SSN, excellent cscore but income now $CDN - need US broker!

I'm hoping someone here might be able to give me some advice. I am a Canadian citizen, married to an American citizen, and split my time between Canada and California. My partner and I are trying to get a joint mortgage on a primary home in California. Having spent over 5 years living in California myself, I have a SSN with an excellent credit score (>760), as does my American partner. The catch is that my American husband, who lives and works in the U.S., already has a mortgage on a home that we plan on renting out, so the primary focus of any lender will be on my financial picture in the joint mortgage application. The issue is that 100% of my income is now from a Canadian employer in $CDN. This is a first home for me, and my credit score on the Canadian side is excellent and I make excellent income.

We would like to get a joint mortgage loan in the U.S., but most lenders will not deal with us because I am making $CDN income. I was wondering if anyone here has any advice, recommendations, or leads on any US-based brokers with experience helping Canadians getting a US mortgage? We thought that our excellent US credit scores, valid SSNs, healthy finances, and the fact that my husband is a US citizen and that we both have steady 6-digit paying jobs would be sufficient, but we're finding out that despite all of this, many lenders won't touch us because the largest portion of our steady income is from a Canadian employer. Help!!!

The usual advice is to get the mortgage in Canada, because it protects you from changes in the exchange rate if you're paid in Canadian dollars, however if you're not resident here I doubt you could get one.

To be honest I'm not quite sure what the problem is, if you're resident in the US then you must be on a US payroll and be paying US taxes, so you must have a W-2. What currency it's denominated in should be irrelevant. The W-2s and copies of your 1040s should be sufficient with the exchange rate calculated, sounds discriminatory to me, but the banks are being incredibly tight-fisted at the moment.

Hi Steven - thanks for the reply. I need to clarify my situation as it's a bit more complicated than that... While I still claim residency in the US (and spend at least 50% of my time there at the moment), I fill in as a physician at hospitals in Canada, and so my wages are paid in $CDN and issued on T-4s linked to my Canadian SIN and not my US-SSN. Hence I file taxes in both countries. I guess I was hoping it wouldn't be so difficult to get a mortgage on the US-side (in addition to the benefits of not having to deal with exchanging $CDN to $USD with a Canadian mortage)....

The usual advice is to get the mortgage in Canada, because it protects you from changes in the exchange rate if you're paid in Canadian dollars, however if you're not resident here I doubt you could get one.

To be honest I'm not quite sure what the problem is, if you're resident in the US then you must be on a US payroll and be paying US taxes, so you must have a W-2. What currency it's denominated in should be irrelevant. The W-2s and copies of your 1040s should be sufficient with the exchange rate calculated, sounds discriminatory to me, but the banks are being incredibly tight-fisted at the moment.

But you're being paid in Canadian dollars so just leave enough in Canada to pay the mortgage and set up a direct debit. Both are denominated in Canadian dollars so I don't see the problem, unless you're planning on quitting your job.

If you're resident in the US and working in Canada, you have to file a 1040 in the US and a non-resident T1 in Canada. So the advice I guess would be take copies of your non-resident T1s for the last few years and T4s into a Canadian bank and see if they'd be willing to give you a mortgage. Worth a try. I doubt they will because you're non-resident but you never know. Try one with a US branch in California, they might be more trusting. RBC and BMO have US divisions, not sure if they are registered in California though.

Obviously a US bank is simply not going to understand what a non-resident T1 or T4 is. In the past I suspect you could have convinced them with copies of 1040s and your 1116 foreign tax credit claims, but at the moment they're being utterly paranoid.

In current situation, all Canadian banks have unwritten instruction not to give mortgage outside Canada.

If you contact top 3 banks in US who have a tie up with a third party ( at least two have such ability) to pull Canadian credit history. When you fill application, make it point to give your Canadian SIN # and not SSN to help complete that.

Once completed, you chances of getting credit from US banks are far higher than Canadian banks.

In current situation, all Canadian banks have unwritten instruction not to give mortgage outside Canada.

So there's no instruction then. There have been a couple of people on here who've said they've gotten Canadian mortgages for vacation homes in the US so it must be possible.

Thanks for all the feedback. We are working on seeing if we can get a mortgage on the US side first... RBC unfortunately is setup in the southeast US (Alabama/Florida/etc) and BMO is centered around Illinois it seems. A fellow on this board recommended HSBC so we may give them a try as well. Barring that, I may see what I can do with getting a Canadian loan then!

When I first moved to the U.S. I dealt with Wells Fargo as they had the ability to pull a credit report for both Canada and the U.S. They did ask for both my SSN and SIN.

Until Spring 2008 I lived in Southern California and Wells Fargo is huge! Check them out as they might be able to make it happen.

Just an update - well, the problem has evolved surprisingly into something else. I was able to qualify for a Fannie/Freddie conventional loan here in California with a lender who could use both my Canadian SIN and US SSN credit histories... except that (halfway through my escrow now) their underwriter now tells us that they can no longer qualify the loan because the single-family dwelling rowhome we are trying to buy (a 'condo-cloud' as we call it in southern california, single dwelling, fee-simple, no condo/HOA fees, but part of 4 separate units that were built together and share a 5-feet 'cloud of air' above the roof of the complex thus giving it a cloud-condo designation which allows builders here in California to build more rowhome units onto an originally single parcel of land) is one of 4 units, 2 of which are rented and 2 are being sold - and hence the complex does not satisfy the 75% occupancy requirement for Fannie/Freddie! So now we're rushing to try to find some sort of in-house loan with any bank, but most, once-again, can't bother to deal with having to check on both US and Canadian credit histories.... *sigh*. I'm still holding out hope that RBC can come through. We are trying the seller's local preferred lender now as well (since they recently provided a loan for the same mirror condo-cloud unit for the same seller, but I am less hopeful as they didn't seem keen on having to work with Canadian credit histories). HSBC I see has withdrawn recently from the home loan business in the US.

Oh, and we just contacted Wells Fargo today as well. sadly - no go; not because of the Canadian angle, but because of the condo-cloud situation!! They said that they couldn't do anything for us as the strict occupancy requirements >=75% for our condo-cloud-classified unit (which isn't really a condo but they can't seem to get around it) placed by Fannie would prevent them from being able to get us a loan that their underwriter would accept I just made calls to Harris Bank (the BMO subsidiary here in the US) and Downey Savings (now part of US Bank) - both no go for the same reason - the only loans they can provide would also have to satisfy Fannie-Mae condo-occupancy rates. The Canadian part never even came up or was an issue in these cases!

Thanks in advance for any other suggestions. It's certainly a frustrating situation - with a combined $400k/a income and willingness to put down up to 30% as a downpayment, we still can't seem to get a loan *sigh*.

When I first moved to the U.S. I dealt with Wells Fargo as they had the ability to pull a credit report for both Canada and the U.S. They did ask for both my SSN and SIN.

Until Spring 2008 I lived in Southern California and Wells Fargo is huge! Check them out as they might be able to make it happen.

Thanks for all the feedback. We are working on seeing if we can get a mortgage on the US side first... RBC unfortunately is setup in the southeast US (Alabama/Florida/etc) and BMO is centered around Illinois it seems. A fellow on this board recommended HSBC so we may give them a try as well. Barring that, I may see what I can do with getting a Canadian loan then!

I bank with RBC and I am in the same situation, Canadain looking for a mortgage in the US. They did offer a mortgage even though I was looking to buy in Oklahoma where there are no RBC branches. I was told by one of their mortgage experts that it wouldn't be a problem. The only catch for me was a whopping great 20% deposit to avoid PMI. I imagine this was because I dont have a greencard yet and I would not qualify for PMI. This huge downpayment was not an option for me unfortunately, so I didnt persue this route any farther. But maybe you want to check further with them.