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I'm supposed to help out a friend of a friend find an apartment in about a month. He's moving to the city from outside of the country for his job.
How does a foreigner with no work history in the USA, no current job in America, and no references fluent in English get an apartment thru a realtor?
In my neighborhood a lot of the immigrants move into small buildings or houses that are owned by a person from their home country. So its not a big deal for them. However this person is from a fairly wealthy country with no large immigrant enclave in NYC, so that is not in the cards. I'm thinking that his job is probably going to pay well enough that he will want to live in a nice neighborhood in Manhattan.
Will I be able to use a realtor with this guy if he doesn't have basic stuff for getting a regular apartment? (ie no credit score, no America pay stubs, no tax papers, no American character references).
The company he is working for is a large financial institution and his move over here will be completely legal with all of the appropriate visas, so that's not an issue. The company is going to provide some type of housing for about 6 weeks, but then he is supposed to find an apartment.
I haven't gotten the full details yet, but do these multi-national corporations usually get involved in the moving process? Will they help out or will this guy be on his own to find a place?
So will this guy be able to find a normal apartment in a building, or am I going to have to find a roomate situation where he won't have to provide all of this paperwork?
Any help or prior experience with this type of situation would be appreciated
He should check with his employer - maybe they do offer help. If not, he should at least get a letter from them certifying that he is employed by them and the salary. He will probably have to give 3 months' rent as a security deposit instead of the usual 1 month. In any case, once he arrives, he should try to start building credit history i.e. get a credit card from a US-based bank. He will need credit history for so many things. For example he might have a problem getting a cell phone contract without it.
A lot of the no fee luxury rentals will take foreigners without SSN, credit history as long as they get an employer letter which is basically a letter stating that your friend is employed by them and what his yearly salary is. They then do the math on the 40x monthly rent.
Archstone and Related will also look at a lower security requirement. A lot of the brokerages etc will look at about six month minimum security.
Usually the employer helps with getting its expatriate employees settled.
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