US property sale - best way to transfer cash to Irish AC ?

Ron J

Registered User
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Hi all.

I am in the final stages of selling a property in the US. After paying all bills there I will need to transfer the remaining balance to my Irish bank ac.

Does anyone know what would be the most efficient and cheapest way of doing this ?
 
Someone else posted here about oanda.com for money transfers. From a quick look they seem very reasonable, check them out.
 
With the amount of money you're dealing with, wire fees won't matter, but the spread is very important. Ideally you want to be able to do a spot trade, so you can trade on a realtime market where the real market rate is changing every second, and you want the spread to be small.

There is only one broker who operates in both the US and Europe, where you can ACH your USD (at no cost), trade the USD for EUR at the right moment (using a limit order if you prefer) with full transparency on the rate, and then wire the euros out of Germany. Interactive Brokers can do that. I have no idea what the cost will be to wire euros from Germany to Ireland; that's what you have to consider. The spread is tight, like ~2 pips, and the transaction cost is $2.50, so the broker doesn't make much on a single trade.

The big downside is the painful signup process and learning curve. It's a ten page form to fill out when opening an account, and several of the answers are non-trivial. Then you have to wait for a security device to come in the mail. There's also a $10 min. monthly activity fee, so if you do one trade, you'll pay $2.50 for the trade, and $7.50 to meet the min.

IB is not generally worth it for one transaction, but if I were moving 6-7 figures as you probably are, it may be worth the hassle. Just about any money transfers company is a ripoff. There's no transparency, and a number of ways these places can hide a big profit. With IB, the only part where you don't have transparency is the wire from germany to ireland, but at least there's no currency difference. It may cost nothing to wire from Germany to Ireland since both are in SEPA - but there's never a guarantee. Some SEPA banks still charge wire fees.
 
Thanks Folks. Will check the web sites mentioned.

Candyflipper - I'm a little lost with what you are suggesting. Can you indicate where I can get info on this method.
 
I have no idea what the cost will be to wire euros from Germany to Ireland;

Ironically many people are looking currently for the least messy/cheapest way to move their Euros from Ireland to Germany.

Depending on on the size of the sum I'm not sure I could advise the OP to place his hard earned cash into Irish banks.
 
Thanks Folks. Will check the web sites mentioned.

Candyflipper - I'm a little lost with what you are suggesting. Can you indicate where I can get info on this method.

I don't have an easy answer for that. I was talking about a forex brokers who exist primarily to offer "spread betting" services. It is very cheap to trade currency through a spread betting type of currency broker than it is through a specialist who offers a way to move real cash. Spread betting / speculation itself is a dodgy business and I'm not recommending it.

Most spread betting brokers trade with virtual/imaginary money, and in those cases you cannot do a single one-way trade, and withdraw the other currency. You generally must trade back into your original currency, and the withdrawal must be denominated in your starting currency. *However* there are a couple spread betting brokers out there who do trade with real money, and the assets are "deliverable" (meaning, you can do a one-way trade at cheap rates intended for speculators using leverage, and withdraw the cash). This is much cheaper than using a transfer service.
 
Where can I contact such a broker ?

In my earlier post, I mentioned interactivebrokers. Interactivebrokers.com is the only FX broker of this kind that I'm aware of.

If anyone knows of other FX brokers that trades with deliverable currencies, please post.
 
Where can I contact such a broker ?

Hi Ron,

there are many brokers that would be able to offer you a service that would benifit you such as travelmate omnisfx all are pretty much the same. it might be worth asking two brokers for a price and taking the best one
 
Do you have online banking set up with your banks? I do, and I move money between my Irish account and my US account all the time, via their websites.
 
Hi Ron,

there are many brokers that would be able to offer you a service that would benifit you such as travelmate omnisfx all are pretty much the same. it might be worth asking two brokers for a price and taking the best one

Travelmate and omnisfx simply currency brokers specializing in money transfer - they are not the sort of broker I was talking about (which Ron was responding to). All this run of the mill money transfer companies beat the bank rates as well as streetside cash exchanges, but they cannot compete with spread betting brokers.

Most spread betting brokers cannot handle deliverable currencies, so it's difficult to find one that will work for the purpose of foreign transfers.
 
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