You don't need one. No US law requires a bank account, Social Security number, credit history, or American entity to own US real estate — foreign buyers purchase US property in their own names every day. What you need is a way to get verified funds into a US escrow account, and that's where international buyers actually get stuck: not eligibility, but banking friction. This page is about the friction — and the paths around it.
To purchase US real estate with cash, a foreign buyer does not need a US bank account, an SSN, US credit history, or an LLC (entities are optional, used for liability and estate planning). A buyer does need passport-grade identification for the closing and its anti-money-laundering checks, documented source of funds, and a US escrow or title company to receive good funds. An ITIN becomes relevant later, for tax filings during ownership and at resale.
The classic failure is the money transfer, not the purchase contract. A six-figure wire from abroad crosses a chain of correspondent banks, any of which can hold it for compliance review — for days, sometimes weeks, with nobody obligated to tell you why. Home-country daily transfer caps and capital controls slow it further upstream. Meanwhile the purchase contract has a funding deadline, and escrow closes on received good funds, not on wires that are "in transit." Sellers in competitive markets know this, which is why foreign offers sometimes get discounted before anyone reads them.
If you hold crypto, the funding problem changes shape, because the asset is already outside the correspondent banking system. Verification and proof of funds happen from anywhere in about 15 minutes — the funds are verified where they sit, whether that's a hardware wallet or an exchange, with no US exchange account needed. You offer as a cash buyer. At closing, the crypto converts to USD and escrow receives a domestic US wire from a US counterparty — the international banking chain never enters the transaction. No US bank account is opened at any point.
The end-to-end process for international buyers — including what RealOpen does and doesn't handle — is at buy US real estate from abroad, with country-specific guides for the regulatory fine print.
Three things this path does not remove. You'll still complete identity and anti-money-laundering checks at closing — every legitimate US closing has them, and source-of-funds documentation matters as much for a foreign buyer as for a domestic one. US taxes find you at the normal moments — rental income if you lease the property, FIRPTA withholding when you eventually sell — so get advice before, not after. And your own country's rules on moving value abroad, crypto included, are yours to comply with; a US closing doesn't launder a home-country capital-control problem, and we won't pretend otherwise.