DO you own a house in America?

[thongd4me 69]

Hello all,

A quick question for all you VJers here. Do you and your foreign spouse own a house or plan on buying one? Please comment. Thanks.

Just curious because you haven't replied to any of the responses - are you trying to draw some connection between

home ownership by the petitioner and/or the beneficiary and success in the visa process? I own RE in partnership with

my family and she does too. That had nothing to do with our application's success as I did not disclose my ownership

while she did only partially (that which was connected to her household registration).

[christeen 966]

Hello!

I would recommend having your husband look at an FHA loan - especially for first time home buyer. The requirements are not as stringent and if he has an income to support it, and not bad credit, he should be approved.

I can recommend using Bank of America. They did wonders for us for our home loan. Just specifically ask about an FHA - first time home buyer... and you should be ok.

Talk to a loan officer

1.800.763.1255

Mon. - Fri. 8 a.m. - 11 p.m. ET

Sat. 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. ET

Sun. 9 a.m. - 5 p.m. ET

BOA said no, they require at least 6 months of creidt reporting, we opend a secured card through them... But I will specifically ask about the FHA... Thanks

[xd-data-ii 0]

No. and never will. Dont want to.

[FinnLove 0]

I've owned my house for almost 8 years, so my hubby will just move in here. He has no problems with that!

Christeen, that really sucks. The economy has screwed up everything. I refinanced my house right before we got married and it took forever. The big problem was my appraisal, since my home value went down almost 200k. I ended up getting three appraisals with two banks so it did eventually work. It's very, very hard to get loans or credit or anything for most people. I hope it'll get better for you.

[Kukolka 8]

I don't own a house. I recently moved back to my parents' house. My fiance and I plan to rent an apartment.

[DanielParul 50]

Daniel had a house in Dallas which he had purchased before we met. We bought a new one in both our names when we moved to Austin 2 months ago. The market is bad so even though we wanted to sell the house in Dallas, we have had to be content with leasing it out for now.

[Cacerez 19]

We married on April 20, 2009 and closed on our house May 30. It is in my name only as he did not even have his SS# yet and certainly didn't have any credit, job history in the US, etc.

I too am curious of the reason for this post??

[K and L 27]

We're not planning on buying a house any time soon. I'm a grad student, and he will be finishing his degree in the US. Maybe after one (or both of us) has been working for a year or two - but that's awhile off.

Edited January 20, 2010 by K and L

[NigeriaorBust 4,087]

We currently own 3, 2 in the US and one in his home country, we are shopping for #4 in the US and looking into building #5 in his home country.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

My husband already owned our house before we started dating so when we married and I moved in it became our house.

[teddy000 0]

Just curious because you haven't replied to any of the responses - are you trying to draw some connection between

home ownership by the petitioner and/or the beneficiary and success in the visa process? I own RE in partnership with

my family and she does too. That had nothing to do with our application's success as I did not disclose my ownership

while she did only partially (that which was connected to her household registration).

No, that is not why I asked. I was really bored and thought of posting this question. My hubby and I will be buying soon and so I thought of bragging about it here. Thank you for the responses.

[Gemmie 142]

No, we're finding it hard enough trying to establish a credit history to rent an apartment!

Seems like everyone wants a good credit history plus a big income. Both myself (the immigrant) and my husband have limited credit history so we're looking at getting a secured credit card to build some, and hoping to put down a bigger deposit on an apartment instead.

Buying a house will be when we feel financially and mentally ready (we're still deciding on where to settle).

[Darnell 8,478]

WHERE I LIVE, actually, is old rustic farm house on 2 acres, in town, leased. She won't live here, she's a city girl Is great Bachelor cave, though

So last year, I picked up 3 foreclosures , in 3 parts o town (Chinatown, Medical Center, and the Museum District ), fixed them up myself (permits are fun, d@mmit) and a 4th house north of town. I rented them all out (I like to live on my micro-farm) - but - when she comes in country -

she's gonna decide which house to live in, then we roll the other 3 houses into a REIT.

We also have a flat in Chengdu, another in Wuhan, but those are 'family attached' through her families there...

I was lucky - nothing was done with a mortgage.

Edited January 21, 2010 by Darnell

[britbird 4]

Yeah, we bought a place - cheaper than renting and we got a nice low fixed interest rate! Huzzah!

Things I have learned:

Basements, while nice in theory, can be a real pain in the ####.

Home inspectors are mostly useless

Avoid popcorn ceilings at all costs if in older homes

Just because they put in a fancy pants load of granite and stainless steel appliances doesn't mean they did a good job

Make sure your dryer is properly vented

Make sure your upstairs bathroom fan is actually connected to the outside world

Errr there are plenty more. But it's nice to have your own place

Edited January 22, 2010 by britbird

[kaffy 2]

We just bought our first home. Took advantage of the down market, low interest rates and FTHB tax credit