Residential envestment

The minimum investments are either 500,000 or 1,000,000 -- depending on the area and if the area is a targeted employment area (TEA). Investment aside, there must be a job creation element to the EB-5 project. To simply "flip" houses, would not appear to be one that creates the overall direct or indirect job requirements.

Flipping houses is generally not a great business model for any investment visa, other than the E-2 and even then, it would be wise not to show this as a one-man show business. I have seen denials on L-1 visas for adopting a house flipping business with a few employees. The minimum amount for EB-5 is $500,000 and you will be required to generate 10 full-time jobs, so $300,000 is really out of the questions. Sorry.

When investing in real estate the purchase price or acquisition costs do not qualify for 500,000 or 1M investment. Only construction or rehab cost are eligible. so in order for a flip business to work it would require a significant volume of homes being rehabbed to meet the requirement.

For the EB-5 catagory, the simple answer is NO, and its not even close.

House flipping would not qualify because the investment amount is less than the minimum $500,000, you would lack a Regional Center Sponsor and you would only be able to utilize direct hiring to verify job creation which is administratively far more cumbersome and difficult than using economic models. Utilizing home flipping would be virtually impossible given the volume of homes needed to flip on such a small amount of capital. Directly hiring 10 full time employees is not typical of house flipping since most individuals involved are all subcontractors. Using indirect means to verify job creation also would prove difficult. Given my experience utilizing RIMS-II for our own projects in California, you would likely need to spend over $2 Million on construction expenditures, fully accounted for and documented, in order to indirectly or induce enough economic impact to verify 10 jobs were created. You would need a Regional Center Sponsor in order to qualify for the TEA category and reduce the minimum investment down to $500,000 from $1,000,000.

At the minimum, today you need to invest $ 500,000 if the area of the project could be classified as Targeted Employment Area. If you decide to engage in house flipping as an activity it would virtually be impossible to satisfy the 10+ full time jobs requirement. You are much better off in trying to see if you could tap into your financial resources and increase your investment amount to $ 500,000 and go through a regional center. It will save you a tremendous headache.