According to the Knight Frank Wealth Report 2020, 8 of the top 20 best cities for ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) to live, invest and do business in are places in the U.S.
New York City is ranked as the best place, beating London for the top spot this year. Here are the top cities for 2020.
Top 20 Cities:
1. New York City
2. London
3. Paris
4. Hong Kong
5. Los Angeles
6. Chicago
7. Singapore
8. Beijing
9. Washington
10. Madrid
11. San Francisco
12. Shanghai
13. Tokyo
14. Amsterdam
15. Sydney
16. Boston
17. Dallas
18. Toronto
19. Houston
20. Vienna
*UHNWI = Individuals are defined as ultra-high-net-worth if they have $30 million (USD) or more in assets.
*HNWI = Individuals are defined as high-net-worth if they have $1 million (USD) or more not including their primary residence.
A breakdown of the report’s categories used to determine the rankings:
Wealth
Wealth refers to the number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) and high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) residing in each city. New York has the highest number of UHNWI and the second-highest number of HNWI. Los Angeles has the third most of both.
Investment
The Wealth Report looked at the diversity of private investment in real estate, diversity of investors as measured by a number of nationalities investing, and the number of headquarters of top global firms in each city to determine rankings.
Lifestyle
The report looked at luxuries that draw individuals into both live in the city and visit. These luxuries include hotels and restaurants and the number of top universities. The report also measured the city’s connectivity (the number of destinations served by a city’s main airports).
Hot, Hot, Hot…
Additionally, another article in the global Wealth Report looked at upcoming hot residential real estate markets. Two of the ten prime neighborhoods the report researched and suggested to watch are located in the U.S. They included the Museum District in Houston, Texas, and Imperial Beach in San Diego, California.
Global Migration of HNWI:
Los Angeles, New York, Miami, and San Francisco are top destinations for foreign HNWI. Take a look at what countries experienced high numbers of HNWI migrating and some of their top reasons for choosing the U.S. as their destination.
Immigration Through The EB-5 Immigrant Investor Visa Program
U.S. cities are top places for UHNWI and HNWI to live, invest, and conduct business in and one way to obtain a US green card is through investing in the EB-5 Program.
The EB-5 Program gives foreign nationals, their spouses, and their unmarried children under the age of 21 years, green cards in exchange for investing $900,000 in a job-creating new commercial enterprise located in a targeted employment area (or $1.8 million in a non-targeted employment area).
There are two EB-5 pathways. Investors who wish to manage the day-to-day operations of their new commercial enterprise will want to select the EB-5 Direct Investment Program. For investors who do not wish to manage the daily operations of their investment, they will want to select the EB-5 Regional Center Program.
The EB-5 Regional Center Program is an overwhelmingly popular choice. The Regional Center Program benefits from easier job-creation requirements (they have the advantage of counting indirect and induced job creation), a huge incentive for EB-5 investors looking to minimize risk.