You have three options in the United States:

• Rent an apartment or a house.
• Purchase an apartment or a house.
• Build your own house.

Let us consider the advantages and disadvantages of each of these three options.

1. Renting an Apartment or a House

Almost everyone arriving in the USA experiences this option. The cost of rent depends upon the number of bedrooms in the apartment (house) and its location. The difference in cost may be very significant. For example: you can rent a very decent flat with two bedrooms in Las Vegas in a good district for $1000 per month. The same flat in San Francisco in a district of approximately the same level won’t cost less than $2300 a month. Thus, the approximated cost of rent of your apartment is somewhere in the middle. Add approximately 25% of the rent cost for each extra bedroom. If the apartment is already furnished, add another 10-15% extra.

If you rent an apartment, you have to sign an agreement for one year with an opportunity of automatic extension every year. But you have to pay for the first and the last month of residence at once, i.e. for two months. Besides that, you have to give your landlord an insurance deposit – an amount which is to be returned to you when you move out. The cost for flat cleaning after you move out, glasses you broke, etc. will be deducted from that amount. The amount of that deposit is usually close to the monthly apartment rent cost. Therefore, coming to the USA, you have to know at once how much an apartment rent will cost and be ready to have the money in hand.

If you have decided to reside in San Francisco, you need to have approximately $6,900 to rent an apartment. In Las Vegas it is $3,000, and in Los Angeles that’s $4,500. Household running costs will amount to $200 – $250 per month. Phone bills will run up to $30-$40 per month, not including your international calls and Internet. Besides that, you are moving into an apartment with no furniture except for the kitchen (with all the facilities) and a bathroom. So, you will need a certain amount to buy your furniture (table, bed) and domestic appliances (phone, TV-set). All together, you might spend a minimum of $ 3,000 – $5.000. The main disadvantage is that the money you have paid for rent is lost for you forever.

Our company can rent an apartment for you before your arrival and help you with rent on arrival to the USA.

2. Purchase of an Apartment or a House

Some of our clients ask us to purchase a house or an apartment for them before their arrival to the USA. We do not recommend doing that as almost always those who purchased an apartment or a house in advance are dissatisfied with the purchase since they have not seen the house for themselves. What you imagine and what is real does not match well. So, we recommend that you purchase a house or an apartment on arrival.

When you purchase a house or an apartment there is a bank, providing finance, almost always at your service. In this case, you should have a good credit record and an income statement. If you do not have a credit record and are unable to show a stable source of income to the bank, the bank will not finance your house more than 50% of its cost. This means that you will have to deposit a large amount for the initial payment.

The United States is currently facing a mortgage crisis. On the one hand it is good, as you will manage to purchase a flat or a house cheaper than the market price is. But on the other hand, due to loans issuance conditions toughening, nobody will issue you a loan for more than 50% of the apartment cost since you are a foreigner. At the same time, the bank might give you a high interest rate since you have no credit record yet. For example, if you purchase a house and take a loan at 6% per annum, you will be paying back, for example, $ 1500 a month for15 years. With financing of the same amount, but at 12% per annum, you will be paying back $1500 a month but for 30 not 15 years. Be ready to understand what these figures mean since this is a critical financial decision.

Many people may object and point out that in a year or two, the house can be refinanced at better interest. Yes, it can, but according to the US law, first of all you have to pay back the interest on the loan, and then the cost of the house. Thus, in the first 2-3 years you are not paying the house cost, but the interest of the bank for the loan. In registering a house, you have to deposit a significant amount (several thousand dollars) for registration, and annual property duty makes several thousand dollars in the majority of the states, and, besides that, you need a minimum amount of $15,000 – $20,000 to furnish the house (which will be gladly provided to you by the same bank at extortionate rates).

So, if you do not have a large amount of money, which you can pay to buy a house, we do not recommend purchasing a house at once. In our opinion, it makes sense to buy a house a couple of years after arriving in the country when you already have a certain credit record, and the most importantly – a permanent source of income. In this case, you will not have to deposit more than 10% of the house cost at once, and banks will fight for the right to provide you with finance at minimum interest rate (5.5 – 6.0 %).

One of advantages of this option is that you can write off the money, which you have paid to the bank as interest, from your taxes. Although we are not in the real estate industry, we can recommend a number of serious companies to you, having wide selection of houses and apartments in different regions of the country.

3. Construction of Your Own House

This is the option we usually recommend to our clients. This option has three main advantages as compared to the option of purchasing a ready house:

• You are purchasing a house of your dreams. You can choose the design of the house – you can increase the bedrooms space, change the dimensions and locations of bathrooms, add in-built wardrobes, arrange a big nursery room in the first floor, etc. You can also select which side your bedroom windows will face. Do you know how nice it is to enjoy the ocean view sitting on the balcony of your own house in California?

• You do not have to pay a large amount at once. But this option is accessible for you immediately on arrival in the USA. When the house is built, the bank will know in advance that this house in being built for you, and you will have time to get a credit record in this bank and show permanent sources of income to the bank. That is, high interest rates and large initial payments are out of the question. Besides, the awareness of you having built a house for your family and your great-grandchildren in the USA is priceless in itself.

• The house you will build will cost you 15-20% cheaper than the house you buy. By quality-price ratio, this option is no doubt the best.

How it happens in practice:

First stage. Procurement of land. You procure a piece of land in the district you like. Make a minimum payment.

Second stage. You choose the design you like, and introduce your changes into it.

Third stage. Several months before completion of the house you work with a designer and order the interior design that you like along with all the appliances, wallpapers, curtains, furniture for all the rooms, etc.

Fourth stage. Make additional minimum payment (not more than 10%) and move in. At the same time, you find yourself in a house where you can live at once, but not start a major repair, break walls, and think how to place all that stock of variegated things, which you brought from your apartment to make it look not that bad. Your wife won’t like that option much. If you are the wife, we are sure that this option is definitely for you. There is another nuance: for people confident that life is possible only in the centre of Manhattan (a district of skyscrapers in New York), alas, this option is almost unrealizable.

Our company is working with a number of companies in the US that will build the house of your dreams.

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