When purchasing a home in Arizona it is important to know what funds are required to buy the home. But we need a little background information to help you understand the process.

Homes are typically owned and then sold by:

A normal seller that either owns the home free and clear, or has enough equity to sell the home at market value.

A Bank or Lending Instution, would have title to a foreclosure home, or perhaps what you might call a re-possessed. Where the buyer defaulted on the loan on the home and the bank takes back the collateral.

A Short Sale home is still owned by the seller, but the current market value is to low to cover the lien placed upon the collateral to cover the lenders note  when the home is sold. Thus the bank will come out short of cash when the home is sold, hence the name Short Sale.

There are a few others way as well but the most common are those discussed above.

When the home is offered for sale and a buyer decided to offere on the home. The offer is accompanied with earnest money, normally in the form of a personal check, money order, or cashiers check. As a Foreign Investor you will need to provide US funds with your offer. If you have a personal check drawn on a US bank that might work. You may need to get a money order made out in US Funds. A cashiers check (in the US normally has to have a payee on it before the bank will issue it, and we do not know (in many cases) who the payee is until after the offer is accepted. So a blank Money Order is the normal instrument used for Foreign Investors. On homes under $100,000 many sellers will accept $1000 as earnest money, but as the price of the home goes up so does the amount of earnest money. So you will need to discuss with me the price range of the home you are considering before arriving in Arizona, unless you have a US bank account. There are some lender owned homes that the lenders require a minimum of 3% down and that could change things a bit.  Typicall all sellers will want to know how the buyer is going to pay for the home. If purchased through a lender then a Loan Status Report is provided from the lender prior to the offer on the home. If the home is going to be purchased using cash, then a letter from your bank stating that you have funds in the amount of X (whatever price you have decided on) or a bank statement showing that available cash will work. (be sure to black out the starting or ending account numbers and that it has your name on it and a date less than 30 day old). Once the offer is accepted the money order is given to the Title or Escrow Company. At this point if everything else goes smoothly you will receive wiring instructions from the Title or Escrow Company telling you what your bank will need to know in order to wire the balance of the needed funds into their account to complete the transaction.

Hopefully this will give you an understanding of the process of how to buy a home here. Of course having a great Realtor is the first step. I hope I am able to be your Realtor.