10 Keys To Making Your Real Estate Development Project Attractive To Immigrant Investors In The EB-5 Marketplace

An immigrant investor has two primary objectives when shopping for an EB-5 project -- to minimize the immigration risk and to minimize the investment risk.

No immigrant wants to move to the U.S. under a conditional green card (that requires them to generate jobs in the U.S.), buy a house, enroll children in school, and then be put in the untenable position of losing their entire investment and their green card two years later if the project fails both as an investment and as a jobs generator. Immigrant investors are understandably choosy about the investments they make under the EB-5 immigrant investor visa program.

There are 150 existing regional centers in the U.S. and 83 new regional center applications pending approval, all with projects trying to receive EB-5 funding. How do developers make their projects stand out from the rest?

How can you differentiate your project and make it more attractive than other EB-5 projects vying for the same money? A strong project will always trump a weaker one, but what does that mean for EB-5 projects?

Here are ten ways you can make your project stand out to immigrant investors in the competitive EB-5 marketplace:

Make sure your project is in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA) To be competitive in the marketplace, a project must be located in a Targeted Employment Area (TEA). A TEA is a high unemployment area (150% of national average) or a rural area. Having a TEA designation permits the minimum qualifying investment to be reduced from $1 million to $500,000. There are too many $500,000/investor projects in the marketplace for a $1 million/investor project to be competitive. Work with your State agency to determine if your project location qualifies for TEA designation. Locate your project in an area with global recognition We've heard it a million times before - location matters. From an Asian perspective, projects in major metropolitan cities are the most appealing. Choosing an area where property prices have historically risen lessens the risk of loss. Investors also want to be able to easily visit and see where their money is going. If they recognize the location of the project and know it is a hotspot for commerce, they are more likely to believe that the project will be successful. Emphasize the real estate component of the project There are many examples of successful non-real estate based EB-5 projects. However, there is a clear bias among Asian investors towards real estate projects. Real...

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