To Sell Or Not To Sell?

[Greg2231]

Agreed, you can only work with a big fund that will escrow your investment until you get the green card and will match or double your investment with their own equity and bank finance. From what I understand the main restriction is that you have to create 10 long term jobs which is pretty difficult/dangerous to do on 500,000 dollars. My friends fund apparently runs into the billions and the resort has over 1 million visitors per year. Hotels and resort services seem to be a fairly easy way to create jobs. That being said I have not done any due diligence, but if you are in the business it might interest you to take a look.

There are a lot of businesses that can create the 10 jobs without a problem a restaurant is one of the easiest ways that I can think of to do it, also you do not have to create those jobs from day one, I have a friend under a E visa who is a Jeweler, and he had only created 3 jobs at the five year mark when the Visa came up for renewal he submitted a revised business plan citing the global economic crisis for the lack of job creation, and was giving another 5 year visa without a problem.

Be very careful with anyone pushing these pooled E visa's if you ever want to see your money again, I know one guy that offered me a $50,000 commission if I found anyone that would get into his pooled E visa "Scheme"

So if anyone wants to get a US Visa and has a minimum of $500,000 to invest PM me for a referral

 

[sleslie23]

Frenchie, if I were the seller I would worry about how to keep you making payments if the housing market crashes. Also I have heard that if a person wants a home mortgage here, it is very short term and very high interest rates. But this is just hearsay. If true, why would the seller want to sell to you for almost no interest? Just being devil's advocate. Good luck.

It's not just heresay. Interest rates are VERY high here.

I think Frenchy is dreaming. Why would a property owner who wants to sell wait years to get his money, especially when he could rent said place for more or less the same amount and still keep the apartment.

Argentines are a lot of things, but bad with money is generally not one of them.

 

[puvenlee]

isn't it already too late ???

 

[Jaredberryman]

Not sure how much money your friend has, but from what I understand, you can actually buy permanent residency. It's very costly when you do something like that, something like 250,000 I think, but I think it's possibility. I may be mistaken, but it may cost much more than that 250,000.

 

[Jaredberryman]

Yop Dennis.

I'll check soon with a lawyer to see what can be done (will inform the forum, can be useful to know)

Please do! It sounds somewhat risky and complicated, but maybe Argentines are getting desperate enough to try something like that. I know that I rented an apartment once, and the guy renting it out offered to sell it to us at 80% of the price, and that we pay the rest out in "cuotas" (this was in 2006). That's actually a quite common arrangement if you have a large lump of cash on hand, but can't quite make the full price. Sometimes you can work deals like that out, although you should be aware that they can be somewhat risky. Having an ethical lawyer and escribano is absolutely essential in this case. Also, an ethical seller helps too.

 

[garryl]

There are a lot of businesses that can create the 10 jobs without a problem a restaurant is one of the easiest ways that I can think of to do it, also you do not have to create those jobs from day one, I have a friend under a E visa who is a Jeweler, and he had only created 3 jobs at the five year mark when the Visa came up for renewal he submitted a revised business plan citing the global economic crisis for the lack of job creation, and was giving another 5 year visa without a problem.

Be very careful with anyone pushing these pooled E visa's if you ever want to see your money again, I know one guy that offered me a $50,000 commission if I found anyone that would get into his pooled E visa "Scheme"

So if anyone wants to get a US Visa and has a minimum of $500,000 to invest PM me for a referral

That's why it is hard to see your 500k again. The EB-5 fund gives about 30k to 100k referral fee to EB-5 broker who usually set up
fancy office to build a strong image. The broker company only charges a smaller fee and get paid from EB-5 fund, there are other
people dip into the fund too, guess what, the fee all comes out of the 500k. Plus the project is designed to make a long term profit(meaning
it does not make profit).The whole is designed like a Ponzi scheme, when the fund is big, they can use the new money to pay the earlier
participants if they like to continue to play.

 

[garryl]

That's why it is hard to see your 500k again. The EB-5 fund gives about 30k to 100k referral fee to EB-5 broker who usually set up
fancy office to build a strong image. The broker company only charges a smaller fee and get paid from EB-5 fund, there are other
people dip into the fund too, guess what, the fee all comes out of the 500k. Plus the project is designed to make a long term profit(meaning
it does not make profit).The whole is designed like a Ponzi scheme, when the fund is big, they can use the new money to pay the earlier
participants if they like to continue to play.

If you read the contract, there will be places saying the return is not guaranteed, that sets up the EXIT door for them if they want.
If the contract says they guarantee it, it's a big "mentira" because they can not guarantee how federal government is going to
treat the application, they can secure the sucess of the project either.

 

[steveinbsas]

Your friend also does not need to get a permanent residence visa to do business in the U.S. He can enter and leave continually with a business visa just fine. He can own property and start up businesses with no problem without even the visa.

I did some research about business visas and an EB2 visa might work if Sergio's friend wants to live in the US and open a business. The E2 visa may be granted with an investment as low as $25,000 USD.

Here is a thead from another expat website with some useful (and interesting) information, especially the posts by Bitzi.

http://britishexpats...ad.php?t=760231

Perhaps Sergio's friend could get a tourist visa to the USA based on the fact that he owns investment properties in Argentina and the "purpose" of his visit would be tourism. Once in the US he could shop for rental properties anywhere he might like to live.

I don't think he would be able to get a business visa just buying rental properties in the USA unless he starts his own management/maintenance business and hies several employees. That might be a great option, especially if he buys owner financed properties and still woiuld have decent cash reserves from the sale of his properties in Argentina. Overhead could be kept to a minimum by using public (self) storage for supplies. Used vans are not at all expensive in the USA. The investor might also be able to "manage" the properties on line, sparing office expenses.

 

[steveinbsas]

Not sure how much money your friend has, but from what I understand, you can actually buy permanent residency. It's very costly when you do something like that, something like 250,000 I think, but I think it's possibility. I may be mistaken, but it may cost much more than that 250,000.

It isn't actually possible to "buy" permanent residency in the USA...at least not outright.

The EB5 visa (which may lead to permanent residency) has been mentioned in previous posts in this thread and the minimum "investment" is $500,000.

The business must be successful and 10 jobs must be created or preserved for each investment in select areas which are often at "high risk" for business failure.

Nonetheless, articles like this: http://articles.lati...y-visa-20110904 make it sound like it is possible to buy US residency and some believe that is "really" what is happening.

 

[syngirl]

Tell your friend that if he wants to move to the USA legally, and he's not willing to start back a few steps at least from where he is here, it's going to be unlikely to happen.

Argentines that we know that went legally made pretty big sacrifices, sold everything they had here and took lower positions in states, then they bought a dry cleaning business as their investment to get visas -- and they went from being upper class here to working in the dry cleaning business 15 hrs a day etc. They are comfortably middle class there now, but it's really their kids that are benefitting from the move, not them.


What kind of a profession does your friend have have? What about his languages? The fastest way to move to another country continues to be with a work visa, but for that you generally speaking need to be a professional and need to find a company willing to hire you --- and you need to be willing to take a few steps back in your career.

Let us know what his profession is. What does he do for a living other than invest in properties? Because that's not going to get him a visa anywhere. What's his degree?

Canada has a shortage of skilled workers and is actively recruiting immigrants. There are a tonne of different visa programmes in Canada that he may qualify for. The wait times are a lot shorter than the USA. If he really is serious in getting out of here he needs to think beyond USA. Australia is also desperate for workers -- in fact Canada and Australia end up poaching each others skilled workers a lot of the time.

If his english skills aren't good enough to immigrate to Canada/Australia then moving to the USA will really be limited to certain bubbles and working just within the immigrant population -- and amongst these populations the people who are doing well are the ones that arrived 25 years ago, not yesterday.

Most immigrants to the USA will tell you unless you get there young -- and I mean like in your early 20s -- it's usually not you that's going to get the benefit of having moved -- it's your kids. If you're moving in your 40s, sure life may be more stable than in Argentina, but for the typical immigrant it is not glitz and glamour.

Your friend needs to analyse his options and expand his views beyond just the USA. If he doesn't have any business contacts or relatives there it could be an extremely long wait to go legally.