A summary of the UNLOCKED IN AMERICA series: the ten situations, the one equity release solution, and how to start the conversation with Global Mortgage Group and America Mortgages.
Over the ten articles in the UNLOCKED IN AMERICA series, we have covered the full landscape of US property equity release for international high-net-worth owners of American real estate. This final article brings it all together: a summary of the ten situations the series has addressed, the single equity release solution that connects all of them, and the straightforward path to starting the conversation.
This is Part 11 of UNLOCKED IN AMERICA, an 11-part series for international high-net-worth owners of US real estate who have built extraordinary wealth in America and cannot access it. The full series and all supporting resources are available at GMG's US property equity release programme.
According to the National Association of Realtors, international buyers account for a significant and growing share of US residential real estate transactions each year, with total purchase volumes consistently in the tens of billions of dollars. The equity that has accumulated in those holdings over decades represents one of the most underleveraged pools of wealth in global property finance.
The Ten Situations the Series Has Addressed
Part 1: You Are Not American. You Own American Property. That Is Why Your Bank Will Not Release Your Equity.
You own US real estate but have no Social Security Number, no US credit history, and income earned and documented outside the United States. The American banking system cannot process your equity release request. GMG can.
Part 2: Your US Bank Knows Exactly How Much Your Property Is Worth. They Still Will Not Lend Against It.
Your bank can see your US property equity. Their own debt-to-income rules will not let them release it, because your income comes from a business, a portfolio, a retirement fund, or a foreign employer that their underwriting system cannot assess appropriately.
Part 3: Thirty Years Ago Your Family Bought Property in America. That Decision Is Now Worth Millions More Than You Realise.
Your European, Asian, Middle Eastern, or Latin American family bought US property thirty or forty years ago. It has appreciated tenfold. The equity has never been released. International equity release finance finally makes it accessible without selling.
Part 4: You Bought It for Your Child's Education. Your Child Graduated Twenty Years Ago. The Property Is Still There and So Is the Equity.
You bought near Harvard, Columbia, Stanford, or UCLA for your child's university years. Your child graduated twenty years ago. The property has tripled in value and the equity is sitting dormant, waiting to be released. GMG's resource on education and US property equity covers this scenario in full.
Part 5: The Beverly Hills Home Your Family Bought When the Yen Was Strong Is Now Worth Ten Times What You Paid in Dollars.
Forty years of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Singaporean, and Southeast Asian high-net-worth investment in Beverly Hills, the Pacific Palisades, Arcadia, and Malibu has created extraordinary equity that offshore holding structures and the absence of US credit history have made impossible to release, until now.
Part 6: Your Family Chose Miami When It Was Still a Regional City. The Equity That Decision Created Is Now Extraordinary and Still Untouched.
Fifty years of Brazilian, Colombian, Venezuelan, Argentine, and Mexican high-net-worth investment in Fisher Island, Brickell, Coral Gables, and Palm Beach has built one of the most significant concentrations of international high-net-worth US property equity in the country. It has never been released.
Part 7: You Are an American Living Abroad with US Property. Your Own Country's Banks Treat You Like a Stranger.
You are a high-net-worth US citizen living in Singapore, London, Hong Kong, or Dubai. You pay US taxes. You own US property. Your own country's banks treat your foreign income as though it does not exist and will not release your equity.
Part 8: Your US Property Is Held in an LLC or Trust. Your Bank Used That as the Reason to Decline You. Here Is the Solution.
Your legitimate legal and tax planning, a US LLC, a family trust, a BVI company, is the precise reason the conventional US lender will not release your equity. GMG extends equity release facilities against the structure rather than demanding you restructure.
Part 9: Selling Your US Property to Access Capital Costs Far More Than You Think. Here Is What Equity Release Actually Costs by Comparison.
FIRPTA withholding at 15% of gross proceeds, capital gains tax at combined rates of up to 33% in California and New York, depreciation recapture, agent commissions, and the permanent loss of future appreciation. The real cost of selling versus equity release almost always favours the equity release facility for internationally mobile high-net-worth owners.
Part 10: The Bank That Watched You Build a Lifetime of US Property Wealth Has Decided Your Retirement Income Means You Cannot Access It.
You spent forty years building extraordinary equity in US real estate. Retirement dropped your assessable income and the bank's system decided you no longer qualify to release what you built. GMG's exit-strategy-led equity release assessment disagrees. GMG's resource on equity release for long-term US property owners covers the retirement equity trap in detail.
The One Solution: GMG Equity Release and America Mortgages
Every situation in this series has the same equity release solution at its core: a senior secured equity release facility from Global Mortgage Group, assessed on the US property value and exit strategy rather than on the income documentation, credit history, and citizenship profile that the conventional American lending system requires.
For international high-net-worth owners who want a long-term financing structure beyond the equity release period, America Mortgages, the only US mortgage lender focused exclusively on overseas and internationally mobile borrowers, provides Foreign National mortgages, DSCR investment property mortgages assessed on rental income rather than personal income, and EXPat mortgages for US citizens living abroad, across all 50 US states.
The Mortgage Bankers Association has documented the consistent and widening gap between the equity held by non-resident and internationally mobile US property owners and the equity release products available to them, a gap that GMG and America Mortgages were built specifically to close.
The Equity Release Parameters That Apply Across All Eleven Situations
- Loan size: USD 500,000 to USD 20,000,000+
- Term: 6 to 24 months
- LTV: Up to 65 to 70% of independently appraised US market value
- Interest: Retained or rolled up, no monthly payment obligation in most structures
- Security: US residential and commercial property in all major markets, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, the Hamptons, Boston, and beyond
- Borrower: International high-net-worth foreign nationals, non-US residents, US expatriates, retired high-net-worth owners, US LLCs, offshore entities, family trusts
- No SSN, no US credit history, no US income documentation required at the initial equity release stage
- Timeline: Indicative equity release term sheet 24 to 48 hours; drawdown 10 to 20 business days
For a deeper understanding of how US property values have performed over the long term and why retained ownership remains the rational position for most international high-net-worth owners, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis housing data series provides authoritative long-run US residential price data that underpins the equity release case across every situation in this series.
"Over ten articles we have described the same fundamental problem from ten different angles: extraordinary US property equity held by international high-net-worth owners who cannot access it through the conventional American lending system. The solution in every case is the same: an equity release facility that is assessed on the property value and the exit plan, not on documentation that the borrower's international financial life will never produce. That is what GMG does. The conversation starts with a property address and a capital need. Everything else follows from there."
— Donald Klip, Co-Founder, Global Mortgage Group and America Mortgages
The Conversation Starts Here
If you have read any part of the UNLOCKED IN AMERICA series and recognised your situation, as an international high-net-worth owner of US real estate who has been told no, who has been offered less than your equity justifies, or who has simply never explored what equity release from your American property could make possible, the conversation with GMG starts simply.
No tax returns. No W-2 forms. No Social Security Number. No US credit history required at the initial stage. The initial conversation is about the property, the equity, and the plan.
UNLOCKED IN AMERICA ends here. The equity release opportunity it describes does not.
Contact Donald Klip
If you are an international high-net-worth owner of US real estate and want to explore equity release or a bridging loan against your American property, contact Donald Klip directly.
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +65 9773-0273
Website: gmg.asia
America Mortgages: americamortgages.com
To receive an indicative equity release term sheet, we need only: US property address and type, estimated current market value, any existing mortgage balance, approximate equity release amount required, desired loan term, and a brief description of the intended use of funds and repayment plan.
Read the full UNLOCKED IN AMERICA series at gmg.asia.
