may use. So you always have access to somebody in real time to talk to.

24:33
Phil Gerathy
And on the odd occasion where we have to evict a tenant, which I must say hasn’t in all the years that I’ve been doing this, it doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, we represent you in court. You don’t have to come to the United States. We act on your behalf. We do what the court requires of us, and we usually are successful in evicting the tenant, and we use the security deposit to cover costs. Legal services. One of the, of course, important legal services is to set up an LLC if that’s required, an LLC being a limited liability company, which you would be the member and you would own, if that’s required. And our in-house attorney would provide that service at the same time from time to time.

25:25
Phil Gerathy
Some of our clients like to transfer titles, for example, to a sibling or a son or a daughter, so we can facilitate that process as well. Of course, naturally, I talked earlier about eviction, that part of the legal process that we offer, and any other issues that may be required from a legal standpoint down to immigration, we can provide those legal services for you. Now, all of these additional services, naturally, the legal advice, of course, is charged by the attorney. However, as the manager, we don’t charge anything at all to coordinate that whole process. So this is, I guess, our competitive advantage over and above most other management companies in the United States, and for that matter, other parts of the world. We have combined over 30 years of real estate investment experience.

26:32
Phil Gerathy
We’re now in our 16th year of property management experience. So we understand the market both in terms of the value of a property, the facilitation and purchase of a property, the sale of a property, and the tenants into a property, but also understand totally how important hands-on management is to an owner, and we charge zero extra costs regarding those items. Automated management services. A whole process in terms of management is when we say automation, it’s automated in terms of the platforms that we use. So you have access via a management platform that gives you the ability to go into a portal and own a portal at any time you like.

27:25
Phil Gerathy
And you can look at your property, you can look at the financial situation, you can look at your dollars in and dollars out, you can look at the value of the property so you have complete access. Language is no barrier, of course. As I said earlier, we treat the owner’s interest as our number one priority, and that’s very important. And that one ability to talk is what we call humanized. And offering owners investment consultation? This is the process where we essentially identify the opportunities for people. When they say, I’d like to buy an investment property, where should I buy it? What sort of property should I buy? What sort of return on investment should I expect, and what’s the ongoing process? So that’s the one-stop shop, if you like, that makes Austplan management unique in this market.

28:26
Phil Gerathy
Here are just some examples of areas, as I mentioned earlier on the website, and I’d welcome you to visit our website because it will give you a far more detailed analysis and understanding of Austplan management. But here are some interesting areas that we currently manage in Irvine California, which is just south of Los Angeles, the great park in Irvine. Now, that photograph doesn’t do it justice, because now it’s a huge community, and we manage many properties in that particular community. Frisco in Dallas., it’s part of the DFW metroplex. Frisco has been one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States. We now manage many properties in that Frisco area. Miami and Florida, we manage numerous properties in the greater Miami area. The Doral Park, of course, is downtown, but most of our properties in Miami, we manage north of the city.

29:39
Phil Gerathy
So this is a little bit of a snapshot. We started the business in Michigan, in the United States. We still have an office in Southfield Michigan. That was back in 2008. We have an office in California, in Irvine. We have an office in McKinney Texas. We have an office in Shanghai, China, and we have an office in Australia for our Australian clients, of which we have numerous as well. Thank you, Robert.

30:19
Robert Chadwick
Thanks, Phil. That was, as always, super informative, and very interesting. I think probably one of the biggest concerns for investors who are buying US properties for the first time, regardless of where they are, is the property management portion of it. And we’ve spent a lot of time looking at various property management companies. One of the reasons why we partnered with Phil’s company was because much like us, their primary focus is on foreigners or US expats owning and managing US real estate. And I think it’s a crucial factor in investing. But I think if you use a company like Austplan, I think, as Phil had said, you can sleep at night. And Phil maybe we can discuss this a little bit.

31:23
Robert Chadwick
But if you think about if you’re investing in real estate, even in your home country, unless you’re buying down the street, your access to that property is probably not as available as it would be. So to me, whether a borrower lives in Berlin or they live in Brisbane, and they’re buying US real estate, as long as they have a property management company, it shouldn’t be an issue. And it’s almost as equal as if they were to buy something in their own country. I don’t know if you want to add.

32:00
Phil Gerathy
Yes, I think that’s viable. Clients, for example, many of our clients are in Asia. So for example, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Macau. Now, those folks, of course, are a long way from the United States. The key issue to those folks is the ability to communicate, the ability to pick up the telephone and talk to somebody live. Considering that the time zone in those particular areas, of course, is a day ahead. Now, that’s very important. We get that feedback regularly, and that’s the reason why we receive numerous referrals regularly, simply because of that ability to communicate and the ability to offer complete confidence that the properties are being managed in a way that alleviates any concern.

33:03
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Okay, so I will start my portion of the webinar. We’ll talk about U. S. Mortgages, and how to qualify, and then at the end of this webinar, we’ll have a question-and-answer box. If you look on your Zoom, there’s a place where you can ask questions in the Q&A. If you also look into the chat section, you will see a link for both Phil’s company and also America Mortgages, where you can schedule a time to speak to somebody, whether it is about a US mortgage or it is about US property management. So, Phil, we’ll see you in about ten minutes for the questions.

33:45
Phil Gerathy
Thank you, Robert.

33:54
Robert Chadwick
So again, thank you, everybody, for joining. If you haven’t been attending one of our webinars before, my name is Robert Chadwick, I’m one of the co-founders of America Mortgages. We are 100% focused on foreign nationals and US expats. Basically what that means is all of our clients are living and working abroad. But obtaining a US mortgage, whether it’s for purchase or refinance. I honestly believe, that because this is all that we deal with, nobody does this type of mortgage lending better. And to highlight some of the general mortgage overviews for American mortgages, of course, none of our mortgages require US credit. If you’re a US expat, it’s fantastic if you have US credit. However, we understand that some expats have been abroad for many years and no longer maintain credit. That is still absolutely possible.

35:01
Robert Chadwick
It’s advantageous if you have a credit report from your home country. But if there is no credit reporting agency in your country, that is not a problem as well. What makes us very unique, no assets under management are required. So unlike certain major banks that may do US mortgages, we do not require you to put a certain sum or a certain amount into a US bank account while you have this mortgage. You can obtain the mortgage without any requirement for that. Foreign income is allowed. So regardless of where you earn your income, we treat it the same. Loan programs in all 50 US states. If you’re a foreign national, meaning you’re not a US citizen, you can get up to 75% financing on a purchase and up to 70% cash out on a refinance.

36:01
Robert Chadwick
If you’re a US expat, we try to make it exactly as if you walked into a US bank. You can qualify for up to 80% financing just as you would for a US investment property. Normally, once you submit your documentation, we can get you loan approval within 72 hours. Once you are issued loan approval, if you’re making a purchase, we issue you a letter. Once you have this letter, you can go shopping. When you find a property that you like, you must have a pre-approval letter to submit with your offer. It shows the realtor and the buyer on the other side that you’re serious and you’ve already obtained your financing. On average in the US, closing times are between 30 and 45 days. You can sign your closing documents in most countries.

36:56
Robert Chadwick
What makes this unique, and again, because this is all we do, we have at least four different ways that you can sign your closing documents in the country that you live in without ever having traveled to the US. We offer 30-year fixed mortgages regardless of the borrower’s age. I know this is something very unique to the US and really what it comes down to is antidiscrimination. The US feels that if a 19-year-old should be able to qualify for a 30-year mortgage, so should a 99-year-old. There can’t be any difference in the way that mortgage lending is obtained. So whether you’re 19 or 99, a 30-year amortization is available. We have a great program, especially interest rates are a little bit higher now than what we would like.

37:50
Robert Chadwick
We have a program that is a fixed ten-year interest only that converts into a 30-year fixed after the ten years. How it works is, it’s very slick. Say you have a fixed rate. I’m just using this as an example of, say, 7%. You have a 7% interest-only loan for ten years. The rate does not change in those ten years. You would expect that rate to reset. However, it does not. It stays at that 7%. But now you’re just servicing the principal and interest. It’s a really good way, if you never refinance, to know exactly what you’re paying over the lifetime of the loan. So a really good way to calculate passive income. We have loan programs that are common sense underwriting. What does that mean?

38:44
Robert Chadwick
Well, if you were to buy a commercial building, certainly you would not qualify off of your rental or your personal earned income. And this is how we treat the investment properties. There are programs, certainly where you can provide your income documents. However, our most popular programs qualify on the rental income of the property. I mean, it makes sense. If you’re buying an investment property, it should qualify on the cash flow of the property. Super easy program, and we’ll go over that in a little bit down the slides. Something that we are very proud of, 97% of our loan applications are approved. Normally, if it’s not approved, it doesn’t have anything to do with the borrower. It’s more property-related issues.

39:37
Robert Chadwick
As Phil had mentioned, and this is something unique to his country, we realize that we have clients all over the world, whether it’s a language issue or a time zone issue, we do not expect you to stay up at three in the morning trying to reach somebody in New York to find out about your mortgage. We offer 24/7 services with 30 loan officers spread across twelve different countries. We speak your language and are in your time zone. So the loan programs are quite simple. The first one that I wanted to talk about is the loan program which is the most popular. No personal income is required.

40:23
Robert Chadwick
Now, again, I think a lot of people would question this, but if you think about it in a common-sense underwriting manner, if you qualify only on the projected rental income of the property, you know exactly how that mortgage is going to be paid. No US credit or residency is required. Loan amounts from $150,000 to $3 million. What that means is if we have 75% financing in all 50 states, the purchase price of a property needs to be only $200,000. The down payment would be $50,000, which makes real estate property or building a portfolio obtainable for almost anybody. 30-year fixed and interest only available. And of course, 30 to 45-day closing. How this works, if you’re curious about how the rental coverage loan works, so say you have an expected rental income of $2,400.

41:31
Robert Chadwick
And just so you know, how we get this number is when we order your appraisal and your valuation report. We request the appraiser to do also an analysis of the rent. That analysis, which is built into the appraisal, will be used as the income to qualify for the loan. So as long as the rental amount covers the principal, the interest, the taxes, and insurance, which if you know anything about us mortgages, is actually what your mortgage payment is, then the loan qualifies. It’s normally on a one-to-one basis. However, we do have loan programs with reduced loan values that will qualify even if the rental income is still short on qualifying for the payments. So AM investor plus, this is the one that you can use your income to qualify to potentially be able to get a slightly better rate.

42:36
Robert Chadwick
Now, again, because we do loans for clients all over the world, you can imagine the hassle or the difficulty it would be of trying to read everybody’s income tax returns. They could be in a variety of languages or structures. So instead of doing this, we don’t ask for your tax returns. If you’re employed, we want a letter from your employer on the employer’s letterhead. If you’re self-employed, it needs to be from your accountant. That letter merely states two years of income and the current year-to-date salary or income obtained. Now, this is a template that we have, and when you apply for a loan, we send you this template and you just have to have either your employer or your accountant follow it. Very simple, and straightforward.

43:25
Robert Chadwick
Again, no US credit or residency is required, and loan amounts as low as $150,000 up to $3,000,000. 30-year fixed, 75% financing foreign nationals. And again, very quick, easy closings. How does this work? If you are going to use income to qualify, we go off of a debt-to-income ratio. So in this example, the debt-to-income ratio has to be no greater than 43% of your gross income. So obviously your pretax income. So in this example, if your pretax income is $10,000 a month and your mortgage payment is $4,300 a month or less, the loan qualifies.

44:22
Robert Chadwick
If you’re a US expat, and that’s a considerable amount of our business, as you know, when you’re living abroad, and we have clients like this all the time, they call the bank that they had a mortgage with, or they still have a mortgage with, and they start going through the process, and then the bank finds out, wait, you’re earning your income in Hong Kong dollars or euros, whatever it may be, and they say, “I’m sorry, we cannot do the loan.” Again because 100% of our clients are either foreign nationals or expats. This is not an issue with us. We will not go through the process and turn down your loans. All we want is two years of your tax returns. You’re going to qualify the same as if you lived and worked in the US. However, we do not require a W-2.

45:12
Robert Chadwick
And for those of you who are foreigners, a W-2 is the end-of-year statement that most US employers will file. Again, no US residency is needed. You can do this from any country. We would like if you had at least a 680 credit score. And that is so you can qualify for better rates. Again, loan amounts are as low as $150,000. And for a US citizen, for this particular program, we go as high as $5 million. And again, a 30 to 45-day closing, whether it’s both a purchase or refinance. Very similar to our AM plus loan, you’re qualifying on the debt-to-income ratio. And again, 43% or less is needed based on your gross income pretax.

46:12
Robert Chadwick
So we work with a lot of private banks, as probably a lot of people that are watching maybe were referred from. We have very specific loan programs. This makes us very unique. We can do loan amounts on residential properties as high as $100 million. What makes these loan programs, again, unique is we do not require personal income. We realize that high net-worth clients have very complicated and often multi-jurisdictional tax returns. So to qualify for these loans, all we want to do is get two months of statements of your portfolio. That portfolio could be stocks, bonds, crypto, cash, whatever that may be. We’re going to take a two-month average, and we’re going to use that as qualifying as if you were to divest out of this portfolio.

47:15
Robert Chadwick
The great thing about this loan program is there is no encumbrance on the portfolio. Once the loan closes, you’re able to cash out of that portfolio, trade it, whatever you would like to do. There is no requirement to maintain that. It is only used to qualify. An example of that, say you have a two-month portfolio average of $5 million. What we’re going to do and how we’re going to calculate the income is we’re going to look at the fixed term of the loan, you do a 30-year amortization. Maybe you only want a fixed term of say 60 months, which is five years. We’ll take those 60 months, divide it over the two-month average of the portfolio and you would use that income to qualify.

48:06
Robert Chadwick
In this case, it’s $83,00.0 and as long as your mortgage payment is below that, then you qualify. It’s really on a one-to-one basis. There is no debt-to-income ratio on these loan programs, which makes it a great way to qualify, whether you’re a private bank client or a private banker. I don’t know if you follow our newsletters, but there have been more students attending universities in the US last year than there have ever been, ever recorded. So we launched this program a few months ago and it’s been fantastic. So if you have a student that is attending a university in the US and you would prefer that they don’t live in the dorm, we have a loan program that works very much like our rental coverage plus loan where you’re going to qualify on the rental income of the property.

49:13
Robert Chadwick
Even though your child is going to be living on the property. It’s a clever way to get the loan qualified without having to worry about your debt to income qualifying when you have another asset that you’re paying monthly on. It’s also quite a unique way. If we can add the student or your child to the loan and they just have to be over 18 years old, it’s a good way for them to start obtaining US credit, which if they choose to live and work in the US, it’s paramount to have that. So again, how it works is very similar to the rental coverage program. If the rental income or the projected rental income covers, then the loan qualifies. So that’s our presentation. Thank you very much for joining and staying through the process. We have an office located in Texas.

50:20
Robert Chadwick
We also have our Asia office where I’m located, which is in Singapore. You can scan the QR code and that will give you all the contact information, whether it’s emails or phone numbers. Again, there is a link in the chat where you can book an appointment, whether it is with Phil’s team or with the America Mortgage team. Phil, why don’t you join us again? Yeah, great. It looks like we already have quite a few questions. So what I will do, I’ll read the questions and then if it’s pertaining to me, I’ll answer it. And if it’s something pertaining to you, then you can take it and then we can kind of discuss this openly. So, first question. A friend of mine had an investment property in the US. However, communication was a problem. Can I be assured of ease of communication? Phil, I believe that would be you.

51:29
Phil Gerathy
Thank you, Robert. Yes, I think I addressed that particular issue earlier in the presentation, but yes, this is a key issue. It does come up regularly. As I said earlier, we have offices in Southeast Asia, Australia, and the United States. It doesn’t matter what time zone you’re in. You can be assured that somebody is available to talk to you. For Asian people, several people use WeChat. If not WeChat, it’ll be WhatsApp. If not WhatsApp, it’ll be telephone. If not telephone, or email. But somebody will physically talk to you. So that’s not an issue at all.

52:08
Robert Chadwick
Great. Thank you, Phil. Next question. This may sound like a basic question, but how can you assure me I won’t have to worry about my property?

52:20
Phil Gerathy
Experience. After 16 years of doing this, I think we know how to give you peace of mind or give the owner peace of mind. That’s what it comes down to and the infrastructure. That is that, as I said earlier, the communication tool, that is, people can talk to somebody on the telephone. But the experience that we have and the referrals that we receive, which are regularly, is a clear indication that our clients acknowledge the confidence that we suggest we can deliver.

52:58
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Next question. Can you tell me the most asked question by foreign investment property buyers? So I’ll address it on my side, Phil, and then perhaps maybe you can address the property. So I think when it comes to obtaining a mortgage, obviously most of the people on this webinar probably have talked to a loan officer in our company. So they do realize that obtaining a mortgage with an experienced company like America Mortgages is easier than they would expect. So I think the main question that we get foreigners is how do I qualify and can I qualify?

53:39
Robert Chadwick
And I think if you were to schedule an appointment, and again, there is a link in the chat with one of our loan officers, you can see how easy it is to qualify for our mortgage in any of the states in up to 75% financing. And Phil, maybe you can address this. When it comes to property management, what seems to be the main question that a foreigner would have for property management?

54:04
Phil Gerathy
The main question we get, Robert, is how do I get started? I live in Singapore. I live in Hong Kong. I live in Shanghai, I live in Sydney, but I want a property in Dallas, Texas. What do I do? How do I get started? Who do I talk to? And 16 years ago when Austplan management was established, that was an interesting exercise in gaining experience as we went along. But essentially to say, you talk to us. We’ll get you started, we’ll show you how to start the process, we’ll deliver the investment property for you and then we’ll manage it for you in a very professional way.

54:47
Robert Chadwick
Thank you, Phil. And just to add to that, in my opinion, and I think actually in most investors’ opinion, the most important thing is to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan first and there’s no cost to get pre-approved. It’s very quick. We can do it normally in less than a couple of days. And then once you have that letter, you can go to Phil and you can say these are my requirements from the property that I’m looking at and he can help you sort something as well as manage it. So next question. How exactly do you deploy people all over the US? If I have something in San Francisco and you don’t have someone in San Francisco, you have someone in LA, you mentioned. Phil, I believe that’s you.

55:35
Phil Gerathy
Okay, that’s an interesting question and one that we have received regularly, particularly with referral clients. A referral client might have a property in, as you say, San Francisco, where we don’t have a resident office. What we usually do in that situation is call upon our closest individual. So that would be a lady in Los Angeles. She would then identify one of her colleagues in San Francisco. We would then build the infrastructure around the management of that property. And the infrastructure is essentially the process of day-to-day maintenance if that’s required. However, the actual management of the property in terms of accounting and legal can still be conducted and done from our head office in Dallas, Texas.

56:28
Robert Chadwick
Very good answer. Next question. I am ready to go, but my wife is extremely risk-averse. Do you have references or referrals of happy clients that we can communicate with for both the mortgage and the property management service? So I can tell you on the mortgage side, besides looking at our Google reviews, which I believe is five stars, we do hundreds of loans. And most of the clients, as they’re buying investment properties, they can tend to be a little bit, I guess, private. But depending on where you’re at, we do always have clients that have been very happy with our service and as long as they don’t mind, we’re happy to put you in touch with somebody. And Phil, I believe, probably very similar to you.

57:22
Phil Gerathy
Absolutely. So again, there are two parts to that. First of all, we would be more than happy to give you references or nominate clients who would be happy to talk to you. That’s the first part of it. But the second part of it is that, again, and this is something that I regularly talk about, if weren’t doing our job in a very professional way, we would not be receiving the referral sources that we receive every month. So, two parts to that.

57:55
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Next question. This would be for me, can you do 30-year variable rates? We can. So most of our loans are 30-year fixes. There are, again, as I had discussed earlier, we have a ten-year interest-only loan program that converts into a 30-year fixed with a 40-year tenure. But the difference right now between, a five-year fix and a 30-year fix is so small and insignificant in the rate that it doesn’t make sense to take that risk. But certainly, if that’s your requirement, we’re happy to place it. Next question. Which states do you manage property in?

58:43
Phil Gerathy
I would direct you to our website. You can click on each state in which we currently manage properties. But we manage properties in the west coast states, across into Dallas, Texas. Well, all of the DFW area across into Florida, up into New York and New Jersey, across into Michigan and Washington state, of course.

59:12
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Next question. Can I visit your team in Dubai? If you would like to meet with somebody in Dubai? We do have people there, and that’s not an issue. I think it probably best to email me or somebody in our office and we can connect you with the members in Dubai. Next question. Is there an issue with purchasing a couple of low-value properties that would total a similar amount to $200,000? That is an excellent question, and we get it often. There are potential loan programs that would allow that. We would have to discuss that with one of the loan officers. But if that is something that you’re interested in doing, it may be possible. Next question. Do you offer HELOCs for foreign nationals wanting to purchase in the US?

01:00:10
Robert Chadwick
Unfortunately, HELOCs, which is a home equity line of credit or a second mortgage, are not available to foreigners. We may have the option if you’re a US expat, but for a foreign national, there is nothing available. Next question. American citizen living overseas for 20-plus years with no US credit any longer. Which program would apply to me? US expat or foreign investor? Again, a very good question. This is not uncommon. You have a unique advantage being a US citizen who no longer has credit. So you can qualify using whatever country that you’ve been living in for the last 20 years. You can qualify using that credit.

01:01:04
Robert Chadwick
But what makes this unique is once you reestablish your US credit, then you can go back and you can qualify as a US expat. And as a US expat or a US citizen to a foreign national rate, there is a little bit better pricing, so you have kind of the best of both worlds. You certainly can qualify, and at some point, you could refinance into a US citizen rate. Next question. This one’s a little bit long. It says, hi, folks. Firstly, thank you for the presentation. Just wondering about the deal for tenants. What is the standard renovation deal for tenants? Two years, or if I have intentions to move to the US in the short term, can I request my property before the end of the term? And can I sell my property to buy a new one?

01:02:01
Robert Chadwick
So I think this is three parts, Phil. But if you can see that question, perhaps I think this is more directed to you. You can answer.

01:02:14
Phil Gerathy
well, I can’t see the question, but I’ll try and remember the part.

01:02:16
Robert Chadwick
Okay. I’ll read the first part. What is the standard renovation deal for tenants?

01:02:30
Phil Gerathy
Is he talking about the standard lease period?

01:02:33
Robert Chadwick
I believe that’s what is referred to.

01:02:35
Phil Gerathy
Okay. The standard lease period ranges from either one or two years. It’s 50-50. Some people will sign a one-year lease and then extend, and that process means that we get involved in the negotiation to increase the rent in the second year, some tenants will sign a two-year lease where we’ll lock in a rate, but that’s higher than what it would be if it was a one year lease. Rarely, do we get much past a two-year lease, but we do have several people that will stay on and we have tenants that have been in houses for three and four years. We just continually renew the lease and adjust the rent.

01:03:16
Robert Chadwick
Okay, thank you. The next part of that is, if I have the intention to move to the US, can I request my property, I guess, to be vacant before I move there?

01:03:27
Phil Gerathy
Yes. Well, you can. There are certain requirements that you have to meet before you can ask a tenant to leave if that is before the expiry of the lease, that could be that you want to sell the property, in which case the lease agreement gives you that option to request the tenant to leave and you have to give the tenant usually 60 days notice in that process generally. However, if you simply want to return to the United States and live in the property and it’s within still the current lease, that can be difficult.

01:04:07
Robert Chadwick
Okay. And I think his last question, I can probably answer this. Can I sell the property and buy a new one straight away? Absolutely. There are a lot of unique advantages in the US, too, that other countries don’t have that can help you avoid having to pay any capital gains tax. It’s called a 1031 exchange. If you have further questions on it, I’m happy to put you in touch with one of our accountant partners who can assist you with it. When it comes to mortgages, there are no restrictions on the number of properties that you can own, and you can leverage it up to the highest amount.

01:04:49
Robert Chadwick
One thing, and I think, Phil, you can probably agree with this, what a lot of people do is maybe rather than selling the property, they will refinance it, say, after one or two years, and then pull the equity out and then use that equity to buy another property. So it’s a great way to build a portfolio. You don’t have to worry about cooling measures or stamp duties and so forth. And this is my opinion, I think it’s sort of shared. But I do think that now is the best time to buy. Because interest rates are still on the higher side, we do expect, as we get closer to the elections, that the interest rates will be used as a tool to boost the economy.

01:05:39
Robert Chadwick
And when interest rates go down, all these owner-occupied borrowers that are sitting on the sidelines right now because they are either unable to afford a property or they feel like they’re sitting on a 3% rate and want something similar, as soon as interest rates go down, these buyers will dive back into the market, which will create another frenzy. And I think we’ll see immediate equity in people that are buying properties now.

01:06:08
Phil Gerathy
Absolutely. Totally agree.

01:06:10
Robert Chadwick
Okay, next question. Should I get an IPA before I buy this property? IPA, I’m assuming you want a pre-approval. That’s what we call it in the US. I think there are a couple of reasons why. One, you want to know what the current rates are and what the mortgage payment will be. And again, because we can fix these over a long ten years, it gives you a very clear picture of what the payments will be. But before you can put an offer in on a property, you need to show that you’ve been pre-approved for a mortgage, unless you’re paying cash. So it’s very important to get the approval before starting shopping. Approximate rates for the programs at the moment. So if you’re a US citizen, it’s market rate, I believe it’s around 7% now for a 30-year fix.

01:07:11
Robert Chadwick
If you are an expat or a foreign national, you’re normally going to be about three-quarters of a point to 1% higher on rate, which, if you look at global markets, is quite good when it comes to foreigners with no credit question. Application fees, I believe this is for me. We do not charge a fee to complete the application. Once you talk to a loan officer, if you want to get started immediately, they can do it immediately during the call, but they can take the application, they can send you the documents that are requested, and then once you send that in, we could start the pre-approval process, which normally takes about 72 hours. And all of that is completely free.

01:08:03
Robert Chadwick
The only time we get paid on a transaction which is industry standard is at the close of the transaction and it depends on the loan size, but normally it’s 2% of the loan amount. Next question. I have 21 condos, all in the Fort Lauderdale area. Nine different complexes. What is the cost of property management for each? all of these units? Phil?

01:08:34
Phil Gerathy
The property management fee is based on the gross rent per month. Now, that can vary depending on the quantity. For example, in one property, our standard property management fee is 8% of the gross monthly rent. However, for multiple properties, we certainly would negotiate, and usually, the fee would be somewhere between 5% and 8%, depending on the quantum. Based on that question, the number would be closer to 5 than 8.

01:09:08
Robert Chadwick
That’s super competitive. I have properties and we pay anywhere from 10% to 12% for property management fees. So I think what you’re offering for the services that you’re offering is fantastic. Next question. Which is actually what you just said, the property management fees and rates. So I think you just covered that. Next question. How can I help my kids build a credit score if I only buy one property? Again, it’s going to depend on how you structure the loan. But if that is a requirement of the loan, we will add the child to the loan, as long as they obtain an ITIN, which is a tax identification number, they can use to start building credit.

01:10:06
Robert Chadwick
If they ever intend to live in the US or go to school in the US, whatever it may be, it’s very important to have US credit. Next question. Are we able to speak to a few current long-term customers or their experience using your property management? I think that was covered before, but if you want to touch on it again, you can.

01:10:29
Phil Gerathy
Yes, absolutely, Robert. First of all, I would encourage you to review our website and take a look at that, and that will give you significant confidence in what I meant to say earlier. But absolutely, I am more than happy to provide you with several people that you could talk to to confirm the comments that I’ve been making over the last hour.

01:10:58
Robert Chadwick
Okay. And I think the next four questions are all about fees for property management. Why don’t you just sort of cover that in a broad range so everybody kind of has just a clearer idea?

01:11:18
Phil Gerathy
The management fees?

01:11:20
Robert Chadwick
Management fees and what normally you would charge and what it includes.

01:11:24
Phil Gerathy
Well, we don’t charge any fees for hands-on management of the property, or day-to-day management of the property. We charge one fee, and that’s a monthly management fee based on the gross rent that we receive. If the property is not tenanted, we don’t charge the management fee. We only charge a management fee once the tenant has been located and has moved in. The management fee, as I said, varies from a single property, for example, at 8% of the gross monthly rent. But as the portfolio grows, as we have multiple property owners, that fee can usually come down to around 6%. But the starting point for one property is 8% of the gross management fee, and that’s it. There are no additional fees.

01:12:14
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Next question. Austplan office in Dubai? Mr. Phil mentioned he has an office there. I’m not sure if you mentioned that you have an office in Dubai.

01:12:26
Phil Gerathy
No, we don’t have an office in Dubai. We’ve presented in Dubai via seminar. But unfortunately, no, we don’t. We have an office in Shanghai, an office in Australia, of course, an office in the United States. But at this point, not in Dubai.

01:12:48
Robert Chadwick
we have people in Dubai. So if you want to sit down and talk about a mortgage, we can certainly assist with that. Next question. Can the New York office manage or sublet management properties in Philadelphia? Maintenance and eviction with city-specific laws? Very good question.

01:13:06
Phil Gerathy
The answer to that question is unequivocally yes.

01:13:11
Robert Chadwick
Okay. And I would assume it’s just based on your years of experience in linking up with people in that state or that.

01:13:22
Phil Gerathy
So the actual accounting and legal management is done from our office. It’s actually in New Jersey Dallas or Michigan. But from time to time, where maintenance is required, we have people, we would appoint people on the ground to manage the property or to at least look after that property, but the actual management process of dealing with the cities, dealing with the state, dealing with any issues that are specific to that particular neck of the woods, we handle quite easily from our New Jersey or our Dallas office.

01:14:05
Robert Chadwick
Next question. How often do you make regular site visits to properties under your management?

01:14:13
Phil Gerathy
Six monthly. Sometimes we do it more frequently, depending on the tenant or the HOA, the homeowners association. For example, some homeowner’s associations are very finicky when it comes to maintaining the outside of a property, which means that we perhaps would visit that property more frequently. But generally, once every six months, we would do a full internal visit.

01:14:43
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Next question. What is the average amount of expenses paid before the property has positive cash flow? Management, taxes, insurance, maintenance, and other costs.

01:14:55
Phil Gerathy
Well, excluding interest on borrowings, you would have positive cash flow from the second month of a tenant moving into your property.

01:15:06
Robert Chadwick
And I think one thing too, to also discuss, again, because 100% of our clients are foreign nationals and ex-pats, is our goal at America Mortgages is to partner with companies like Austplan and Phil, but we also partner with CPAs and attorneys that again, specialize on foreign nationals and US expats. The goal of any investment property, regardless of what country you’re in, is to not pay taxes on the rental income earned. And I think because in the US, regardless if you’re a foreigner or a US citizen, you have the same tax advantages. I think often you can obtain that and you can even show a loss which can carry forward and help mitigate any capital gains taxes or whatever. But I don’t want to give any tax advice, but I think it’s very important. If anybody is thinking of investing in US real estate, the US probably has to be, even though it has a bad rep, it has to be one of the best tax locations of any international investment properties, just from the savings that you can get.

01:16:23
Phil Gerathy
That’s absolutely correct. Whilst I say cash flow positive, you will be cash flow positive in the second month. But using all of the deductions available and the tools that we have, generally, we can show a tax loss leading into the third year. But again, that’s an accounting issue that we’re not qualified to give you at this point. But usually, that’s the situation.

01:16:46
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Next question. Since the current interest-only mortgage rates are high, why would I want to go for a fixed rate over five or ten years? How do I take advantage of these drops in two to three years? Excellent question. And it’s something that is asked often. Again, what makes the US unique is the long-duration mortgages. So the long amortization periods that you can have regardless of the age of the borrower. Why most people will choose a 30-year fix is certainly we do think rates will go down and you can refinance when rates go down. That’s not a problem. Our loan officers are here for the entire journey, not just to do one transaction. So if we see an interest rate drop and we think it makes sense, we will calculate it out for you.

01:17:41
Robert Chadwick
And you can see when your break-even point is, and you can choose if that is the right option. If you intend to exit a property, say, in five years, then sure, a five-year fixed is probably maybe a better alternative for you. But the surety of a 30-year mortgage is only available in the US. And it’s a fantastic way to think if you’re going to hold the properties long. Certainly, we expect and we hope interest rates go down. But if they don’t, as Phil likes to say, you can sleep easy at night. Next question. Do you help manage short-term rentals such as Airbnb?

01:18:28
Phil Gerathy
That question comes up regularly. The short answer to that is, at this point, no. One of the reasons for that is that homeowners associations, particularly with their covenants, generally prohibit Airbnb. The other reason is that the management of an Airbnb is on a day-to-day basis, and we are concerned that the quality of people who lease or rent an Airbnb may be questionable. Now, having said that, we’re exploring that with one particular client at the moment, with some town homes, that are slightly different than a single-family home. So right now we’re in the early stages of exploring that.

01:19:19
Robert Chadwick
Okay, next question. Can you manage large multifamily or apartments with a lot of units? If so, max number of units, and how would that work with the rates?

01:19:33
Phil Gerathy
Well, I think I probably addressed that earlier. The answer to that question is yes, of course. So we have numerous what we call six plex, ten plex, twelve plex. We have several properties that are multi-units. We are currently looking and negotiating with an apartment building in Brooklyn that has something, I think, around 400 apartments within that building. So there are two parts to that. The first part is that we require for large multiple buildings, on-site management, not off-site management, and that’s part of the process. But the second part to that question is in terms of the management fee, which usually, again, gets back to a figure of around 5% gross.

01:20:25
Robert Chadwick
And I think as well, in the chat, you’ll see a link for both America mortgages and for Austplan. I think something that’s maybe a little bit more in-depth is probably good to speak with Phil directly.

01:20:40
Phil Gerathy
Yes, absolutely.

01:20:42
Robert Chadwick
Another question. Are management fees tax deductible?

01:20:46
Phil Gerathy
Absolutely, yes. So in the process of determining tax liability at the end of the financial year, you would look at depreciation, of course, which is factored into your property, but any other expense that you incur along the way, one of which is management fees. But remember that what we’re aiming for in the early years is a tax loss for you, but you will be cash flow positive in the second month.

01:21:14
Robert Chadwick
And we hear this a lot, I don’t know how this reputation came about, but the US sort of has its reputation as being a very bad tax regime, but it’s just the opposite. And I think once you start investing and if you’re a sophisticated investor in US real estate, you realize there’s no better market than the US when it comes to taxes. I mean, you’re in Australia, I’m in Singapore currently, and we can see how the taxes are collected in both of these countries. If you’re not invested in the US yet, you really should, because I think once you start understanding how taxes work in the US, you’re going to be completely blown away.

01:22:05
Phil Gerathy
That’s correct, Robert.

01:22:07
Robert Chadwick
Next question. How do you manage repairs and repair costs?

01:22:13
Phil Gerathy
again, in each state and city where we manage properties, we have a panel of repairers. That panel consists of various trades, right down to cleaners and general occupational trades, but electricians, plumbers, and the like. We have a management platform that has a tenant portal. When something needs to be done, the tenant will access the portal. That will then immediately trigger a maintenance request. Our office will determine what’s required, who’s required, and that necessary trade will be deployed. If the cost of the repair is above $300, we will notify the owner for approval. If it’s below $300, generally we’ll move ahead, get it done, pay the bill on behalf of the owner, and then that appears on the profit and loss statement at the end of the month.

01:23:18
Robert Chadwick
Okay, next question. Can you manage properties in Austin, Texas, Atlanta, Georgia, Nashville, Tennessee Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, Indianapolis, Indiana, and three cities in Florida?

01:23:34
Phil Gerathy
Well, first of all, in Texas, yes. The answer, of course, is yes. We manage properties in Austin and manage properties in Houston. The question then, of course, let me give you an example. We had a Chinese owner developer that has an apartment building in Seattle. Twelve months ago, were approached to manage a number of the apartments in that building in Seattle. Now, our closest office to Seattle is in California, but we now successfully manage that building, or at least those apartments, simply by identifying a person on the ground who can do the hands-on listing and leasing for us. We have a panel, again, of tradespeople that are required from time to time for repairs and maintenance.

01:24:29
Phil Gerathy
And then the accounting and legal and other issues to do with the city and the state are handled out of, in that particular instance, from our Michigan office. Our website and our management platform are very sophisticated. If you were to have a look on the website, you’d be able to access our management platform and see how that actually would then facilitate managing properties in numerous other states.

01:25:00
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. Okay, next question. This is finally for me. It is the cost to refinance a property to lower a rate. Again, it depends on what your current rate is. When you talk to a loan officer, and it’s about lowering the interest rate, right now, interest rates are a little bit on the higher side. I do believe that they will be going down shortly. But the most important thing is to realize the costs that are involved in the loan. Certainly, we do have a brokerage fee, but there also are other costs that are fixed depending on the state. It’s title, insurance, appraisal, et cetera. But we have a way to break that down to where you can see if lowering the rate makes sense what the costs are and at what point in time is the breakeven point. And I think once you see that and once you understand it and it’s explained properly, it makes sense. Next question. Phil, I guess somebody recognized your accent. Are you based in Brisbane?

01:26:11
Phil Gerathy
I am based in Brisbane, yes. But I lived in the United States for several years and came back to Australia not that long ago so that my two teenage kids could finish their high school education here. I’ve now decided for the last two years I’ve been post-COVID commuting. So every month I’m in all of our offices in the United States. Tomorrow morning I’m leaving to go back to New York, New Jersey, Dallas, and then up to Michigan. But yes, I live in Brisbane Australia.

01:26:46
Robert Chadwick
Excellent. And if you want to reach out and have coffee with Phil in Brisbane when he’s there, you can reach out for that.

01:26:52
Phil Gerathy
Absolutely.

01:26:55
Robert Chadwick
Last question. I know this is gone for almost an hour and a half, so I appreciate everybody. Do you process a loan for a foreign national under my LLC, registered in Delaware instead of under my individual name? Excellent question. Asked often. So, in the US, you can hold idle in an LLC? That’s absolutely possible. It’s very common. But there has to be a borrower. So as the individual, you are responsible for the loan, but for the ownership of the property, for a variety of reasons, from tax to security, you can hold the title or the ownership under the LLC, and I believe that is it. So, Phil, thank you, as always, for joining us. I know this went probably longer than you were expecting, but I think were able to address a lot of concerns that our clients have.

01:27:55
Robert Chadwick
And I think if anybody missed anything in the webinar, once it’s edited, it’ll be sent out to everybody who has attended, everybody who signed up and maybe didn’t get a chance to attend. And then, of course, you get it in our weekly newsletter, which I hope everybody does enjoy. Phil, do you have any parting words before we say goodbye?

01:28:18
Phil Gerathy
Well, my parting words would be if you’re an existing property owner in the United States, and you would like a very professional and extremely competitive property manager, talk to me. And if you’re not, and you’re looking to get in, and you’re asking the question, where do I start? Talk to Austplan management and talk to America Mortgages.

01:28:37
Robert Chadwick
Fantastic. Thank you, Phil. So we’ll have another webinar in, I believe, two weeks. The date will be announced soon, and I think you’re going to love it because we are going to announce some exciting new loan programs. So we hope that we see everybody that is on this webinar on the next. Thank you again, everybody. Good day, or good night?

01:28:58
Phil Gerathy
Thank you. Bye.

01:28:59
Robert Chadwick
Bye.

---

Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated, so kindly pardon any transcription or grammatical errors that may be present.

03:24
Kyle Mazzuchin
Hello, everybody. Kyle Mazzuchin here, vice president for America Mortgages for the Canadian markets. Thank you very much for joining us today. The point of our presentation today is to bring you value and tools to understand how to finance our real estate as a Canadian investor. We’re very proud to look at how to provide you with the tools and knowledge. Then we’ll go through all of those tools and pieces of knowledge. At the very end, we’ll have a question-and-answer period. We have a wonderful guest, co-founder of America Mortgages, Mr. Robert Chadwick, who will be able to answer any questions as well as myself in terms of the process for you.

04:18
Kyle Mazzuchin
So here at America Mortgages, we’re one of the only few places to have tools to help foreign nationals provide to get you applications across the border with relative ease. How to finance U.S. real estate as a Canadian investor? We’ll go through a bunch of slides here that will provide statistics, programs, and anything to do with our suite of programs here at America Mortgages. So who are America Mortgages? You’ve seen a lot of our videos, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram, and been inundated with this presentation. We’ll go through the why of who we are and what we do, and then also about the background, about myself, how I can be able to help you with anything when it comes to America Mortgages here in Canada. Then we’ll go through statistics and some Canadian news.

05:40
Kyle Mazzuchin
Over the last couple of years, it’s been very difficult for investors in Canadian real estate. So we’ll go through why the U.S. versus Canada, and then we’ll go through the application process. How easy it is to look at having our 15-minute interview to get you the mortgage application and conditional approval you need and the confidence for you to go buy real estate. Next, we’ll go through our loan programs, and at the end, we will look at questions and answers. So Canadians in the U.S. market, $6.6 billion was spent on real estate, rental, and permanent residence between April 2022 and March 2023. Number two, as the second top foreign buyer of U.S. real estate. Being so close to the border, why not? Then 55% of those purchases, you’re looking for somewhere warm there, Canada.

06:36
Kyle Mazzuchin
So you know how cold it can get in Ontario or Winnipeg or even in Montreal? You’re looking at Florida, Arizona, and California to get away from the frigid temperatures of the winter. Some facts here from the different associations. As you can see, fewer homes were built over ten years following the U.S. crisis than in any other decade since the sixties. As of the fourth quarter of 202, the U.S. has a housing supply deficit of 3.8 million units. The National Association of Realtors projects that the housing deficit is closer to 6.8 million homes. Also, we find a 30% increase in the monthly number of homes, coming onto the market would have been necessary to keep up with the demand of the pandemic. So just some facts there. Why America Mortgages? We’re 100% working with individuals living and working abroad.

07:40
Kyle Mazzuchin
We only focus on foreign nationals and U.S. expats and we have representation in twelve different countries. So time zone is not an issue. Culturally sensitive to seven different languages and understand any sort of cultural nuance in the interviewing process with you. All loan programs do not require U.S. credit. So we’ll probably ask for a credit bureau report from your home country in the language that we’re doing your mortgage application in. In this case, English. Common sense underwriting is a very straight approach. In Canada, as you know when you’re doing a mortgage application here, sometimes you’re asking for a lot. With our common sense underwriting approach, we’re not going to be doing that with some of our programs. Our programs are also simple and easy to understand. No age limits or restrictions. Interest servicing only facilities.

08:33
Kyle Mazzuchin
You can go 40 years versus Canada, 30. Loans in all 50 states. Transparent fees and process. Also 24/7 processing of your mortgage as well. So we’re always working to make sure that we’re meeting and exceeding expectations in terms of your deadlines. About myself, ten years here in financial services and leadership experience. Loved mortgage origination. That’s why I came back to it and looked at America Mortgages as an opportunity to provide value for truly borderless lending solutions. I’m a former senior leader of mortgage specialist for the Bank of Montreal, overseeing a team of 25. It was a fantastic experience, but with that came the opportunity to look at America Mortgages to help, and missed the mortgage origination side. I’m based here on beautiful Vancouver Island with my spouse and two children.

09:30
Kyle Mazzuchin
We’re located here in the Cowichan Valley if you’re very familiar with it. So why invest in the U.S. versus Canada? Larger, bigger, better diversified economy. Global influence is the number one economy in the world as well as number one in real estate markets, and also known for its innovation. Look at the top tech companies and airline companies located in Washington state. Tesla, and Microsoft, don’t even have to go any further. Lower taxes in Canada. I think that comes up. When you hear lower taxes, you’re putting your ear and listening for sure. Favorable tax treaties as well, stronger currency, and a 30% difference in terms of the income itself. Also, it has a reserve currency status with different countries around the world. So, we’ve heard a lot about government intervention in the housing area due to some challenges with affordability. Could be supplied?

10:34
Kyle Mazzuchin
We don’t know, but here are some pieces from around Canada. In British Columbia, for example, a ban on non-resident short-term rentals from May 2024 on, $3,000 a day could be fined. In Ontario, short-term rentals are allowed for only essential workers and travelers needing housing for at least two weeks, and Airbnb is not allowed in Quebec. A three-and-a-half percent tax on short-term rentals on the price. Operators must display government registration numbers on their ads and listings to comply with local regulations. There’s more. The federal government is now putting some rules in. The minister of housing has hinted at national regulation for short-term rentals affecting platforms like Vrbo and Airbnb. Tax changes when it comes to the CRA. CRA limits income tax deductions on short-term rentals to tackle the housing shortage.

11:30
Kyle Mazzuchin
From January 1, 2024, no tax deductions for short-term rental expenses in restricted areas, so this impacts Airbnb and Vrbo again. Further, if you own a trust or have some sort of holding company, the underused housing tax hasn’t been talked about as much. There’s a federal 1% tax on vacant or underused houses in Canada like BC. Right now, you’re all filling out any sort of vacancy reporting to the provincial government of British Columbia. So what does that in terms of its application? It targets foreign national owners, and may also apply to certain Canadian owners like partners, trustees, and corporations. Calculation exemptions based on the assessed value or recent sale price, exemptions available for specific entities and situations.

12:25
Kyle Mazzuchin
But if you don’t comply, CRA is going to be knocking at your door to get some sort of penalties which could go from a $10,000 fine if you haven’t registered yet. And obviously, they’re changing as well. So please talk to your accountant here in the next little while because the deadline is coming up for personal income taxes at the end of April and in June for business, for self customers. Popular places to purchase real estate. The biggest one. We all love Florida, especially you eastern Canadians, the Quebecers, and Ontarians. Very popular, very warm retirement areas, offer diverse options at affordable prices and also a large Canadian community. Arizona is preferred by Canadians for its dry, mild climate, especially for its winters. Got to love the Grand Canyon. Super Dry Monument Valley, then also you can probably watch hockey games.

13:23
Kyle Mazzuchin
A lot cheaper than going to the Leafs games or Vancouver Canucks. California has the biggest population size of Canada, 36 million. Same size as Canada pretty well. Diverse lifestyles with oceans and mountains and forests and vineyards. Lots of business and entertainment opportunities with Hollywood being nearby. Range of properties for people that want to go there and some prices in some areas are also a little bit higher. Who would have thought Louisiana with a rich French history and, a unique blend of influences, right near the ocean, has its own culture as well? So fantastic to see you there, especially during Mardi Gras. Montana, close to Alberta. Beautiful, nature enthusiasts with an abundance of outdoor activities for you hunters out there, even you skiers. Offers landscapes, mountains, lakes, and rivers and in comparison to other states, a very low population.

14:26
Kyle Mazzuchin
Also, one state that you wouldn’t have thought about, is South Carolina. Appeals to Canadians for its charm, hospitality, and mild climate. Sandy Beaches, can’t go wrong, also its rich history. So U.S. mortgage overview. What does that mean to you? Again, no credit is required. That little AUM there, so you don’t have to take money from your bank account, leave it at a bank in the United States. So assets are under administration. You don’t have to worry about that. You can keep your hard-earned money where it is, where you are. Foreign income is allowed. Loans and programs in all 50 states. Some other pieces to consider and focus on. So you’re Canadian, you’re considered a foreign national. That means that you can purchase up to 75% loan to value or a 25% down payment.

15:19
Kyle Mazzuchin
So if you give us the proper documentation that’s requested, we’ll be able to give you a loan approval in 72 hours. We can close your mortgage application in 30 to 45 days, and consign at any sort of local U.S. embassy. Or we do have some alternative options to help make the process painless. We can also do a purchase, refinance, or equity release, whichever is the need. We can go 30 years amortization regardless of age. Ten-year servicing facilities and loan programs without income are available. The one thing that we’re very proud of here at America Mortgages is that 97% of the loan applications that are submitted are approved. And we’re truly 24/7. You contact us on our website, americamortgages.com.

16:12
Kyle Mazzuchin
You click on our website if you want to have a chat at 02:00 in the morning, there’s someone there for you to chat about U.S. real estate let’s look at our loan program, shall we? So here’s the process. Number one, you talk to me. Second, we choose a program after our initial conversation and or consultation. Third, you provide the relative documents, and then I provide you with the loan approval. Number five, we review your loan approval with the loan officer. And then six, we order the appraisal to make sure that whatever you are purchasing, the value matches market value. We’ll look at underwriting conditions. We’ll communicate with you throughout the full process. You will receive emails to make sure that we’re clarifying certain pieces for insurance.

17:06
Kyle Mazzuchin
All those pieces, making sure that your application is nice and clean going through, and that we’re working with the lender to make sure that they’re satisfied with their conditions as well. Then probably the best part, the signing is arranged. And then the money is out the door and it closes and you receive your keys in your hands. Some of our programs. One thing I’m passionate about is the AM rental coverage program. No personal income is required. We qualify only on the property’s projected rental income. Yes, only on the projected rental income. No U.S. credit or residency is required. So if we go back on some of the slides that we had, in Canada, most of the major provinces have some sort of restrictions. Loan amounts are from at least $150,000 to $3 million. So that’s a big part of the market.

18:05
Kyle Mazzuchin
Some loan structures, for example, have a 30-year fixed and interest-only facility available, and again, we close in 30 to 45 days. How do you qualify? You don’t even need one to 1 to 1. 0.75 to 1 for your rental coverage. So total mortgage payment, principal, interest, taxes, and insurance, are $1,000. You only need $750 of income to qualify for this. Fantastic. The investor program. So we can use foreign income, but tax returns aren’t required. I bet you’re going, what? I don’t need tax returns. We qualify based on income letters from either your employer, your home country, or your accountant. We use a two-year average. We can go into the particulars of that particular program later. We don’t need any sort of U.S. credit or residency.

19:00
Kyle Mazzuchin
Again, the loan amounts between $150,000 to $3 million. 30-year fixed and interest-only facilities are available and 75% financing for new purchases. And again, we can close in 30 to 45 days. Again, how to qualify? You’re reporting $10,000 on your letter. Your mortgage payment, taxes, and insurance can exceed 43%, in this case, $4,300. Do a bit of analysis. Debt to income ratio or in Canada, TDSR. So for you bankers, and mortgage brokers out there, the total debt servicing ratio in the U.S. is called DTI, debt to income ratio. So if you are a U.S. citizen living in Canada, I’m sure you’ve been through maybe even a couple of applications. So for us, we ask for two years of U.S. income taxes only the same as if you were working in the States. So you’d qualify under the same criteria as if you were living there.

19:55
Kyle Mazzuchin
No U.S. residency is needed. U.S. score of 680 or higher for your FICO score. And again $150,000 to $5 million for that. Then also, 30 to 45 days closing as well, in case you need to have that rush. Again, expectations should be a little bit different between Canada and the U.S. when it comes to closing your mortgages. 30 to 45 days is considered lightning fast. So just to kind of put that little tidbit out there for you. So, how does it work? $4,300 if we’re going to consider mortgage payment taxes and insurance. Gross personal income based on a two-year average, based on your U.S. tax returns. So your 1040s, your W-2s, and W-4s can exceed 43% for the DTI, in this case, debt to income ratio.

20:45
Kyle Mazzuchin
if we were to translate it to Canada, the total debt servicing ratio for some of you investment advisors. If you want to use a portfolio, we can utilize that over a two-month average. So if you have customers with a high net worth, who want to buy this huge mansion in Florida, but are worried about qualifying? It’s not so bad. You don’t have to take the money that you’re controlling. You don’t have to give it to the bank where we’re going to be placing it. No U.S. credit is required as well. We’ll ask you for a borrowell.com statement Equifax from your local province. Or you would provide that, really easy to get loans up from $3 million to $100 million. And then again closing within 30 to 45 days.

21:36
Kyle Mazzuchin
America Mortgages’ high net worth program will take the average of the portfolio at $5 million divided over the fixed rate term. Let’s use five years as an example. If the mortgage payment, tax, and insurance don’t exceed $83,333, you’ll be able to qualify. Some of you have grade twelve student doing their MCAT, doing their exams. They’re looking at some of the U.S. states or schools to have quality education. You can qualify based on projected income and have your child essentially live on the property. Also, we can have them on title and some net benefits of that would be if they were to provide or if they were to stay and get the residency, it helps them open the door for getting their U.S. credit score established.

22:38
Kyle Mazzuchin
Some thresholds to meet loan amounts between 150,000 and $3 million and 30 to 45 days to close. qualification, rental income, and property expenses have to match at least one-to-one for this particular product. So in this case, $2,400 for the income, principal and interest, and tax insurance don’t exceed $2,400 as well. One-to-one coverage, we’re approved. Fantastic. A little bit more sophistication. We do have commercial-based products, multifamily units with five units or more. So if you have six or seven units in heritage homes, because heritage homes are normally built huge, and if you’re subdividing the units inside it, you’ll be able to qualify for our AM commercial + program. No personal income is required. No recourse is available. No U.S. credit is required. Available between $1 million to $100 million in communities across the United States.

23:45
Kyle Mazzuchin
portfolio, you have more than ten U.S. properties. You need a mortgage. You don’t want to provide essentially all your paperwork just for the one house. We can cross-collateralize most of your portfolio with four properties or more. No personal income is required. Loan amounts between $250,000 to a million dollars in this particular case. And 40 to 60 days need a little bit more because of the complexity of getting all your tax returns, and Excel spreadsheets, organizing them, and sending them to the lender on your behalf. So some information about us here at America Mortgages, where we’re located, and then my information at the bottom. You can reach me at [email protected] or you can reach me at 778-838-9654. Then we’ll have my calendar link if you would like a consultation in regards to this particular presentation as well.

24:47
Kyle Mazzuchin
So, that’s our presentation for today. We’ll be opening up a Q&A here with Mr. Robert Chadwick, who’s the co-CEO and currently joining us right now. So really fantastic to have the amount of audience here today, Robert. We do have a series of questions and people in the chat here. So how are you, Robert? Maybe let’s talk about how you’re doing today.

25:18
Robert Chadwick
Yeah. I’m well, Kyle, thanks. Great information, especially for me to see the challenges that even Canada has these days when people are looking to invest in real estate domestically. So our clients, in general, are more sophisticated, more educated, and more affluent, because they are smart enough to look at markets outside of their natural. I think you represented this perfectly. The advantages the U.S. real estate market has, not only just Canada but if you talk about global markets, no stamp duties, all of these things that impact the opportunity for a borrower to get wealth or to create a viable portfolio that they can sell at retirement, take passive income or even pass it down generationally. The U.S. is by far the best market.

26:16
Kyle Mazzuchin
I would agree. After I had my own rental transactions personally, paying land transfer taxes to the local province, there’s part of me being a citizen. Definitely, taxes are required, but sometimes having an extra $30,000, some people may not have that to pay for their house. And seeing where historic lows during the pandemic to where it is today, every dollar is being counted for cash-flow and everything like that. So totally agree with you, Robert, on that. Looks like we got a bit of questions here. Just going to open it up here and we’ll take a look. We got Anthony Galano here asking if can canadians sign mortgage documents remotely via DocuSign for properties purchased in New York. Yeah, we can.

27:04
Kyle Mazzuchin
So we utilize some services, depending on the lender that we choose. They can be done through notarial means, through online services. So, we’ll take a look at that, which is fantastic. A lot of flexibility there for you to sign from home, but a lot easier would be to go to the local American embassy if you’re in a major city like Vancouver or Toronto.

27:34
Robert Chadwick
Sorry, Kyle. Let me expand on that as well, because I think we see this a lot, you and I, as clients, whether they’re in Canada or anywhere else in the world, think where do we sign? Canada is unique. Because it is very close to the U.S., you will see maybe a lot of people that will fly over to the U.S. to sign, which is perfectly fine. But we’ve got a multitude of ways for people to sign their mortgage documents as conveniently as possible. Certainly, if a remote notary is allowed, kind of like signing it over a Zoom, that’s possible depending on the country that you’re in and the state that you’re obtaining the mortgage.

28:20
Robert Chadwick
But if your country is part of the Hague, you can sign with an Apostille, meaning that you can go to your local notary and sign with your local notary and that local notary gets it apostille stamped. And it’s normally at the high court or whatever the regional thing is there in that country. That’s sufficient and it makes it a very easy process for the borrower. Certainly going to the U.S. embassy if it’s convenient or the consulate is absolutely an option. But we’ve tried to provide the availability for you to sign in a multitude of ways, depending on whatever is the most convenient for you.

29:10
Robert Chadwick
So I think, Kyle, you’ve had various experiences with this, but anytime that your clients want to sign and they have a question about how we do it, it’s best to speak to your loan officer and do it from the very beginning and already set up the structure because U.S. embassy appointments, just like anything else, is not always available and easy.

29:36
Kyle Mazzuchin
So Canada, the local notary is fine. We’ll look at it on a one-off basis and get you some clarity on that. Being so close to the border, really nice. For example, I can take a ferry across to probably Seattle from where I am in the world. So second question, we got a lot of questions. As a Canadian, what would be the best way to register a property? Using company or personal?

30:03
Robert Chadwick
Yeah, a lot of people these days are using a limited liability corporation. An LLC is probably what it’s better known as. It gives you a variety of protections. Whether it is some sort of tax protection, some sort of asset protection, or personal protection in case maybe somebody gets injured in the property that you’re renting, there’s no direct path to you. They’re just going to go into the LLC and however, that works with the attorneys. But this is the most common way to structure the ownership of a property. So what it means is the borrowers are responsible for the mortgage, anything like Canada, the same thing. But the ownership of the property or how the property is held is held in an entity and it makes it a very easy process. And again, this is one of the great things about U.S. real estate investing.

31:11
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. Just to translate that to Canadian. So if you have a holding company and you have a slew of properties with a big chartered bank, bank of Montreal, Toronto, Dominion, RBC, they’ll have a personal guarantee on that making sure it’s nonoperating. So essentially that translates to a limited liability company and then you would be guaranteeing the mortgage on that as well. In terms of operating, I don’t want to get too far. I don’t have my CPA. So again, you may want to get some tax advice through a cross-border specialist, or you can go to our website, americamortgages.com, go to the concierge, fill out our tax advice form, and then we’ll have one of our partners get a hold of you in due course. All right, so third question today.

31:56
Kyle Mazzuchin
How do I go about opening a cross-border bank account and would America Mortgages help me with that? My spouse is from Japan, I have multiple currency accounts with wise.com, which open up utilizing the U.S. dollar piece. It does qualify as well. And if you need help with that, all of our loan officers will have a particular way of assisting you. Or if you would like, if you’re in southern Ontario, you want to travel to New York, just go to your local bank nearby and you can also open up a bank account there. Our fourth question today is, are there any preliminary steps I can take to make sure the approval process goes smoothly? Robert?

32:47
Robert Chadwick
Oh, super good question. Our whole business model is the customer journey needs to be smooth. That’s really what we focus on. The first thing you do before you start looking for real estate at all is to make sure that you get pre-approved for a loan. I mean, you want to know how much the payment is going to be, what kind of interest rates you have, what kind of terms you qualify for. One of the things, Kyle and I talked about this earlier that we’re super proud of, is 97% of our loan applications get approved. And normally if they don’t get approved, it’s not an issue with the borrower, it’s normally an issue with the property that they’re trying to buy or refinance.

33:32
Robert Chadwick
So making the process, following what the loan officer or our processing team sends you, and responding to emails promptly will make the process as smooth as possible. All of our loan officers, and I think this is imperative if you want to be successful as a loan officer, need to be super organized. And we realize that not everybody works that way. I mean, I’m probably not as organized as I should be, but as long as you’re following what the loan officers say, and our loan officers have exceptional training and this is all we do, 100% foreign national or expat lending, the process will be smooth. Certainly, like anything, there are maybe some bumps in the road, things that come up that we’re not expecting. But again, because this is all we do, we try to foresee this in the beginning.

34:28
Robert Chadwick
So to answer the question maybe a little bit more clearly, I think following what the loan officers or the processing team instructs promptly will make this process go as smoothly as possible.

34:42
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. Thanks, Robert, for that. Another question. We got 18 of them in full, so hopefully we have enough time to get through them here. So how long will it take for a non-U.S. resident to get pre-approved? And how much does a pre-approval cost?

34:58
Robert Chadwick
Well, the great thing is it costs nothing except for some time. Our documentation, as Kyle had pointed out, is very simplified. Because we’re doing loans for borrowers all over the world, whether they’re from Sydney to Shanghai, we’ve tried to make this process as simple as possible and with as limited paperwork to make it a viable, common sense loan, but without over cumbersome of having to go through ten years of tax returns and dissect this and that. The loan process, once you send in the documents, takes about 72 hours, Kyle, right now, to issue a loan approval. And this is what is awesome. Once you have that loan approval, we issue you a letter. Once you have this letter, this is powerful.

35:57
Robert Chadwick
When you find a property that you want to buy, you turn this letter in with the offer to the realtor, and that realtor knows that Kyle is behind you, America Mortgages is behind him, and you have the mortgage financing in.

36:11
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. So free, zero investment of your time to make sure that this goes smoothly. And communication. Communication is really good. So our next question is here. As a foreigner or non-U.S. resident, what is the maximum loan-to-value available? And is the loan to value dependent on income?

36:33
Robert Chadwick
So again, really good questions. The max loan to value for a non-U.S. citizen is 75%, and that’s across the board, which is really good. The LTV, there are two ways to qualify. Kyle had touched one of our loan programs, which we’re super proud of, where it is pure common sense underwriting. The way a rental property should qualify is based on what the rental income should generate. I mean, it just really makes sense. So we have a loan program that qualifies on the rental income of the property, and how we find what that rental income of the property is, is a third party appraiser, just as they would appraise your property when you’re purchasing. That also protects you to make sure you’re buying it at the right price and for the lender to make sure that they’re lending at the right value.

37:34
Robert Chadwick
But it also gives us a very accurate indication of what the general rents are in that area. That’s what’s used to qualify. There’s no funny business. It’s a very pure common sense underwriting on these loans. A lot of people think, oh, my gosh, they’re not asking for income. What’s happening? But if you think about it, this is the logical way that you should underwrite an investment property. And if you were to go on, does it depend on your income? If you’d like to provide income, rather than providing your tax returns and your end-of-year statement, we have a very simple way of doing this. And again, this has to do, because we’re doing this in various countries and various jurisdictions, doing it through tax returns would almost be impossible and time-consuming.

38:29
Robert Chadwick
We have a template, and Kyle will send you the template once you start the process. And that template is very straightforward. It says, the current year to date and the last two years of your income. That has to be completed by your employer if you’re employed, or by your accountant if it’s self-employed. Again, simple, easy, common sense ways of buying or obtaining a U.S. mortgage for investment property.

38:52
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. Translation line 150 of your notice of assessment from your T-1 generals. So hence, just translating here for you folks that have maybe complicated lending, or if you have your T-2 generals from your corp, or if you have audited financial statements with review engagements or notice to the reader, we just take your gross for the two years and then a year to date, maybe even based on your bookkeeper, providing that to your accountant to validate. And then that’s all we need. We don’t need to have a stack of 40. We don’t need to take the French returns from Quebec, as they’re a little bit different than the normal English returns as well. So, simplified approach. Letters from your accountant or your employer. Next question.

39:36
Robert Chadwick
Go back to this. Think about this, Kyle. In Canada, things are in English, and it makes sense. Or maybe Quebec might be a little bit different. But can you imagine having to look at tax returns for a variety of countries around the world with people who have an interest in buying U.S. real estate? Again, this is like simplified, smart underwriting.

39:58
Kyle Mazzuchin
Like England, Singapore.

40:02
Robert Chadwick
Exactly.

40:03
Kyle Mazzuchin
Like how the stacks are, and then you have to translate it with a letter at the front from, say, Japan, and all of a sudden, same thing. It’s a little bit more, but not that much. But I wouldn’t want to go through pages.

40:14
Robert Chadwick
I agree.

40:16
Kyle Mazzuchin
So it appears that we have two questions from the same individual. Who pays for the appraisal? And what is the interest?

40:25
Robert Chadwick
So the appraisal is paid for by the borrower. And again, it makes sense. All the appraisals in the U.S. are done by a third party. It’s all handled by AMCs, appraisal management companies. They bill you directly. Never is there ever any money sent directly to us. Everything is either done through a third-party escrow or a vendor-like appraisal management company. So you’d be responsible for paying the appraisal, but that’s the only cost that you would have out of pocket initially when the transaction occurs. As for the interest, it’s reliant on a variety of things. How you qualify, whether you’re going to qualify just off of the cash-flow property, you want to qualify by providing an income letter. You’re a U.S. citizen, you’re a foreign national, it’s based on your loan to value.

41:28
Robert Chadwick
There’s a wide range of what the interest rate is, but what’s so fantastic about that is if you want a lower rate, you just comply with whatever the requirements are on our program. If you’re not so rate-conscious because you want to buy a property now before interest rates go down and property values go up, then you take it at the most favorable terms for you, but maybe at a higher rate, and then you just refinance down the road.

41:57
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. So hopefully that answers your question. The next question is, does anything change if I have an LLC? I think went through that a little bit there. Nothing changes except for your guarantee and it’s on the title. So then also please get your proper tax advice either through the concierge tab on our website or by going to your cross-border account within your local jurisdiction. Next question. If I already own four properties in Canada, am I eligible to get financed from us? Is there a limit on properties owned?

42:36
Robert Chadwick
That is a super question. And before I answer that, if you look at the group chat in the webinar, you can see a link to book a meeting with Kyle directly. After this webinar, or even actually during the webinar, if you want to arrange something on his calendar, Kyle’s calendar is open very early, very late, as I can attest. You can arrange something directly through the chat. But to answer the question, there are no limits to the number of properties that foreign nationals can own in the U.S. What also makes this quite interesting there are no limits on the loan to value. So whether you want to buy one property or you want to buy hundreds of properties, you can still obtain the maximum amount of value depending on what you choose.

43:35
Robert Chadwick
In most cases, it’s 75%, but there are no restrictions on it. Again, I’m currently based in Singapore. Because all of our clients are global, we try to make sure that our loan officers are also global and understand the market. But countries like Singapore, for example, have a variety of cooling measures, which makes absolute sense when you’re talking about a small country and high real estate prices. Or as you’ve seen in Canada, Kyle, the real estate prices are going through the roof. People are more affluent, but also a lot of foreign investors are coming in, and so they need to put certain restrictions. The U.S. is a free market society. They’re a free market when it comes to real estate. They’re not going to put restrictions on seeing properties appreciate, seeing rents appreciate.

44:37
Robert Chadwick
in certain states, there may be rent control and so forth, but don’t buy in there. You have 50 states to choose from. You have hundreds of cities. Find something that works for you and then buy that. Again, Kyle, you can translate into Canadian for me, but it’s unlimited.

44:57
Kyle Mazzuchin
Foreign buyers ban, guys, Canada, we got the ban now extended for another two years. To Robert’s point, free market over control. We don’t need to get into any further examples of that. So thank you very much, Robert, for that answer. A couple of other questions on a follow-up here. What are the fees that we charge and what are the rates of the current fees?

45:23
Robert Chadwick
we charge a very standard market rate of 2% of the loan transaction that is only paid at closing. If for whatever reason, you don’t fall into that 97%, you wouldn’t have to pay anything except for maybe the cost of the appraisal for the transaction. But you own that appraisal. We don’t own that appraisal. It’s yours. It’s very standard across the U.S. Interest rates for foreign nationals. I think the easiest way to figure it out is about 1% higher than what a U.S. citizen would pay if they were buying an investment property. Again, it’s dependent on the loan to value how you qualify, and so forth. But I think right now if you’re looking at rates in the eight, sometimes in the sevens, it’s still fantastic.

46:22
Robert Chadwick
We’ve been pushing this narrative for a while, and not to kind of go on a tangent, but interest rates will come down. In my personal opinion almost 30 years of mortgage lending, as we get closer to the election, will be used as a tool to boost the economy and confidence and so forth. It’s important to buy now. Once these rates come down, all of these people who have been sitting on these low-interest rates, owner-occupied properties that have wanted to upgrade, or all these people who have been waiting to buy their owner-occupied are just sitting on the sidelines. As soon as rates go down, property value is going to skyrocket again. And if you buy before that, you’re going to immediately see that and refinance later.

47:15
Kyle Mazzuchin
Yes. So speaking of skyrocketing, if you’re in Houston, you may have a problem near NASA, near Cape Canaveral in Florida. If the values are there, the rockets are going up, too. So take advantage if you can. Some other questions here. So, is there any prepayment penalty?

47:32
Robert Chadwick
Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s asked all the time. It makes sense, you would be concerned about it. On most investment properties, there’s anywhere from a three-year to a five-year prepayment penalty. This can be reduced, it can be bought down, so you can pay a fee to the lender to reduce it. I think when you talk to your loan officer, the most important thing is to just have clarity on what are you going to do with this property. I’m going to hold it for ten years. And really, the prepayment penalty doesn’t matter. If you’re going to hold it for a couple of years, then you structure it that way. And again, that’s what makes us good at what we do. And Kyle is fantastic.

48:18
Robert Chadwick
taking all the particulars of a client and finding out exactly what they want to do not just today, but what they want to do in the future with their investment property. We’re here for your journey, not just this one transaction. So certainly, there is a prepayment penalty. There are ways to mitigate it. There are options to even remove the prepayment penalty. But it’s important to look at what the process is and how you want to handle the property now and in the future.

48:47
Kyle Mazzuchin
Definitely. To our viewers, holistic conversations are critical to making sure that we understand your future and what your investments are going to look like. I’m not putting the bank hand at all, by any means. I’m just using our experience as an organization and a relative experience to emphasize the confidence that we need to ask, what does the future look like for you when going through these transactions, then we’ll provide you with the best avenue possible to, bankers term, mitigate what the future would look like for the customers. A couple more questions here. How about restaurant businesses with the property? The rent is 14 grand, asking price of two million. How do we calculate it?

49:37
Robert Chadwick
Kyle, you’re generating some great questions. This is something we’ve received many times, not just in restaurants, but gas stations seem to be a very keen thing to acquire. Unfortunately, we only do real estate lending. So if you want to buy a restaurant, it’s possible to be able to lend on that building that that restaurant is in. But being able to provide a business loan to purchase that restaurant, some options are probably out there. It’s just not something that we deal with.

50:14
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. Another question. Can you get a mortgage in a U.S. C Corp?

50:22
Robert Chadwick
yes, not the mortgage. You can hold the title in a C Corp if that’s what you choose. Kyle had stated this a few times. It’s important to talk to your accountant and see what’s the best structure. When you say, can you get a mortgage in a C Corp? the mortgage itself is given to the individual. So whoever the borrower is, that’s actually who has the mortgage. How the title of the property is held, is what can be in an entity. So again, if you don’t have a CPA, we have an awesome CPA that we use regularly that much like us has expertise in foreign nationals and U.S. expats.

51:13
Robert Chadwick
So if you want the referral, you can go to our website and go to our concierge page, or you can message or email Kyle directly, and he can give you the CPA’s contact.

51:23
Kyle Mazzuchin
or even WhatsApp.

51:26
Robert Chadwick
Yes, exactly.

51:29
Kyle Mazzuchin
Any sort of tool. We got four more on the go here down the list. What are our commercial mortgage rates and how many basis points over the ten-year treasury?

51:43
Robert Chadwick
Again, good question. We do have a commercial loan specialist on duty. He spent ten years doing commercial mortgages at Wells Fargo. American citizen, living in Asia, super knowledgeable. I would suggest after this webinar, you reach out to Kyle or reach out to our company, and we’re happy to put you in touch with Nick. Again, I probably should know this right off, but I don’t. I apologize. And again, that’s the great thing. You have a question about Canada, how you structure it as a Canadian, you have a question about somebody in Europe, somebody in Asia. We have people all over the world, and that’s what makes us unique and makes us quite successful.

52:36
Kyle Mazzuchin
Good. Not answering your question, but we’ll be able to do it with some of the other individuals who are on our staff there. Another question here. So what is the maximum loan-to-value a Canadian can get on a DCR loan, Cash out refinance for two units or more?

52:56
Robert Chadwick
So if you’re looking to cash-out, you should be able to get 70%, assuming that the rents are sufficient to cover the debt servicing.

53:10
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. Next question. Does approval guarantee funds release? How reliable is it by itself and is it binding?

53:20
Robert Chadwick
Very good question. The initial approval letter that we receive or that we give to you after you provide us with all your documents is a pre-approval letter, meaning that we’ve gone through the process, we’ve put you into underwriting. The underwriter says, okay, based on what they provided, this loan will go through. Now, like anything in the world, there are always things that come up. Maybe there’s a question that they have on your bank statement. Maybe there’s a question about the property. So there is never a guarantee until the actual loan is funded. But if you go to the fact that we close 97% of our transactions, I think you’ve got a pretty good assurance of the loan funding.

54:12
Robert Chadwick
But again, working with experts like Kyle and the rest of the America Mortgages teams, the issues that many foreign nationals expats come into when they deal with a foreign bank or a local broker or some broker that they contact in the U.S., you’re likely not going to have with us. I’ll put it in an analogy. If you’re going to get your Volkswagen repaired, you’re not going to go to a Toyota dealer. Yeah, probably it’s a car. They’re going to be able to fix it. They know they work on cars every day, but they don’t work on Volkswagens every day. So it’s the same thing with a mortgage. Why would you go to obtain a foreign national mortgage from somebody who maybe sees 1 out of 100? Again, this is all we do.

55:08
Robert Chadwick
Sorry, going on a little bit of a tangent, but to answer your question, there’s no guarantee of funds release. But with a 97% close rate, I think you’ve got a really good team behind you and good assurance that it will fund.

55:25
Kyle Mazzuchin
Awesome. Thank you very much for putting that answer together. I think we’re down to the last two. Is it possible to know the approximate mortgage interest and brokerage fees I can expect when closing a mortgage with you in this market?

55:42
Robert Chadwick
So we answered that a little bit with another question. We charge the very standard 2% of the loan amount on a transaction. What makes the U.S. very transparent? And Kyle had sort of covered this in the very beginning. When you apply for a mortgage, within three days, you receive mortgage disclosures. Those mortgage disclosures break down all the costs of that loan. When you see this and you read this, if you’re comfortable with it, certainly the loan officer will go over it with you if you have questions. You acknowledge that. Okay, I understand this and this is okay. But the most important thing is when you go to sign your mortgage at closing, you’re not going to say like, “What the hell, Kyle? You told me it was x and now it’s y.” That absolutely won’t happen.

56:38
Robert Chadwick
The final figure, the final number has to be at the number that you agree to or below. When it comes to closing costs, it’s super transparent. When it comes to interest rates, I think probably the easiest way to calculate it is to look at what a U.S. citizen’s investment rate is and add about 1% to that, and that’ll give you a range. So I think right now we’re looking at in the eights and sometimes the high sevens. But with long amortizations, fixed interest only, it makes sense even at higher interest rates. And if the numbers work out, especially when you’re talking about the rental coverage loan, then it shouldn’t always be about the rate. It should be more about what am I buying this property at and what kind of yield can I get.

57:30
Kyle Mazzuchin
So, to answer in another way as well, holistic conversations are important. What’s most important to you? How are you holding in the asset? So, having these conversations during our calls is very important. And then the last question. If you have a good Canadian credit rating of more than 800, can you use that to qualify for better mortgage rates in the United States?

57:56
Robert Chadwick
Another good question. No. To make it Canadian, all we want to see is that you’re able to manage and you’re responsible for credit. And whether it’s your Canadian credit or credit in the UK or credit in Hong Kong, the most important thing for us is we look, are there defaults, are there foreclosures, are there bankruptcies? But the score, because they range depending on which country you’re in, unfortunately, and maybe it should be and maybe it will be considered in the future, but doesn’t impact the rate. The rate is determined really by the loan to value and how you qualify.

58:45
Kyle Mazzuchin
Excellent. So that’s all of our questions so far. Maybe we’ll just take a look in the chat here, and see if there are any comments. No comments there, but to look at other pieces. So everybody, my link, if you would like to book an appointment, is currently in the chat. Please copy and paste it or click on it. And then you can pick a time where you’re able to pick a time to speak with me as the VP of Canadian markets. I’m local to your time zone within four and a half, from Tofino, British Columbia to St. John’s, Newfoundland. And if you live anywhere near the North Pole, you can’t get a mortgage on an igloo. Then obviously, you can just go to our website as well.

59:32
Kyle Mazzuchin
We do have other languages as well, from Spanish to many other languages on our team, so we’ll be able to assist. We do have another Canadian living in Alberta as well on our team, so we can translate the American ease to Canadian ease in terms of that. Also, we do have another announcement to make. We do have another webinar in three weeks pertaining to property management. So we’re very excited about that. Hopefully, you all have found this to be an informative discussion. And thank you all very much for taking time out of your busy day. I know on the Pacific side, 4:30 to 5:30, everyone’s planning to go home. And on the east coast of Canada, we’re looking at about 7:30 to 8:30. So hopefully you found this to be informative.

01:00:32
Kyle Mazzuchin
If you’re interested in our mortgages, reach out to me, at [email protected]. Reach out to me at 778-838-9654. If you want to talk to Robert directly, he’s also readily available. Probably not many other companies have access to any of our senior leaders, so please be able to do that. Oh, looks like we have a couple more questions coming in., if you have an ITIN score, does it get you better rates?

01:01:01
Robert Chadwick
It could. Not only could it get you better rates, it might even be able to get you a higher loan to value. So I think that’s something that you discuss with the loan officers, depending on the programs that you choose.

01:01:17
Kyle Mazzuchin
And then our last question that just came in, can we get a copy of today’s presentation?

01:01:22
Robert Chadwick
Yes. Well, this webinar will probably be available post-editing in maybe a week, and it will get sent out to everybody who had joined and also people who maybe had joined that weren’t able to attend the meeting. But it’s also on our website, so it’ll be loaded onto the website. You can find it on our YouTube channel. There’s a variety of ways to see it. But not just this webinar. We’ve done about 100 webinars. So whether you want to learn about taxes, immigration, EB-5, mortgage financing for commercial properties, or whatever it may be, you’ll probably be able to find that webinar.

01:02:13
Kyle Mazzuchin
Very cool. And then also, our first Canadian webinar for American investing. It’s the first. So, very proud, as the second largest investment country to the U.S. We’re now over. So thank you all very much for your time. Please again, contact us at www.americamortgages.com, [email protected], or 778-838-9654. Thank you all very much and have a wonderful evening.

01:02:45
Robert Chadwick
Thank you, everyone. Thank you, Kyle, for having me

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Disclaimer: This transcript is AI-generated, so kindly pardon any transcription or grammatical errors that may be present.