This article is based on a video originally recorded on Visa Franchise Youtube Channel.
Hey, you have Patrick Findaro here, managing partner at Visa Franchise. I just wanted to give a little update of what we’re working on at Visa Franchise in light of the recent EB-5 update. For those that don’t know, essentially, the Regional Center program, as well as the Direct Pooled program, for those that are seeking to get the EB5 green card is currently not available. So you can’t pool an investment together nor can you do a regional center investment because every regional center right now has to get reauthorized. But, we can still sharing with you options to get the green card following for example, the EB5 Real Estate path.
How long will this process take? Three months, six months, nine months, I’m not sure. Would love to hear from immigration attorneys. Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts in terms of how long it’s gonna take regional centers to get reauthorized so they can have investors invest $800,000 or $1.05 million to get their EB5 green card.
Contents
In today’s video, we’re gonna go briefly through some of the updates. We hope to have an immigration attorney on to go more on the legal aspects of the EB-5 visa for de green card and the changes. But I just wanted to quickly go through some of the updates for the EB-5 visa and the opportunity that exists. The investment amount’s gone up from $500,000 to $800,000, and we’ve identified numerous franchise opportunities that you could invest $200,000, $300,000, and more where you’re gonna have 10 jobs through that investment.
So you could potentially invest $500,000 and own the real estate and then operate a business that’s gonna have 10-plus American jobs where you own that real estate. So we’re gonna go through a few different franchises, as well as how you can browse around different real estate options to get to that $800,000 mark or to get to the $1.05 million. And then if you’re looking to finance the real estate, it’s gonna open up a lot more opportunities where you could do like a ground-up construction and own your own preschool.
And in terms of financing the $800,000 or a $1.05 million investment, there are some mechanisms. But I’ll leave that for another conversation with an attorney to go over how you could potentially finance part of that initial investment. So let’s go right into, and we’ll share a link to this, the updates that are happening for the EB-5 program. And this is on the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, also known as USCIS, where they give an update on the regional centers.
And then there were many investors doing pooled non-regional center investments. I say you had five investors all investing in a hotel, that was allowed for a few months. But only if you filed before March 15th, 2022.
From what I understand now, it’s really direct investment. You own generally 100% of the investment. You’re the only EB-5 investor that owns that business. And you’re gonna apply for the EB-5 based on investing $800,000 or more in a business that you control. And you can also potentially own the underlying real estate for where that business operates under.
If you have $800,000 or more, or you're able to receive a donation, a gift from your parents or that rich uncle to get to the $800,000, there's a lot of opportunities where you can own a real business, a franchise, as well as own the eb5 real estate underneath that franchise.
A quick update also is for basically everyone besides those born in China, the EB5 real estate is current. And it’s current for Chinese-born nationals that are investing in a rural area, whether it’s high unemployment, infrastructure.
With a franchise, we can definitely find a franchise opportunity that’s well suited for rural area or where there’s high unemployment. From what I understand, someone that was born in China, Mainland-born, can invest $800,000 in a rural eb5 real estate. As well as operate a business where you invested in that real estate where you are gonna have to create 10-plus jobs.
There’s a lot of free resources that you can collect. We offer a directory of now 4,600 franchises. And we’re gonna be adding in the job count, so W2 employees, as well as contractors that are working 35 hours or more.
And why segment out contractors with W2 employees for EB-5 purposes, you’re gonna have to transition those contractors to actually employees and there’s gonna be additional costs.
And Working with Us and the Franchisor the Questions Are Going to Be: How Much Is the Cost?
We’ll work with you if you’re a Visa Franchise client, but I wanna focus a little bit on just the free resources that are available in our sister company, vettedbiz.com.
Where we have 4,000-plus franchises. We don’t have the job numbers right now on the franchises. I have that on an offline database. If you leave in the comment section you wanna know what the estimated job count is for a specific franchise, I’m happy to give you that data.
Now there’s a lot of different industries that are gonna be well-suited for the EB-5 real estate. People think about food when they think about franchise, that’s about 50% of franchise opportunities.
Also, healthcare, home care services, eb5 real estate, senior care, education opportunities primarily for children, as well as even pet care. So there’s a lot of different business opportunities that are gonna be well suited for the EB-5, meet the criteria.
In general, those industries have a pretty good success rate. Food and beverage is not the best. It’s generally, you know, 1 out of 7 are failing in a 10-year period, those that seek financing through the SBA loan. Even higher for those that are not getting financed, but healthcare and a few of these other concepts generally have a better success rate. Food is definitely an option. However, I wouldn’t limit yourself to just food if you’re seeking a business for your EB-5 green card. You have other options like eb5 real estate.
Vetted Biz is our sister company website, 4,000-plus franchises for you to browse through. You can search by investment amount. Now the investment amount doesn’t necessarily need to be $800,000. It could be, you know, there’s opportunities starting at even $150,000, where they’re gonna have 10 full-time jobs over an 18-month, 24-month period.
There’s a lot of businesses in the $150,000 to say $1 million range. And the key is gonna be, how do you spend that other capital as to get to the $800,000 investment level?
And when you have excess capital working with your immigration attorney, can you allocate $200,000 to the business, and then another $600,000 to the real estate where you’re buying the building that you’re gonna operate the business us from?
You know, I’m offering you these tools for free, but if you decide to work with us closer at Visa Franchise, we’ll work very closely with your immigration counsel, as well as the corporate attorney, the franchise attorney to make sure everything goes super smoothly. As this option that I’m going through is not for someone that’s just looking to invest $800,000.
Business Guide
There might be other types of businesses that you could run like an insurance agency where the key is, are you gonna get to 10 employees with that one location, or are you gonna have to have multiple locations of that franchise to hit the 10-plus employees?
That’s an example. If you’re investing just in a single suite, you know, they have for $1,000 an office or retail space available at right around $200,000 in Orlando.
So there’s a good amount of options here. LoopNet’s a free resource. There’s a paid service that you get more information, same with Vetted Biz, but with both these resources, Vetted Biz for franchising, for exploring the E-B5 options. And then LoopNet to explore commercial property, you can get your feet wet to see what’s out there.
But depending on, you know, if you’re really serious and you wanna take the step further, I would definitely recommend working with a real estate advisor.
So I mentioned fast food, there’s a lot of different options. Forget the big names like McDonald’s, Burger King, Popeyes. For those, you’re gonna have to open up 10-plus locations generally. And they usually wanna have someone that already has U.S. restaurant experience. So those big names are generally not gonna be the best options for a national seeking the EB-5 investor visa. Maybe you could try with eb5 real estate industry.
But if you open it up, especially franchise that have anywhere from 5 to 200 locations in the food space, you’ll see some emerging concepts that have pretty good financials as disclosed in their Item 19, or the franchise disclosure document. And we have a lot of that information available on our website, again, our sister company, vettedbiz.com.
Healthcare Services
I wanted to show a few different options today in terms of what’s available in the market. We went through…let’s see, let’s go through healthcare services. And I already have an example up, American Family Care. We’ve had at least one client invest with this business where it’s a bit of a high investment. It’s gonna be over a million and that’s not owning the property. So if you wanna also own the property, it’s gonna be significantly more.
But this business has been around for quite some time. And they have over 100 locations. They have a few closures, but pretty minimal in terms of the number of locations that they’re opening. It’s key to talk to the franchisees that are currently in the system or have left the system. And you can see there’s not many people selling their franchises, which is a pretty good indicator. It’s less than half the median for all franchises. So only 3% of American Family Care.
Another concept that we recently started working with is SarahCare, where it’s basically senior daycare. So they’ve been around for 24 years. They have 26 locations. They’re expanding, especially in Florida where we’re based. And the investment amount between $380,000 to right around $800,000. So there could be a potential to invest $800,000 or a million and potentially own all the real estate or part of the real estate for SarahCare Senior Solutions, or a brand comparable to SarahCare.
A Better Solution Homecare, we’ve had at least one client that invested for his E2 visa in this concept. And for this one, you’re gonna have a lot of jobs. So you’re generally gonna have I believe after a three-year period, nearly 50-plus jobs. And some of those are gonna be part-time caregivers, but a good portion, 25%-plus are gonna be W2 employees that are working 35 hours or more a week. So that should be eligible for the EB-5 as well.
We can get creative working with your immigration attorney to make sure that you invest as little as as possible. And your investments are secure as possible and a big way of securing your investment is having a percentage that’s the real estate that you own. So investing in a homecare business where say the total investment’s $200,000 to get the business up and running, you’re gonna buy the office space for $600,000, worst case the business doesn’t work out, you can still recoup 70%, 75% of your invested capital.
Educational Services
Education space is also another one that we really like at Visa Franchise. And we have a lot of different STEM preschool options available on our website. I believe there’s 80-plus education concepts. Many of them are gonna be eligible for the EB-5. However, you have to be sure to talk to the franchisor and ask, “Hey, are these mostly part-time employees that you’re gonna be hiring, or are they full-time?”
There are concepts like after-school tutoring that it’s mostly gonna be part-time grad students. So that’s not gonna be a good fit for those seeking the EB-5 visa. Maybe the E2 investor visa or another category, but it’s not gonna be a good fit for the EB-5, the after-school tutoring space. But if you’re gonna open up a preschool, like Amazing Explorers Academy, and they’ve had a few EB-5 investors and we’ve gotta update this because they have now I believe 10-plus locations throughout the United States.
But this investment range is $500k to $5 million. So you ask, you know, how does it get up to $5 million? It’s because you’re also owning the land. So you have a preschool and you own the land underneath the preschool. This is how eb5 real estate works.
Another concept a few of our clients have invested in and now, again, this has to be updated. They have I believe 12 or 15 locations up and operating in the United States is Success On The Spectrum, which based offers applied behavioral therapy for kids that are on the spectrum of autism.
And this is a really growing field where you’re gonna surpass the number of employees at 10 fairly easily because it’s one therapist, one student. You can pick depending on the size of the property that you lease or purchase at 20 to 30 therapists.
So this is the type of business that you could potentially open for $300,000 in terms of the business and also buy the real estate for say another $500,000, and that should meet the eligibility for the EB-5 visa.
Pet Services
I dropped my dog off at this franchise this morning, D.O.G. Hotels. We had a client that got the E2 visa investing in D.O.G. Hotels. And they’re available for the EB-5. To get to the $800,000 mark, maybe it’s gonna be a bigger center. Or you could potentially finance the purchase of the pet hotel and potentially invest closer to a million or invest a $1.05 million. So you don’t have to worry about opening in a target employment area or rural area of the United States.
The pet space has a lot of employees and it’s been a little easier to retain employees than say a food business because it’s just much more enjoyable place to work.
Those are a few different industries. I went through a few different franchise examples that should offer. We’ll include a link to our direct EB5 real estate investment offering.
We do charge three fees for our services to work with our clients, starting to find the options available, do the analysis once you invest, and then once you apply for the EB-5 visa.
So our services are not free.
However, you know, we’ve had nearly 500 clients from around the world that can vouch for the level of work that we do. And you can see many of the reviews available on our website and testimonials on our website.
And these are all direct investment opportunities that generally you’re gonna own 100% of the franchise business. There are limited circumstances where the franchisor if you need someone helping day-to-day with the business, they might take a minority stake in the business.
But at Visa Franchise and really what’s available on Vetted Biz, you own 100% or at least a majority control and you’re the final decision-maker on the business.
There are immigration attorneys that are comfortable with you investing a large portion of that and then continuing to invest over the first year. But let’s hold that off for when we have an immigration attorney on.
Conclusion: EB5 Real Estate Best Path?
And feel free to leave in the comment section if you guys wanna hear about the total job count of any of these franchises on our platform.
And again, you know, we have 4,600 franchises and I’d say for roughly 90% of them, we’re gonna have the job data to see how many full-time equivalent employees or contractors there are. Then the fun part comes where we have to see, you know, is it worth switching some of those contractors if there are contractors to W2 employees?
So we’ll leave links to vetted biz.com, visafranchise.com. We also went through LoopNet, which is the largest provider for commercial real estate in the United States. It’s a good resource to kind of browse around to see what’s out there in terms of buying the actual physical property that you’re gonna be operating your EB5 real estate business out of.
Thanks.
