Buying Property In The USA From Georgia

Buying Property in the USA From Georgia: Tips & Tricks

• You do not need US citizenship, a green card, or even a visa to legally own property in the United States, and no US state restricts ordinary residential purchases by Georgian citizens.
• Buying a house does not get you a visa, and the visa rules for Georgian passport holders got harder in 2026, so plan the travel side separately from the purchase side.
• Cash closes faster and cleaner, but foreign national mortgages do exist at roughly 30% to 40% down with no US credit history required.
• The tax bill you should study is not the purchase, it is the annual carrying cost and the 15% FIRPTA withholding that hits you when you eventually sell.
• Pick your US agent before you pick your property. In America the buyer’s agent is a separate person from the listing agent, and since August 2024 you sign a written agreement with them before you tour anything.

I sell real estate in Florida. Over the past two years I have had more calls from outside the United States than from inside it, and the questions from Tbilisi, Batumi and Kutaisi are almost always the same three: can I even buy, will it get me a visa, and how much of this can I do without flying over. Here are the straight answers, including the parts that are inconvenient.

Yes, you can buy. Ownership and immigration are two different systems.

The United States does not require citizenship, residency, or a visa to hold title to residential property. A Georgian citizen who has never set foot in Florida can own a house in Vero Beach outright, in their own name or through a US LLC. There is no foreign buyer surcharge like Canada or parts of Australia have, and no federal approval process for a normal home purchase.

Some states have passed restrictions on buyers from a short list of specific countries, mostly aimed at farmland and land near military installations. Georgia is not on any of those lists. Florida’s 2023 law, for example, names China, Russia, Iran and a handful of others. Not you.

Buying will not get you a visa, and 2026 made the visa part harder

This is the sentence people do not want to hear, so I will put it plainly: there is no US “golden visa” for buying a home. The EB-5 investor route requires an $800,000 or $1,050,000 investment into a job-creating enterprise, and a house you live in does not qualify.

What you will need is a B-1/B-2 visitor visa, and this is where Georgian buyers got hit. On April 2, 2026, Georgia was added to the State Department’s visa bond pilot, which meant single-entry visas valid three months with a 30-day maximum stay, plus a refundable bond of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 set at the consular officer’s discretion. On August 3, 2026, that pilot becomes a permanent program and the ceiling rises to $20,000. Bonded travelers also have to enter and exit by air through designated airports.

Practical translation: assume one short trip, not a leisurely three-week house hunting tour. Check the US Embassy in Tbilisi for current terms before you book anything, because this policy has moved twice in six months.

The money mechanics

Cash is the cleanest path and it is what most of my international buyers use. Wire the funds to the title company’s escrow account, and be ready to document the source. American banks and title companies ask for it, and a Georgian bank statement plus a sale contract for whatever you sold is usually enough.

If you want financing, foreign national mortgage programs exist through portfolio lenders. Expect 30% to 40% down, a rate a point or two above what a US borrower gets, and a document list built around your Georgian income rather than a US credit score. Two months of lead time before you make an offer, minimum.

One warning I give every overseas client, and I am not being dramatic: wire fraud is the single biggest financial risk in a US closing. Criminals monitor email threads and send fake wire instructions the day before funding. Call the title company on a number you looked up yourself and confirm the account verbally. Every time. Money sent to the wrong account is usually gone.

The taxes nobody quotes you

The purchase price is the part everyone studies. The ongoing numbers are the ones that surprise people.

Florida has no state income tax, which is why half of New York seems to be moving here. But as a non-resident owner you do not get the homestead exemption, and you do not get the 3% Save Our Homes assessment cap that residents get. You get the non-homestead cap of 10% per year instead. On a $500,000 Vero Beach house that difference is real money annually. I broke down how these carrying costs stack up against high-tax states in this comparison of Vero Beach and the Northeast, and the same arithmetic applies to you.

If you rent the property out, the default is a flat 30% withholding on gross rent. You can elect to be taxed on net income instead, which is almost always better, but that means getting an ITIN and filing a US return. Talk to a US CPA who handles non-resident owners before you sign anything, not after.

Then there is FIRPTA. When a foreign person sells US real estate, the buyer must withhold 15% of the gross sale price and send it to the IRS. Not 15% of your profit. Fifteen percent of the whole price. You claim the excess back when you file, which takes months. Build it into your exit plan from day one.

My honest opinion on where not to start

Oceanfront condos. They photograph beautifully and they are the worst entry point for a first-time foreign buyer in Florida right now. After the Surfside collapse, Florida requires milestone structural inspections and fully funded reserves on older condo buildings, and the special assessments coming out of that have run into six figures per unit in some coastal associations. Insurance on a barrier island unit is its own line item. You can absolutely buy well on the water here, but not by browsing photos from 9,000 kilometres away and wiring a deposit.

The other thing I will push back on: the short-term rental investment case is oversold. Plenty of desirable communities on the Treasure Coast have minimum lease terms of 30 days, 90 days, or longer, written into the HOA documents. The Airbnb spreadsheet dies quietly in paragraph fourteen of a document nobody read. I check those rules before I show a property, and you should insist your agent does too.

Why the agent matters more than the listing

In the US, the person listing a house works for the seller. You get your own agent, and since August 2024 you sign a written buyer representation agreement before touring. Compensation is negotiable and is no longer advertised on the MLS, though sellers still frequently cover it through concessions. For a buyer 9,000 kilometres away, that agent is your eyes, your local inspector coordinator, your translator for a contract that runs a dozen pages, and the person who tells you when a house is overpriced.

I am Jon Sterling, a licensed Florida real estate agent with The Real Brokerage. I sold real estate on three continents before settling my family in Vero Beach, including launching Keller Williams in the United Kingdom and running brokerage operations across South Florida, so cross-border transactions are not a novelty in my office. More on my background here.

The practical version of what that means for you:

• I run video showings on your schedule, not mine. In May I walked a house at 1:00 a.m. Florida time because that was a civilised hour for morning coffee in Tbilisi.
• I coordinate inspection, title, insurance quotes and closing while you stay in Georgia. Most of my overseas buyers sign remotely, using notarised documents or a power of attorney.
• I tell you what a house is worth, not what it is listed for. My offer strategy chart shows how I think about that.
• Florida is where I hold my license and work the market daily, across Vero Beach, Sebastian, Indian River Shores and the wider Treasure Coast. If your target is Miami, Texas or the Carolinas, I will connect you with an agent I know and stay involved so you are not starting from a Google search.

A realistic timeline

For a cash purchase with a buyer who never flies over: two to four weeks of video tours and shortlisting, one week to negotiate and go under contract, then roughly 30 days to close while inspections, title search and insurance run in parallel. Financed purchases add 15 to 30 days. Start the mortgage pre-approval before you start looking, not after you find something you love.

If Florida is on your list, my complete relocation guide covers the neighbourhoods, the insurance realities and the seasonal rhythm of this coast in more detail than any listing portal will give you.

Talk to me before you shortlist

The most expensive mistakes I see international buyers make happen before anyone signs anything. Wrong community rules, wrong insurance assumptions, wrong tax structure. Those are all cheap to fix in a conversation and expensive to fix at closing.

Tell me what you are trying to accomplish and I will give you the unvarnished version, including the times I think you should not buy. Get in touch here or call +1 (772) 999-4457. English is fine, and if you want to talk during Georgian business hours, I will make it work.