Buying US residential property from Singapore: what you need to know first

Researched and written 2026-09-29 14:10 SGT · 18 sources listed at the end · draft 1 · figures verified against the named sources on the date shown; where a source has since moved, the element carries a marker.

Nobody in Singapore needs a licence to buy a house in Ohio. That is the first surprise for most readers coming from the Singapore property system: there is no LDAU approval, no ABSD ladder by citizenship, no MOP, and CPF is simply switched off. The second surprise is less pleasant. The country that will not stop you from buying also will not treat you gently if you are not one of its own when you die owning the house, when you rent it out, or when you sell it. This page follows the purchase in order: the mechanics, who is actually gated and by what, the taxes on both sides of the Pacific, the borrowing, renovation and control, the closing process, the estate-tax cliff that catches almost every Singapore-based buyer, the operator's own twelve-question frame for what this actually is as a financial position, the business-owner angle, and what the agents in this chain earn. It is a draft, and it says plainly where sources disagree or where I could not confirm something. It is not legal, tax or financial advice — a US purchase needs a US-qualified real estate attorney or title company and a cross-border tax adviser before you sign anything.

The short version

• 1. No federal law stops a Singaporean, PR or anyone else from buying US residential property. The gate is money and US tax status, not citizenship or approval.
• 2. CPF cannot be used at all, for any part of the purchase. The whole cost is cash or a loan.
• 3. Whether you are a 'US person' or a 'Non-Resident Alien' (NRA) for US tax purposes is the single most consequential fact about you on this page.
• 4. The US estate tax exclusion for an NRA on US-situs assets, including this house, is USD 60,000 — not the roughly USD 15m a US citizen gets. There is no US-Singapore treaty to soften it.
• 5. Rental income defaults to a flat 30% withholding on the gross rent unless you elect to be taxed on the net, which needs a US tax ID and an annual US return.
• 6. When you eventually sell, FIRPTA requires your buyer to withhold up to 15% of the price and send it to the IRS before you see the rest.
• 7. Whether buying now counts against you the next time you buy in Singapore, for ABSD purposes, is disputed and I could not settle it from IRAS directly.

How the mechanics work

There is no Option to Purchase in the US system. A buyer, usually working with a buyer's agent who has access to the local Multiple Listing Service, makes a written offer that becomes a purchase and sale agreement once the seller accepts it. An earnest money deposit, held by a neutral third party, signals you are serious. The contract usually carries contingencies: a home inspection, an appraisal if you are financing, and financing itself. Closing runs through a title or escrow company — an attorney in some states, a title company in others — which searches the title, clears liens, issues a title insurance policy, and only then transfers funds and records the deed. There is no Singapore-style stamp duty regime on a US purchase; instead, closing costs of 2% to 5% of the price cover loan origination, appraisal, title search, title insurance, recording, and in some states a transfer tax and attorney fees. A settlement company's own closing fee commonly runs USD 1,650 to USD 2,500.

BSD, ABSD and SSD do not apply here. Those are Singapore stamp duties on Singapore property, and a purchase in the US does not trigger any of them — the analogous costs on the US side are the closing costs above, plus whatever transfer tax the state or county levies, which varies by location and is not covered in the detail this page gives to Singapore duties elsewhere on the site. What you should not assume is that a US purchase is invisible back home: see the ABSD property-count question below.

You are not alone in this market, though the pool is shrinking. Foreign buyers purchased 67,100 existing US homes worth USD 45.3 billion in the year to March 2026, down 14% in volume and 19.1% in dollar value on the year before. Florida took 20% of that activity, California 19%, Texas 12%. Canada is the largest source by count, Mexico second, China third by count but largest by dollars spent. Singapore is not a named country in NAR's breakdown of the largest sources, which tells you this page is written for a smaller, more particular group of buyers than the market as a whole.

Eligibility: what actually gates you

Compare this with a Good Class Bungalow, where the Residential Property Act and ministerial approval decide before price is even discussed. Nothing like that exists here. No federal law bars a foreign national from buying US residential property; no visa, green card or US residency is required. Federal oversight reaches only two narrower cases that will not touch an ordinary home purchase: agricultural land, which is reportable, and property near specified military or sensitive sites, reviewable by CFIUS. Since 2023, roughly three dozen states have passed laws restricting purchases by nationals of specific 'countries of concern' — mainly China, Russia, Iran and North Korea — and by anyone buying farmland or land near military bases. Singapore is not one of the named countries, so this body of law is not your gate. If you or a family member also hold another nationality that IS named, check the specific state before you offer.

CPF is switched off entirely. The CPF Board does not permit Ordinary Account savings to fund any part of a property outside Singapore — not the down payment, not foreign legal fees or transfer taxes, not the instalments. Every dollar comes from cash or a loan, which is why financing (below) matters more here than it does for a first HDB flat.

Your status: US Person or Non-Resident Alien — and, separately, Singapore tax resident or not

The Singapore version of this section asks whether you are a Citizen, PR, foreigner, or an FTA national taxed like a citizen. None of that machinery reaches a US purchase — ABSD's FTA parity for US, Swiss, Liechtenstein, Norwegian and Icelandic nationals is a rule about buying property IN Singapore and has no bearing here. The question that actually sorts you on this page is a US tax-law one: are you a 'US person' — a US citizen or green card holder, taxed by the US on worldwide income and estate wherever you live — or a 'Non-Resident Alien' (NRA), which is what most Singapore citizens and PRs buying a US house will be. A US person gets the roughly USD 15m unified estate and gift tax exemption available to citizens and domiciliaries in 2026. An NRA gets USD 60,000 on US-situs assets. That gap, not your Singapore citizenship status, decides how exposed this house makes you.

Layer Singapore tax residency on top, separately. If you are a Singapore tax resident, your foreign-sourced income — including this house's rent, once it is genuinely foreign-sourced and not run through a Singapore partnership or business — is generally exempt from Singapore tax under IRAS's framework, whether or not you remit it. One commercial guide warns this is not absolute and that unremitted overseas rental income should not be assumed tax-free without checking your specific facts; I could not reconcile that warning against a primary IRAS page this run, so get it checked rather than assumed. Singapore itself has no capital gains tax and abolished estate duty in 2008, so neither bites on this house from the Singapore side — the exposure is entirely on the US side, described below.

If you are a US citizen living in Singapore, two more things sit on you regardless of this house: there is no US-Singapore income tax treaty and no totalization agreement, so worldwide income (including this rental) is reportable to the IRS, offset only by the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion on earned income (not rental, which is passive) and the foreign tax credit, and CPF's US tax treatment for a US person is genuinely unsettled. None of that is specific to buying a house, but it means a US citizen in Singapore is already inside the US system this house adds real estate to, while an NRA is stepping into it for the first time through this one asset.

Taxes: purchase, holding, rental, and what happens when you sell

At purchase

No BSD, no ABSD, no stamp duty in the Singapore sense — see the mechanics section above for what actually applies (closing costs, and a state or county transfer tax that varies by location). FinCEN briefly required a Real Estate Report naming the beneficial owners behind any all-cash purchase by a legal entity or trust, effective 1 March 2026 with no minimum price; a federal court vacated that rule nationwide on 19 March 2026, so it does not currently apply if you buy in your own name or through cash via an entity. That could change again — check the current status before you close through anything other than your own name.

Holding: property tax

Property tax is where the US, unlike Singapore, has no single national schedule you can look up once. The national average effective rate is about 1.1% of assessed value, a median bill of roughly USD 2,690 — but Hawaii sits at 0.28% and New Jersey at 2.23% with a median bill of USD 8,809. Every state, usually every county, sets its own rate and its own reassessment rules, and renovation can trigger a reassessment. Get the actual rate for the specific address, not a national average, before you budget.

If you rent it out

By default, US-source rent paid to a nonresident alien is FDAP income — Fixed, Determinable, Annual or Periodical — taxed at a flat 30% of the GROSS rent, no deductions at all, typically withheld by the tenant or property manager before it ever reaches you. Most owners who plan to hold for any length of time instead elect under Section 871(d) to treat the rental as effectively connected income, taxed at the same graduated rates a US person pays, with mortgage interest, property tax, depreciation and maintenance all deductible. That election needs a US taxpayer ID (an ITIN, if you don't have one), a Form W-8ECI given to whoever pays the rent, and a US tax return filed every year the election runs. Depreciation, once the election is in place, runs straight-line over 27.5 years on the building only, not the land — a real, if non-cash, deduction that lowers the taxable income without lowering the rent you actually receive.

Estate: the USD 60,000 cliff

This is the single fact on this page most likely to surprise a Singapore-based buyer. A nonresident, non-domiciled individual can pass US-situs assets, including this house, up to USD 60,000 free of US federal estate tax — not indexed for inflation, unchanged for decades. Above that, the estate is taxed at 18% to 40%, using a fixed USD 13,000 unified credit, and the executor must file Form 706-NA. There is no US-Singapore estate or gift tax treaty to soften any of this. A US citizen or domiciliary, by contrast, gets a unified exemption of roughly USD 15m in 2026. On a median US home well above USD 60,000, an NRA's estate owes real US tax on death, in a currency and a jurisdiction your Singapore will has no authority over, and separately from whatever your Singapore estate does with everything else you own.

Gifting the house away during your lifetime is not a clean workaround either. An NRA can give US-situs real property free of US gift tax only up to the annual exclusion, USD 19,000 per recipient in 2025 and 2026 (a larger USD 194,000 exclusion applies to a non-citizen spouse in 2026), and has no lifetime exemption above that and cannot split gifts with a spouse the way a US person can. Gift tax applies from the first dollar over the exclusion — a harsher rule, in a way, than the estate side's USD 60,000 cushion.

The two structures people reach for are a US LLC and a foreign corporation, and they do not do the same job. A single-member US LLC that is disregarded for tax purposes does NOT shield the house from US estate tax — the IRS looks straight through it to the property, which stays US-situs. Holding through a foreign corporation, or a US LLC that elects to be taxed as one, does move the asset out of US-situs, because what you then own is shares, not the house — but the corporation pays a flat 21% federal tax on its own rental income with none of your personal deductions, loses the Section 121 home-sale exclusion entirely, and costs money to run. An irrevocable foreign grantor trust is the other route professionals use. None of this is a do-it-yourself decision; it needs a cross-border estate lawyer before you take title, not after.

On exit

When you sell, FIRPTA makes your BUYER the withholding agent: they must withhold 15% of the gross sale price and send it to the IRS, and you only get the difference back after filing a US tax return that reconciles the actual tax owed — not at closing. Two exceptions turn on the next buyer's plans, not yours: no withholding if they pay USD 300,000 or less and will use it as a residence, and a reduced 10% if the price is between USD 300,000 and USD 1,000,000 and they intend to occupy it for at least half the days in each of the first two years. Capital gains: Singapore has none either way. On the US side, an NRA is taxed on the gain through the FIRPTA-reconciled return; a US person may exclude up to USD 250,000 of gain (USD 500,000 married filing jointly) under Section 121 if the house was their main home for at least two of the last five years — a test most Singapore-based buyers of a US investment or education-support home will not meet.

Reporting, for completeness: FBAR and Form 8938 catch foreign financial accounts and certain foreign financial assets held by a US person, but neither currently requires directly-held foreign real estate to be separately reported — the house itself is not an FBAR or 8938 line item, though income and any account it generates might be. If you ever hold the property through a fund, REIT or similar pooled vehicle instead of directly, the PFIC rules become a live and unpleasant issue for a US-person holder; that is a fund-structure question this page does not go into, covered instead on the investing pages linked below.

Borrowing: cash, a US mortgage, or a Singapore bank's overseas loan

HDB vs bank does not apply — there is no HDB loan for a house in another country, so that whole Singapore framework is silent here. LTV, TDSR and MSR as MAS defines them are Singapore-specific tests on Singapore lenders financing Singapore property; they do not govern a US mortgage. What replaces them is the US lender's own underwriting, or a Singapore bank's separate overseas-property-loan product, each with its own rules.

A US lender serving foreign nationals typically advances 60% to 75% loan-to-value — a down payment of 25% to 40% — without a US credit score, priced and structured by programme: ITIN loans around 15% to 25% down, DSCR loans (underwritten on the property's own rental income rather than your personal income) around 20% to 30% down, foreign-national portfolio loans 25% to 40% down. If instead you hold a US green card or a valid work visa and will occupy the home, you qualify on the same Fannie Mae terms as a US citizen — a materially better deal, and one reason status matters twice on this page: once for tax, once for financing. As of late September 2026 the US 30-year fixed rate averaged 7.03%, the highest in over a year. Unlike Singapore's floating-rate convention, a 30-year FIXED rate is the US market's own default; foreign-national programmes may price differently, so ask specifically.

From the Singapore side, OCBC runs an Overseas Property Loan that covers US property, but only in New York: up to 70% LTV in SGD or USD, a minimum loan of SGD 300,000 or USD 200,000, priced at OCBC's cost of funds plus 2.5% to 3.5%, open to a Singaporean, PR or a foreigner employed and residing in Singapore, and for investment property only, not owner-occupation. Private banks offer a different route entirely: a Lombard or securities-backed loan against your own portfolio, typically 50% to 80% LTV against eligible securities, priced around SORA or SOFR plus 100 to 300 basis points, giving you cash in one to three weeks without selling anything — a bridging tool more than a mortgage substitute, and one that keeps the whole exposure on your own balance sheet rather than tying it to the house. For the foreign-income and equity-loan mechanics behind either route from Singapore, see the borrowing pages linked at the end.

Which is why 48% of foreign buyers in the NAR data paid all cash against only 28% of all US buyers: at 2026 US mortgage rates plus a foreign-national lender's spread, financing this purchase is expensive, and a buyer with the cash available often decides the certainty and speed of an all-cash offer — which also wins bidding wars against financed buyers — is worth more than the leverage.

Renovation and who actually controls the outcome

There is no BCA, no URA, no single national building authority. Permitting sits with the city or county the house is in, and the rules, fees and turnaround differ block to block, let alone state to state — a renovation permit process in a Texas suburb and one in a California coastal city are not close to the same undertaking. A significant renovation can also trigger a property tax reassessment, which is a US-specific reason to price a renovation with the tax office in mind, not just the contractor's quote. From Singapore, the practical constraint is not the rules but distance: you are not there to walk a site, so most owners either lean entirely on a local property manager or general contractor they have vetted, or avoid discretionary renovation altogether, which is itself a decision to forfeit control rather than exercise it.

Conveyancing: the closing process, once more, in order

Offer and acceptance produce a purchase and sale agreement, not an OTP. An earnest money deposit goes into escrow. Contingencies — inspection, appraisal, financing — give you defined exit points before you are bound. A title company (or an attorney, state-dependent) runs the title search, clears any liens or encumbrances, and issues an owner's title insurance policy (and a separate lender's policy if you finance) that protects you against a defect in the chain of title that surfaces after you own the place. Closing costs of 2% to 5% cover all of this. None of it involves CPF, and none of it involves a Singapore lawyer unless you choose to have one review the contract alongside your US counsel — which, given the estate and tax exposure above, is worth the fee.

THE VOICE

Twelve questions, the operator's own frame, in layman's terms. No jargon, no beta, no IRR — just what this actually is.

• C0 THE PLAY — Is this a balance-sheet play (you're buying land and a structure you hope holds its value) or a cash-flow play (you're buying an income stream)? For most Singapore-based buyers of a US home it is presented as 'diversification', which is not an answer — the honest answer falls out of the two questions below.
• C1 BALANCE SHEET — What you now own is a house priced in US dollars. What you owe, if anything, is a mortgage, usually also in US dollars. Your net worth was mostly Singapore-dollar before this; now a chunk of it moves with the US dollar whether you meant it to or not.
• C2 CASH FLOW — Out: the down payment and closing costs up front, then the mortgage instalment if financed, property tax, insurance, HOA or condo fees, maintenance, and if there's a tenant, vacancy. In, if rented: the rent, minus 30% at source unless you've made the net election. The funding gap is the difference between what a foreign-national lender will advance (60-75% LTV) and what a domestic US buyer would put down — you are funding a bigger slice of this from Singapore than a local buyer would.
• C3 P&L — Profit is rent minus expenses minus depreciation (a paper deduction, not cash out) minus financing cost. This is a DIFFERENT NUMBER from your cash flow, and the whole point of the Section 871(d) election is that it changes this number without changing the rent you actually receive.
• C4 CARRY — Income minus financing cost. All-cash and rented, carry is positive by construction, before the 30% withholding drag. Financed at 2026 US mortgage rates plus a foreign-national spread, carry can easily run negative even with a tenant in place — a 'yielding' US property can still be a cash-burning position once the loan is in it.
• C5 GIVE/GET — Give: cash for the down payment and closing costs (or all of it, if you go the all-cash route most foreign buyers take), ongoing carrying costs, real US tax and estate-law complexity, and either your own time managing from 9,000 miles away or a property manager's fee. Get: the house, US-dollar exposure, possibly rent, possibly appreciation, and no Singapore stamp duty on the purchase itself — though see C6 on what buying this might cost you later.
• C6 EXPOSED TO — The specific city and even the specific street's price movements (US housing is intensely local, not a single national index); the SGD/USD exchange rate; US mortgage rates if financed or refinanced; local property tax reassessment; landlord-tenant law that varies hugely state to state if you rent it out; and two US-specific tail risks this page exists to name — the USD 60,000 estate-tax cliff, and FIRPTA's withholding drag whenever you exit.
• C7 FOR HOW LONG — No SSD-style enforced minimum holding period exists federally, unlike Singapore's four-year SSD. But agent commissions if you use one, plus 2-5% closing costs on the way in and similar frictions on the way out, mean a quick flip loses money before it starts. In practice this is a multi-year commitment even without a legal lock-in.
• C8 FAILURE CASCADE — Negative carry (mortgage and costs exceed rent, or the unit sits empty) hits cash flow, meaning you are wiring money from Singapore to cover a shortfall on a house on the other side of the world. That accumulates into the P&L as a loss an NRA cannot offset against Singapore income. If the shortfall forces a sale, FIRPTA withholds up to 15% of the gross price at closing regardless of whether you're in profit, which is a hit to liquidity exactly when you need cash fastest. Insolvency from one house is a long way off for a cash buyer, but a heavily financed buyer hit by a rate reset or a SGD move is not as protected as they may assume.
• C9 LIQUIDITY — A US home in a normal local market can sell in weeks to a few months once listed, generally faster than Singapore's landed market — but running a sale (staging, showings, negotiating) from Singapore adds real friction, and FIRPTA means the cheque you receive at closing is smaller than the price by up to 15%, with the rest returned only after you file a US tax return. That is a genuine timing haircut, not paperwork.
• C10 CONTROL — Can you move the outcome, or are you a price-taker? Renovation is this page's version of control: US permitting is local, not national, and rules differ block to block, so there IS real room to add value in a way Singapore's more zoning-constrained system limits. But control from a distance is thin — most owners either delegate fully to a property manager or contractor they trust, or simply don't renovate, and both are a form of giving up the lever rather than pulling it.
• C11 THE EXIT — You sell, your buyer withholds 10-15% of the gross price under FIRPTA depending on their own intended use of the house, and you only get the balance reconciled once you file. Singapore taxes none of the gain either way. The US taxes an NRA's gain through that FIRPTA-reconciled return; a US person may exclude up to USD 250,000 (USD 500,000 married) of gain under Section 121, but only if the house was genuinely their main home for two of the last five years — not the case for most Singapore-based buyers of an investment or a child's education home.

The two questions that actually sort a buyer of this product, in the operator's frame, are not 'investment or lifestyle' — nobody buys believing the price will fall, so that question sorts nobody. They are: are you borrowing to buy, and once you hold it, are you lending it out? Cash plus own-use (a parent buying outright for a child at university, or a future retirement base) is a pure appreciation and currency play with no carry — and no rental income to offset the property tax, insurance and upkeep that still cost money every year regardless. Cash plus let-out is the straightforward yield play, positive carry by construction before the 30% FDAP drag. Borrow plus own-use — very likely where a Singapore family funding a studying child's housing actually sits, whether or not they think of it this way — is NEGATIVE CARRY BY CONSTRUCTION: a mortgage cost with no rental income against it. Borrow plus let-out is the spread play, and at a 7.03% US mortgage rate plus a foreign-national lender's spread, that spread is not generous in September 2026 — which is exactly why cash purchases dominate this buyer segment.

For the business owner and the family office (B2B)

The instinct to have the Singapore company buy the US house directly is usually wrong, for the same reason it is wrong for a GCB: it adds a Singapore corporate-tax and reporting layer on top of a US one without solving the US estate-tax problem, which is a US-side question answered by a US or foreign holding structure built for that purpose, not by which entity in Singapore wired the funds. The simpler and more common route is to take money out of the business as salary, bonus or dividend — dividends from a Singapore-resident company under the one-tier system are tax-exempt in the shareholder's hands — and buy personally, then layer a US-side structure (LLC, foreign corporation, trust) on top only if the estate-tax exposure above justifies the cost and complexity of running one.

If the family is instead considering a pooled US real estate vehicle — a fund, a REIT, a syndicate — rather than a direct house, the calculus changes again: PFIC rules apply to a US person holding a foreign fund, and separately, a fund structure raises its own accredited-investor and offer-exemption questions under MAS's framework if it is marketed from Singapore. Those are fund-structure questions, not house-buying ones, and are covered on the investing pages linked below rather than repeated here.

Whoever gets paid, gets paid whether or not the house turns out to be a good idea for you: the Singapore-side introducer if there is one, the US buyer's agent, the US closing/title company, the mortgage broker if you finance, and the tax and estate lawyers on both sides. None of that is a reason not to buy. It is a reason to know, before you start, which of those people is paid more if you move faster and pay more, because at least two of them are.

What the realtor earns, and where the incentive points

I am a realtor, so this section is about people like me. Singapore's CEA licence does not transfer to the US — real estate licensing there is issued state by state, and a CEA-registered agent introducing you to US property is not licensed to represent you in a US transaction. What that agent legally does is refer you to a licensed US broker and earn a referral fee out of the US side's commission. Under CEA's own scope, that referral and introduction is itself Singapore estate agency work: the agent needs the relevant registration and must disclose the legal framework, risks and purchase process of the US jurisdiction, and the transaction counts toward that agent's own registration-renewal quota.

On the US side, since the NAR settlement took effect on 17 August 2024, a buyer's agent's fee is no longer assumed through the seller and the MLS — it has to be negotiated directly, usually signed into a buyer-broker agreement before you are shown a single house. In practice most sellers in 2026 still offer to pay it, commonly 2% to 2.5%, so the system functions close to how it always did, just with a signature earlier in the process. The arithmetic: on a USD 1,500,000 US home at a typical 2.5% buyer-agent commission, that is USD 37,500. A Singapore-side introducer taking a common referral share of around 25% of that earns roughly USD 9,375 for a phone call and an introduction — real money for advice that, structurally, has every incentive to tell you to buy rather than to wait, and to prefer the property that pays a referral fee over the one that doesn't. Compare that to the reported median annual income of a Singapore-registered agent, around SGD 72,000, and it's clear why an overseas referral pipeline is attractive to build.

Where the incentive points, plainly: both the US buyer's agent and any Singapore-side introducer are paid when you buy and paid more when you pay more, and paid nothing if you walk away. Neither earns anything for telling you to wait a year, to skip this property, or that the rebuild or renovation isn't worth it. What limits it: CEA sets no rate but requires it in writing before the agent acts; ask any introducer what they and the US agent each earn if you do NOT buy; verify the US agent's state licence directly, not by taking their word for it; and ask a Singapore-side introducer for their CEA registration number and check it on the public register before you rely on anything they tell you about the US market.

What I could not verify

Read this before you rely on any figure above. IRAS's own ABSD page rendered navigation only when I tried it this run, so whether an overseas home counts toward your Singapore property count for a LATER Singapore ABSD assessment rests on one commercial guide (PropertyNet.SG, 31 May 2026) that says it does, against other secondary guides that say it does not — I did not settle this and neither should you without asking IRAS or a tax adviser directly. The same PropertyNet.SG page's warning that unremitted overseas rental income can still be taxable in Singapore sits in tension with IRAS's general foreign-sourced income exemption for residents, which I also could not resolve from a primary IRAS page this run. State and county transfer taxes on a US purchase vary too widely to state a figure here, and I have not sourced them state by state. The CEA point about overseas-property marketing rests on secondary industry summaries; CEA's own page did not render the specific rule when I opened it. Everything with a figure attached above carries its source; where two sources disagreed, I said so rather than picking one silently.

Where to go next

• Financing from Singapore: /borrow/foreign-income, /borrow/equity-loans, /borrow/private-credit
• US tax and investing more broadly: /invest/american, /invest/structures, /invest/the-four-routes, /invest/private-credit
• Estate: /estate/wills, /estate/trusts, /estate/probate, /estate/power-of-attorney
• Insurance if you rent it out: /insure/landlord
• On being a US person in Singapore: /essays/i-aint-ai/the-us-passport-answer, /essays/i-aint-ai/investing, /essays/i-aint-ai/estate

Sources

• IRS — FIRPTA withholding (2026-07-21) · https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/firpta-withholding
• IRS — Frequently asked questions on estate taxes for nonresidents not citizens of the United States (2026-09-29) · https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/frequently-asked-questions-on-estate-taxes-for-nonresidents-not-citizens-of-the-united-states
• IRS — Nonresident aliens – Real property located in the U.S. (2026-09-29) · https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/nonresident-aliens-real-property-located-in-the-us
• IRS — Publication 527, Residential Rental Property (2026-09-29) · https://www.irs.gov/publications/p527
• National Association of Realtors — 2026 Profile of International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate (2026-09-01) · https://www.nar.realtor/newsroom/foreign-buyers-purchased-45-3-billion-worth-of-us-homes-from-april-25-to-march-26
• OCBC — Overseas Property Loan (2026-09-29) · https://www.ocbc.com/personal-banking/loans/overseas-property-loan.page
• America Mortgages — The 2026 Foreign National Mortgage Handbook (2026-09-29) · https://www.americamortgages.com/2026-foreign-national-mortgage-handbook/
• Freddie Mac PMMS, as reported by Forbes Advisor — Mortgage Rates Today: September 25, 2026 (2026-09-24) · https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/mortgage-rates-09-25-26/
• The Motley Fool — Property Taxes by State in 2026: Highest to Lowest (2026-09-29) · https://www.fool.com/research/property-tax-rates-by-state/
• PropertyNet.SG — Thinking About Buying Overseas Property in 2026? Read This First: ABSD, CPF and Tax Traps (2026-05-31) · https://propertynet.sg/thinking-about-buying-overseas-property-read-this-first/
• Skatoff PA — Updated for 2026: Estate and Gift Tax Chart for Non US Persons (2026-09-29) · https://skatoff.com/florida-estate-planning-attorney/updated-for-2026-estate-and-gift-tax-chart-for-non-us-persons-greencard-holders-and-nras/
• Forbes (Virginia La Torre Jeker) — U.S. Estate Tax Treaties — Help For Foreigners But Not U.S. Citizens (2025-01-26) · https://www.forbes.com/sites/virginialatorrejeker/2025/01/26/us-estate-tax-treatieshelp-for-foreigners-but-not-us-citizens/
• Sishodia PLLC — Foreign Real Estate Investors: LLC, Corporation, or Trust? (2026-09-29) · https://sishodia.com/llc-vs-corporation-vs-trust-for-foreign-real-estate-buyers/
• Massachusetts Society of CPAs — Using the Foreign Corporation to Avoid Estate Tax (2026-09-29) · https://www.masscpas.org/news/4f60e981-86e2-47a3-a263-a14ec2df3669:using-the-foreign-corporation-to-avoid-estate-tax
• Dominion Financial Services — FinCEN Reporting Rule Vacated: 2026 Update for Real Estate Investors (2026-09-29) · https://dominionfinancialservices.com/fincen-reporting-rule-vacated-2026-update-for-real-estate-investors/
• Opendoor — Who Pays Realtor Fees? (After the 2024 NAR Settlement) (2026-09-29) · https://www.opendoor.com/articles/who-pays-real-estate-agent-commission
• homeabroadinc.com — Foreign Ownership of US Real Estate: 2026 State Laws (2026-09-29) · https://homeabroadinc.com/real-estate/foreign-ownership-us-real-estate-state-laws/
• CEA — Regulations and Enforcement (overseas property marketing, as summarised in secondary industry guides) (2026-09-29) · https://www.cea.gov.sg/regulatory-matters/overview/