Buying a home in America can be a daunting endeavor for just about anyone. Moving across states, or maybe from one coast to the other, makes it incrementally more difficult. And buying from half a world away will introduce several more unique logistical hurdles that you might not have even thought about.
Here's 5 of the biggest challenges you can expect to encounter when buying a home from abroad -- and coincidentally, the Top 5 ways that Onwing can fly-in to assist!
#1 - Timing is Everything
Your physical house hunting time could be extremely limited (to non-existent) and require significant travel and expense. It is important to make most efficient use of any time that you have. You should not go into it with an information gathering, exploration kind of mindset, but rather a 'mission-focused' mindset after having completed >90% of the necessary research in advance to narrow down 1) What location you want to live, 2) What criteria your home must meet, 3) What budget and purchasing power you have. The preparation phase can begin months to years ahead of your expected duty station rotation date, and Onwing is state-licensed to advise and assist clients in each of the above considerations.
#2 - Sight Unseen Landmines
The reality is you may end up purchasing a home that you've never had the ability to physically walk through yourself. The good news is, technology and industry norms have evolved to accommodate remote homebuyers with the mainstream adoption of virtual tours and other high-tech alternatives. But it's important the technology is used by reps that have YOUR best interests at heart. Just as important is that you have a well-communicated and thought-out strategy for how to conduct remote viewings that occur before an offer is made, as well as any deeper inspections made during escrow. Impromptu FaceTimes with your real estate agent may not cut it, and could lead to unpleasant surprises after closing that no homebuyer wants to contend with.
#3 - Do Long-Distance Relationships Really Work?
Well maybe they can sometimes, but they're almost certainly harder...and the same can be said when it comes to the multiple people you'll discover 'helping' you purchase your home. Real estate agents, loan brokers, loan processors and underwriters, inspectors, appraisers, escrow agents. You may get overwhelmed by the number of people involved in making your home purchase happen. That's part of the nature of today's real estate transactions. Unfortunately, the greater distance involved with completing transactions from abroad can make your relationships with these deal facilitators (even your own real estate agent) feel impersonalized. It can become easy to feel like just one of many clients that your hired 'team' is ushering through the deal process while already looking for their next business leads. Part of the value of working with Onwing is that we commit to making our client relationships feel personal in a way that is really only achievable by working where our clients live. We don't want to let our clients ever doubt who is working for them and has their best interests at heart.
#4 - Time Zone Follies
Not all real estate professionals are accustomed to working with clients living in vastly different time zones from their own. Some of what you might experience: incorrectly scheduled meetings, tele-meetings at inconvenient times of day for either yourself or the other party, longer turnaround times to emailed inquiries, more missed calls, incorrectly dated documents, longer snail-mail shipping times, and more. Some of these may just be nuisances that can be powered through, while some may result in unforeseen delays that can put a deal in jeopardy. In contrast, the Onwing team is used to operating where its clients live and accustomed to working through time zone differences with other service providers in order to make a deal progress smoothly.
#5 - Cultural Barriers (to Wedded Happiness)
There are vast cultural differences in the way people around the world view real estate as a personal investment. For some, a home is simply a place to live, while in America it is also commonly viewed as a vehicle to building long-term wealth and prosperity. These differences in perspective, when not understood by those making a joint decision together (i.e. a married couple of different national origins) can cause friction in a relationship and make it difficult to reach agreement over a home purchase. It's even more pronounced if there are language barriers making it harder to understand the technical language of real estate and finance laws involved with buying a home. At Onwing, we have native Japanese-speaking team members that can help with explanations in ways that will likely elude non-fluent agents that are not well-versed in real estate perspectives outside of the United States.
Request Your Onwing Now
We know that our business model is a little unconventional. Buyers may think that everyone representing them should be firmly established in the neighborhoods they are moving to. But at Onwing, we believe the biggest keys to success in any transaction are having relationships created with trust and good communications. From there, the rest is fairly easy by leveraging available technologies combined with our industry knowledge and networks. We think we can achieve all that better than our CONUS-based competition by being right where our clients currently live.
Please reach out to Onwing Expat Realty, or follow us, to see how we can help you overcome the challenges of buying a home while serving abroad. It is never too soon to start talking about it, and our consultations are 100% free!
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Have you experienced your own challenge(s) buying a home from overseas? Please post...we'd love to hear about it!