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Parents Buying for a Student: Title, Tax, and Visa Notes

By Lina Feng · June 6, 2026 · 8 min read

Parents Buying for a Student: Title, Tax, and Visa Notes

Joe Mabel — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

A parent in Shanghai or Taipei sees the dorm-versus-rent math, looks at four years of tuition already committed, and asks a reasonable question: should we just buy a place near campus and put it in our child's name? The instinct is sound. The follow-up questions — whose name, which taxes, and whether a student visa even allows it — are where families either save themselves real money or walk into an avoidable trap.

Here is the plain-English version, organized the way the decisions actually arrive.

As of June 2026. Rules, rates, and dollar thresholds change — and several New York transfer-tax proposals were in play during 2026 — so confirm every figure below against the official source before you act.

First, the question everyone asks: can an F-1 student own a home?

Yes. There is no U.S. law that bars a foreign national — including an F-1 student — from buying and holding residential real estate. Just as important: owning property does not change your immigration status, and it does not give you any additional right to remain in the U.S. A deed is not a visa. After graduation, an F-1 holder who owns a condo has exactly the same standing as one who rents.

One nuance worth flagging: passive ownership (living in it, or renting it to long-term tenants through a licensed property manager) is generally fine, but actively running a real-estate business — flipping, day-to-day landlording for profit — can stray into "unauthorized employment" territory for an F-1 holder. If the plan is anything beyond "my child lives here and maybe rents the spare room after graduation," that is a question for an immigration attorney, not a blog.

Whose name goes on the deed?

There are three common structures, each with trade-offs.

Title held byProsWatch-outs
The student (child)Simple; child builds U.S. ownership history; future sale may qualify for primary-residence capital-gains exclusion if they live there long enoughChild must have funds or a loan; gifting the money raises reporting questions (below)
The parents (non-resident)Parents keep control; financing via foreign-national loan is commonExposes the parents to the U.S. estate-tax trap below; FIRPTA applies on sale
An LLCLiability shield; privacy; can simplify multi-owner situationsCosts to form/maintain; lenders treat it differently; does not by itself solve estate or FIRPTA exposure for the underlying owner

The "right" answer depends on who is paying, who will live there, and how long the family expects to hold it. This is precisely the conversation to have with a cross-border tax attorney before signing anything — retitling later can trigger its own taxes.

The gift question (and the form nobody mentions)

Most parents fund the purchase by sending money to their child. Two separate rules apply, and they're often confused.

U.S. gift tax is paid by the giver, not the receiver. For a non-resident, non-citizen parent, a gift of cash (an intangible asset) is generally outside the U.S. gift-tax system — the U.S. taxes a nonresident's gifts only on U.S.-situated tangible property such as real estate physically located here. So wiring money to your child to buy a home is, on the federal gift-tax side, usually not a U.S. gift-tax event. (By contrast, gifting the U.S. house itself would be.)

Reporting is separate from taxing. A U.S. person (which includes many students with U.S. tax residency) who receives more than $100,000 in a year from a nonresident alien must report it on Form 3520 — an information return, not a tax bill. Missing it can carry steep penalties even though no tax is owed. This one trips up families constantly.

For comparison, when the giver is a U.S. person, the 2026 annual gift-tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient ($38,000 for a married couple splitting gifts), above which a gift-tax return is filed but tax is usually only due after the large lifetime exemption is exhausted. Direct tuition payments made straight to the school don't count against any of this.

Financing without a U.S. credit history

A common myth is that you need a Social Security number, a U.S. visa, or U.S. credit to borrow. You don't. "Foreign national" mortgage programs exist precisely for this: lenders qualify the borrower on verified overseas income and assets, foreign credit references, or — for an income-producing property — the rental cash flow itself. Expect a larger down payment than a typical domestic buyer; foreign-national programs commonly start around 25–30% down, varying by lender and program. An ITIN can be useful for tax filing but is not universally required to qualify. Rates and terms vary widely, so shop more than one lender.

FIRPTA: the bill that arrives when you sell

This is the one most families don't see coming. Under FIRPTA (the Foreign Investment in Real Property Tax Act), when a foreign person sells U.S. real estate, the buyer is generally required to withhold 15% of the gross sale price — not 15% of the profit, the whole price — and remit it to the IRS. It's a prepayment against the seller's actual U.S. tax, refundable if too much was withheld, but it ties up real cash at closing.

There are carve-outs: no withholding if the property sells for $300,000 or less and the buyer will use it as a residence; a reduced rate for sales up to $1 million under similar residence conditions. The seller can also apply for a withholding certificate to reduce the amount upfront if the real tax owed is lower. Whether FIRPTA bites depends on whether the seller is a foreign person — which loops directly back to the title decision above. If the property is in the U.S.-resident child's name and they qualify as a U.S. person for tax purposes, FIRPTA may not apply at all.

The quiet trap: U.S. estate tax on non-residents

Save this paragraph. A non-resident, non-citizen who owns U.S. real estate directly is exposed to U.S. estate tax on that property, with an exemption of only $60,000 — not the multi-million-dollar exemption U.S. citizens and residents enjoy. Above that, rates climb to 40%. So if overseas parents hold a New York condo in their own names and one of them passes away, the family can face a significant U.S. estate-tax bill on the property's value over $60,000. Estate-tax treaties between the U.S. and certain countries can soften this, and ownership structures (an LLC or other entity, the child holding title) are sometimes used to manage it — but each has its own consequences. This is the single biggest reason to involve a cross-border estate attorney before deciding whose name goes on the deed.

New York closing costs to budget for

Separate from the federal picture, a New York purchase has its own line items. New York State charges a real estate transfer tax on most sales (paid by the seller), and New York City adds its own transfer tax. Buyers of residential property at $1 million or more owe the "mansion tax," which is tiered — starting at 1% and rising in brackets for higher prices — and applies to the entire price once you cross the threshold, which creates a real cliff right at $1 million. Confirm the current tiers with the NYS Department of Taxation and Finance, especially in 2026 when additional New York transfer-tax changes were under legislative discussion.

When you're ready to look at specific homes, our listings and new developments are a good starting point, and our team can map out the campus-adjacent neighborhoods on logistics alone — commute, transit, and budget.

The bottom line

Buying near campus can be a smart use of money that would otherwise become rent. But the order of operations matters: decide the structure (title, financing, estate exposure) with professionals first, then go shopping — not the reverse. The estate-tax and FIRPTA pieces in particular are far cheaper to plan around than to fix after the fact.

This article is general educational information only. It is not legal, tax, immigration, or financial advice. Every family's situation is different, treaty positions vary by country, and the rules and dollar thresholds described here change. Consult a licensed cross-border tax advisor, an estate attorney, and — for any visa question — an immigration attorney, and verify all figures against official sources before acting. Homix is a licensed real estate brokerage, not a law or accounting firm. Equal Housing Opportunity. Contact our team and we'll connect the real-estate dots; your advisors handle the rest.

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