Select Highlights of the Interview with Anuj from India
EB-5 Investor in the EB5AN Lakeview Landing Rural EB-5 Loan Project
- “So the approval felt like a major weight lifted. Also, when the physical Green Card arrived at the lawyer’s office, we were in India. I was on a vacation and it was a pretty happy moment knowing that we would be returning back to US as lawful permanent residents.”
- “Again, from EB5AN, I definitely appreciate the way you guys helped me out through the entire process. You guys kept me updated with the Snake River project. Even now, you guys send me every quarter all the important milestones and everything, and also the investment details and the potential investment returns that I’m making out of it. So it’s progressing as I expected. A good thing to know is that the project is on time and it’s meeting all its milestones. It created more jobs than originally indicated and the units are selling. So those all are good indicators for me.”
- “Yes. The operative word here is certainty, right? That’s very important. For me and my wife, it definitely expands our professional choices. As a matter of fact, I have already gotten into the consulting career and I’m expanding myself here, no more restricted to a single employer or sponsor. So that really, really helps me. No visa limitations on that.”
Full Interview with Anuj from India
EB-5 Investor in the EB5AN Lakeview Landing Rural EB-5 Loan Project
Transcript of the Interview with Anuj
Background and the Decision to Pursue EB-5
Hi, everyone. This is Sam Silverman, managing partner of EB5AN. Thank you for taking time to join us for today's webinar. Today, we're going to be speaking about our Lakeview Landing rural EB-5 loan project located in Texas. We're going to be speaking today with Anuj, an EB-5 investor in the project from India, who's graciously given us a few minutes today to share his experience deciding to pursue EB-5, and also walk us through his reasoning on why he ended up choosing this particular project and working with EB5AN. So, to start, Anuj, thank you for taking a few minutes today. Could you introduce yourself and share a little bit about your background and your experience in the United States that kind of led you to explore EB-5?
Yeah. So, hi, Sam. Thanks for this. So, as you mentioned that I am originally from India. I’m a banker. I’ve been a banker for the last 30 years, and I have lived in over five countries. So, currently, I’m based in Dubai. Okay. In terms of my familiarity with United States, I have a lot of family members who are in United States. I have children who are studying in United States. I’ve never lived in United States, so always visited United States for a holiday or to meet family members. Yeah. So, yeah, that’s about it. Yeah.
Okay. All right. Great. So, given your relationships with people in the United States, what was the main reasoning for pursuing an EB-5 investment? What was the value that you were looking to get from making the investment and seeing everything happen?
Yeah. So, primarily, I’ve done this investment for my son, who’s currently studying in United States. Why I decided to pursue this is because of the uncertainty regarding the work visas, H-1B and so on. So, I thought this would be a good way of seeing him being able to work in United States without the stress of going through the work visas and so on. This was the primary reason why I decided to go for EB-5 program. And also the fact that this EB-5 program, in its current shape, may change in the future. So, I just thought I should try and lock in my application before the structure of the program, if at all it changes. So, that was my reasoning for going into EB-5 now.
Okay, perfect. And that's definitely not a unique situation. We see that quite often.
Yeah.
Selecting an Immigration Attorney and Preparing Source of Funds
Okay. So, once you had decided, okay, this is the right decision for your son, he wants to have the flexibility to live in the United States, work in the United States potentially long-term after graduation, so, once you decided, okay, this is going to be the right option, tell me a little bit about your experience starting to look for an attorney to help put together your application. Obviously, you're in finance, so you've got a little bit of an advantage in terms of knowing what types of records and things would be needed. So, yeah, just tell us a little bit about what that experience was like, finding the attorney, picking them, and then working through that record-gathering process.
Yeah. So, it all started with me doing Google search on this program, and I searched for a particular regional investment center, not EB5AN. I started discussion with that particular regional investment center, and as part of the discussions, they gave me names of about three or four law firms, immigration attorneys to talk to. And I talked to all of them to find out about how the process will run, what is the fee structure, and get to know a little bit more about the program from them. And then, based on my discussion with these four law firms, I decided to narrow down and zero down on the immigration attorney who I finally engaged with. So, that’s how I got to know about the immigration attorney I’m currently working with. And then, of course, the discussion started with the immigration attorney, and I did ask for options, what are the various options for me in terms of choosing a project and so on. And that’s how I got to know about EB5AN also. And that’s how I got in touch with the EB5AN team to know what kind of projects are being done by them.
Gotcha. Okay. So, once you had decided on a particular attorney to help with your application, tell us what that source of funds record-gathering process looked like. How long did it take, what types of materials were needed, and...
So, it took around three to four months, partly because my plans on a particular type of source of fund changed twice. Okay? Okay. So, that was primarily a delay from my side. Okay? I had thought about a particular structure. We then changed to another structure, which changed to a third structure. So, again, the fact that I’m working in a bank, my source of funding is from salary income. It was not very difficult to establish how I’ve earned the funds. But again, over a period of time, you invest your income into various asset classes, and then to show the linkages between how you acquired those asset classes and so on, some amount of effort was required to gather bank statements, which were 10 years old, 15 years old, and so on. So, some amount of effort was required. But again, I had kept some records with me, so it wasn’t very difficult. But the delay was only on account of the fact that the structure of source of fund changed a couple of times for me.
Got it. And so, that's also pretty common. So, just tell us generally, why did you end up going with the third structure versus the first one versus the second? Was it more of just records weren't as clear or more tax optimization, or what kind of drove the change across?
Yeah, tax optimization, as well as I had to liquidate some of my assets. So, what is the best time to liquidate an asset? I think that drove the decision, basically.
Got it. Got it. Okay. All right. So, having completed that source of funds process, what are a few high-level suggestions, advice that you've had for another investor in terms of both picking out an attorney? You know? What were some things about the attorney that you thought were important when looking for an attorney? And then, just generally going through that process. Any suggestions?
You know, so, what drove me when I… So, again, I can only talk about myself, right? So, I had discussions with about four attorneys, and the reason I chose my current attorney is because she’s an independent practitioner. And, I mean, she was starting out, in terms of her independent venture. It was a new venture, though she had experience working with another immigration attorney firm. So, I thought that probably I will be able to get more time, more quality time from her in terms of working through my papers. And the attorney sounded quite knowledgeable also. So, I would suggest that try to choose, instead of just going after a name or a very big attorney firm, try to choose an attorney who has experience and who also will have time to spend on your case.
The source of funding documentation, it is quite an involved documentation. So, again, it will depend upon what kind of source of funding an investor has, what kind of record keeping that investor has kept in terms of how those funds have been derived and so on. But it is quite an involved process and probably should be taken quite seriously, because it takes time. So, it is best to start as soon as possible. And also keep multiple options open so that if you can’t progress with one structure, there’s always a backup, plan B or plan C available. That is very important.
Comparing Regional Centers and Projects
Got it. Okay. That makes sense. All right. So, switching gears now from the immigration attorney and the source of funds piece, you mentioned earlier you had discussions with a few different regional centers as part of your research. Tell us a little bit about what that regional center research process looked like for you, and what were some differences that you found between EB5AN and some of the other regional centers, and what kind of drew you to EB5AN as the regional center?
So, I wanted to invest. So, again, one decision point was whether to invest in a rural product or a high unemployment project. So, the first regional center I got in touch with primarily was dealing in high unemployment area projects. So, I did spend some time on the projects which they were doing. And then, to invest in a rural or a high unemployment project, that took some time to finalize. So, once I finalized that, okay, I want to go for a rural project, then I started looking around what kind of projects are available in the market. So, I would’ve probably looked at four regional investment centers.
And two of those regional investment centers, I did my own research. Two of the regional investment centers, my immigration attorney suggested for me to have a look at, and one of them being EB5AN. And then, I got in touch with Jordan in your company, and I started discussing what are the various options available. So, we also looked at some options which were not rural. They were high unemployment area project. And then, we discussed the pros and cons of investing in various projects. I also took some help from these AI agents these days, so Claude, ChatGPT, in terms of evaluating the projects, which was quite useful, actually, I would think. And then, I kind of narrowed down on this particular project because it is what we call it an apartment complex. It’s apartments for users. I also thought it may be better to go for these kind of projects rather than commercial projects like hotels or resorts and so on.
So, that drove my decision to go for this project, and also the fact that the term of the project was three plus one years, while most of the other projects were five plus one and so on. So, that’s another reason why I chose this project.
Got it. Okay. That makes sense. So, on the regional center side, through your discussions, what were some things that you liked in your communications with Jordan that maybe weren't present with some of the other companies you were talking with?
No, see, Jordan was quite very responsive. So, if I were to compare with one another regional center, that representative of that regional center was also quite responsive. Whereas, there was another regional center, that representative was not very responsive, right? So, Jordan was quite responsive, and we used to have very calm and balanced discussions. One thing I don’t like is being pushed into a decision. So, I felt that Jordan was giving me balanced views and not doing aggressive sales pitch with me. So, that kind of builds confidence, right? Yeah. And then, whatever queries I had, Jordan was able to respond to them in time. Okay.
Using AI and Choosing a Rural Project
Yep. Tell us a little bit about the AI, Claude, ChatGPT. How did you use those tools, and what was the advantage? How were they helpful for you as you compared multiple projects?
See, all these documentation, project documentation, they’re quite voluminous. I mean, they are 50, 60, 120 pages of documents, right?
Yeah.
So, I mean, in terms of to synthesize, to summarize these documents, what are the key features one needs to look into, all that is what I used. In terms of the business projections, while the business projections are given in the documents, how do they compare with the market, right? And so on.
Yeah.
So, for this particular Lakeview Landing project, again, I got to learn through these AI agents that this project is also part of a larger project which is being developed at the site. And there is some participation in terms of developing that infrastructure with the local government authority also. So, all those kind of things which were—I don’t think they were there in the documentation—but I got to know about from these AI agents, to get to know a little bit more about the project compared to what is given in the documentation. What is the future outlook of these projects based on the publicly available information? So, I use these AI tools to learn a little bit more about these projects than what is given in the project documentation.
Got it. And you also mentioned the fact that this project was rural, but some of the other projects you looked at were high unemployment. So, yeah, what kind of drove your decision to be more interested in the rural project versus the high unemployment one?
Yeah. So, in terms of the visa availability, the 20% reservation compared to 10% for high employment, I was also told that the decisioning for rural project is much faster compared to high employment. So, again, the speed at which visa can be expected for a rural seemed higher compared to high unemployment project.
My Experience With EB5AN
Got it. Yes, that's definitely correct. So, looking at the overall experience working with the EB5AN team, once you had decided, "Okay, Lakeview is the project I'm interested in pursuing," tell us about the subscription process. Was that smooth? How long did it take? And...?
No, it was absolutely smooth. Okay. So, the responsiveness was excellent. I mean, within a day, my queries were responded within a day. So, absolutely smooth. I don’t have any crib around it. It was absolutely great experience. So far, that’s what I said, Sam. So far, the experience with EB5AN has been excellent. If somebody was to ask me outside, any reference also, it was an excellent experience in terms of responsiveness, in terms of quality of responses, and so on.
Great. We appreciate that.
Yeah.
So—
I did get a chance to meet up with Jordan when I had gone for a family—
Oh, great.
Houston, yeah. So, I met up with him during that time.
Advice for Other Families and Investors
Okay, perfect. So, now that application's been submitted a couple months back, you're totally done. What kind of general advice would you have for similar investors like you, parents who have a child studying in the U.S. that wants to stay? What kind of advice or what things would you have to share based on your experience so far?
I mean, this is a good way of approaching immigration challenges. So, if they can spare the money, they should go for it. Look for a immigration attorney who’s experienced and who could devote time to your case. Try to be clear about the structure of your source of funding. I mean, if you can get clarity in the first go, I mean, that’s best. And start early. Try to get all the documentation as soon as possible, I think. Those are the things which I would suggest. And also look for options in terms of the projects. Look for options, what suits you.
Yeah. In terms of the projects, were there other factors that were important for you? Obviously, being in a rural area, Lakeview is rural, shorter loan term, you mentioned, wanting to stay away from hotels, resorts, commercial properties. What other features of potential projects were ones that you personally found just compelling or interesting?
Yeah. So, essentially these only. So, I was looking at one hotel project with another regional investment center. The representative of that regional center was not very responsive, so it did not go further. I was also looking for a project which was kind of a resort, a ski resort kind of a project. It was a very large project. It was a complex project, so I thought I just wanted to keep it simple. A project which is investing in a single asset class. So, that’s why I thought I’ll probably stick with Lakeview Landing. Essentially these only. I can’t think of any other reason for selecting this one.
Got it. Okay. So, simplicity, and you were comfortable with the geographic area, you liked that it was a larger site, good location, and got it. Okay, perfect. All right. And so, to wrap up, last thing, would you recommend your attorney and EB5AN to other investors considering EB-5, and why?
You know, of course. Again, since I’ve done a lot of research on immigration attorneys, I’ve done a lot of research on regional investment centers, my experience has been good with both so far. I’d be happy to recommend the immigration attorney as well as the regional investment center, EB5AN.
