Many people on the Internet talk about precautions. Some of them have no practical experience or experience in rental management, so they just follow what others say and speak in general terms. Practical things to note when buying a house in the United States:
1. Things to note when choosing a house
A. Things to note about house prices: Select a property based on your own preferences and requirements. You can first look for an apartment on Zillow and Trulia. You must first determine your own conditions, such as housing prices. For example, if you want to buy a house in Los Angeles, house prices in good school districts in Los Angeles are generally US$800,000 to US$1 million, and in San Marino are around US$1.5 million, so it is necessary to understand the housing prices. We have met many people who want to buy a house in a good school district in Los Angeles with only $300,000. This is impossible, so it is necessary to find out the housing prices in each city. You can see Stars and Stripes Real Estate's "American Housing Price White Paper".
If you are not sure about the city where you want to buy a house, then go to Zillow and Trulia to look at houses in various cities. There are numbers such as price, area, quotation, school district, etc.
House prices depend on surrounding house prices and historical transaction prices. This can show the real and fake house prices of some houses in China that are rented for 2 to 6 years. For example, some properties were bought for US$2,000 and sold to customers for US$80,000. They were said to be leased for 2 years, with an annual net return of US$7. There is a huge difference in historical housing prices, and the surrounding housing prices are around 2,000, so if you buy it for 80,000 US dollars, you will suffer a big loss.
B. Notes on leasing: In addition, leasing is generally for the entire community. In the United States, all the houses in the entire community are bought, and the price is very low. It must be a ghost town in a black area. Because there is no way to rent it out for a long time, it is solved by chartering.
And exploit the ambiguity of chartering. The essence of chartering is that it is easy to rent, which means that it is guaranteed to be easy to rent, and it means that it is definitely easy to rent. According to this expectation, the house should be rentable for 100 years. So this is the opposite, so chartering in general is not worth buying.
There are some large developers in the United States and Europe who have chartered properties, but the rental returns from their chartered properties are very low, which is normal. It is impossible for large developers and brands to provide a net rental return higher than 6, which is generally between 4 and 5. C. Notes on school districts: The school districts above zillow are the most important to pay attention to. Many people only look at a score of 9 or 10 and think it is a good school. This is a misunderstanding. 9 and 10 points are relative, not absolute. It is evaluated by parents and compared to local and school expectations. For example, a school with a score of 10 in Atlanta is generally not as good as a school with a score of 9 in Los Angeles. This 10 points was given by parents of local students in Atlanta. They originally thought it was okay, but who knew that this school exceeded expectations. So the parents gave it a 10-point rating. Many real estate agents don't know this because they only deal with one city in the United States, so their vision is narrow.
D. Demographic considerations: You cannot buy in black areas. The way to check the population is to search population movoto zip code on Google. The movoto website is a well-known population website in the United States. It has unique information such as population, income, vehicles, age, etc. for each zip code. The population consists of whites, blacks, and Asians. Generally, 60% of the population is considered white. This method is unique to Stars and Stripes Real Estate. If a house selling for tens of thousands of dollars in China is in a black area, you cannot buy it.
E. Roof precautions: Roofs in the United States generally need to be repaired every 15 years. Therefore, when choosing a house, even if you buy it in an old city like Boston, you should pay attention to the roof problem. If it's not written above, you can ask your agent. If your agent asks you to ask the seller's agent or the seller.
F. Note on orientation: Because many photos of houses are facing the front, it is impossible to tell whether it faces south or north. This can be a satellite view or a bird's eye view. You can ask for it when choosing a house. Chinese people generally like to face south. Although many houses are good-looking, there are many west-facing houses in the United States, so you cannot buy them based on photos alone. If the agent or domestic salesperson has not been to the United States
G, Feng Shui Things to note: Americans have no concept of Feng Shui and don’t care that much about orientation.
One of us has a dryer, so we can dry our clothes outside. But the Chinese have Feng Shui concepts such as the road facing the road, the water facing to the south, and the mountain on the back. Many people buy houses based solely on pictures, which may not be to the Chinese people’s liking. This depends on whether the agent actually inspects the property and whether he is responsible.
H. Things to note in the community: When choosing a house, there are usually property fees on zillow and brokerage websites. If the property fees are higher, generally speaking, the community is more noble. Try to buy a better neighborhood at the same price. Some communities have 24-hour security, and some communities have casual access. When choosing a house, you need to know the community clearly.
I. Property tax considerations: Property taxes in the United States are adjusted every year in some cities, and in some cases every few years. Due to the subprime mortgage crisis in the United States, housing prices have dropped, but property taxes in many places have not changed much. For example, for a $100,000 house, the property tax is $2,000. The real estate tax in most places in the United States is 1. Except for California, New York, and Texas, where the real estate tax is higher, and the real estate tax in Hawaii is very low, 0.24, it is generally 1. Therefore, the previous value of the house price was 200,000 US dollars. Property taxes are estimated by government personnel. It is estimated based on the house and land.
Many people say how terrible property taxes are. He said that he would buy a new house every year for 1,100 years. This calculation is wrong. First of all, there will be inflation in 100 years, and money will become increasingly devalued. It is impossible for the US dollar to never depreciate in 100 years. Secondly, house prices will change. In 100 years, house prices may grow from $20,000 to $300,000. In many parts of the United States, a house that cost $20,000 in 1930 now costs more than $300,000, and some are even higher.
The property tax in the United States contributes to housing prices. It can be seen from Lang Xianping's "American Property Tax" that property tax is used for community improvement, school teachers, etc., not for corruption.