Re-financing a mortgage when you now live in the UK

Hello all and thanks in advance!

We moved to the UK three years ago, and have been renting out our house in the US ever since. I spoke to a mortgage broker about getting a new loan, but they said that nobody will lend to us because our income is now foreign.

Anybody have any suggestions on where to turn? Seems crazy because the house pays for itself on rent alone, but they said banks won't lend based on foreign incomes.

Help please!

Do you need to refinance?

Hello all and thanks in advance!

We moved to the UK three years ago, and have been renting out our house in the US ever since. I spoke to a mortgage broker about getting a new loan, but they said that nobody will lend to us because our income is now foreign.

Anybody have any suggestions on where to turn? Seems crazy because the house pays for itself on rent alone, but they said banks won't lend based on foreign incomes.

Help please!

Depending on your savings, some banks *might* have programs for foreign borrowers. I know my old bank, HSBC, focused on international customers and had an option for international borrowers - the catch is I believe those loans were only for their primary residence in the US or secondary homes, not investment property, but that could have changed. So I'd do some shopping around and speaking with loan officers at banks with large international customer bases and you might get lucky. The rates will likely be higher due to the risk involved in lending to foreign borrowers with foreign income though. Here's a link to their international mortgage page: https://www.us.hsbc.com/1/2/home/personal-banking/mortgages/international

Hi,

I can't exactly speak to the UK/US situation, but my experience might be of help to you.  I owned a house in Denver when I got a job in Savannah.  My plan had been to sell after I got settled down there but 2008 had other plans for me.  Needless to say, I couldn't sell, so I rented.  But, I had an ARM and a second with an insane interest rate, because I had to do so many repairs when I bought the place.  To try to get control over my financial life, I tried to refinance, and I couldn't.  Even though I was only renting in Savannah, they considered my house a "second home" which I didn't have the income to support.  When I said I had renters in it, they told me income property is refinanced differently, and I needed to show 3 years of solid income from the property on my taxes.  Long story short, my renters trashed the place and skipped town. I actually wound up quitting my job and moving back to Denver because of it, although it was no great loss, as I wasn't really happy in Savannah in the first place.  I was able to refinance once I got back and settled in the house, and now have a great rate that will never change.  Still, I could have refinanced if I had a record of income from the property.

This time, I am turning the rental over to a property manager, and will be getting enough to cover all the bills and be able to put some aside for repairs.  Now I just need to figure out how to do my taxes with all this...

I hope that helped in some way.  Good luck though, and I hope you can do the refi.  One note, if you have or could have USAA, because they deal with service members and foreign postings, they actually have a lot of stuff they can do banking-wise on an international level.  I can actually get a car loan for a UK vehicle as soon as I arrive.  They will even help me with the actual purchase.