Whether an expat or not, one needs to be prepared to face a number of hassles when planning on property purchases, especially homes. All the paperwork related to the purchase, dropping of financing proposals to financial institutions and private investors, and constantly searching for good offers and better homes can leave you absolutely drained and hopeless.
Employing Expat Mortgage Brokers:
Here is where it becomes important for you to employ certain steps so as to avoid all the different mistakes that are common to expats. These mistakes are most often when expats directly approach banks for home loans. What you should be looking for is a way to overcome these mistakes or not to make them at all. Here is where the role of experienced and professional expat mortgages brokers, become prominent.
Some Common Mistakes Made by Expats:
Many expats want to finance their purchases themselves or appear in front of financial houses alone for approval of their home loans. Doing this, exposes these buyers to a number of situations that might not be in their favour or can make the situations far more difficult for them. Some of these mistakes often made by expats, looking to buy residential property, include-
• In- experience of the Banks:
Since banks are not commonly approached by expats living out of their own country for help with buying property in the native country, the banks often lack the required experience to support and finance such exceptional cases. The banks might end up charging an all over higher service fees or rate of interest in the return for providing you with financial support. This will lead you to paying more than what you should be and might as well blow your budget away. They might as well decline the project all together.
• Lack of Knowledge of Expats-
Banks hardly deal with temporary residents of their country or foreigners who want to invest in a property in their country. Since the chances to come across these proposals have been limited for the banks the knowledge and experience needed to deal with such cases has also been limited. The energy and the financial resources you spend on looking for a bank who might consider your proposal, can be better spent on looking for the perfect property and getting in touch with expert professionals like the expat mortgages brokers who will take care of all the nitty gritty affairs in relation to the money lenders.
• Examining your Borrowing Capacity-
Though you might live outside of the country you want to buy the property in, the banks will judge your income based on the native currency. They might even discount it by a certain percentage to eliminate the factor of currency fluctuations in both the countries. The banks will also deduct potential taxes from your total income to determine your actual income in their eyes, even if you live in a tax free zone. This will affect your borrowing capacity by a huge margin of almost $150,000.
There are a bunch of other difficulties that you might face when approaching the banks all by yourself, these include- incorrect calculation of funds and fees, lower interest rates but a very tricky agreement that leads you to pay more, situations where you might have to consider re-financing, etc. Expats should avoid these mistakes so more users attracted towards mortgage loans.