Since the EB-5 Reform and Integrity Act (RIA) was implemented in 2022, urban projects located in designated Targeted Employment Areas (TEAs) have remained a strong option, despite rural projects dominating the conversation due to the priority processing of EB-5 visa applications for these investments.
Urban TEA EB-5 projects remain competitive and offer alternative options compared to their rural counterparts, said Trevor Anderson from HomeFed, Andrew Wall from Dynaxe Capital, and Christian Triantaphyllis of Jackson Walker during an EB5Investors.com webinar.
There’s consensus that choosing between urban or rural TEA projects for an EB-5 application depends on the investors’ goals and timeline. While Rural can offer speed, urban can provide different economic structures and lender participation. Additionally, family timing, country-specific backlogs, the need to work or travel to and from the U.S., the type of payment, and whether the application involves children under 21 can influence the decision.
What is an Urban TEA EB-5 project?
These types of projects sit outside the three “set asides” RIA introduced: Rural, High Unemployment Areas (HUA), and Infrastructure. Therefore, they fall within the Unreserved category, which also includes all EB-5 applications filed up to March 2022.
Triantaphyllis explains that urban projects once dominated the EB-5 landscape.
When the program was reinstated in 2022, most of the projects that were readily available were HUA urban projects,” he adds. After RIA became effective, “I filed a number of those petitions for the first 12, maybe even 24 months.”
Wall also said that after RIA went live, the market had urban projects “ready to go.”
“Most regional centers weren’t focused on rural areas [yet], and they had to go find an opportunity in that rural area that fit the structure that they were looking for,” he adds.
HomeFed was among the regional centers that had urban projects on the shelf at the time.
“Early on, we didn’t know what Rural meant,” says Anderson. “We didn’t know what the benefits would be for the investor, per se. The pre-RIA projects were virtually all urban, and that was driven by the market, presumably. There was no reason to venture into rural projects because regional centers wanted to protect their investors; they wanted to provide safe opportunities for their investors. And naturally, that meant projects were based in urban locations.”
It took some time to bring rural investment opportunities to the EB-5 marketplace.
“Today, we understand there is a real immigration benefit for rural investments. You are getting your I-526 approvals faster,” Anderson says.
What are EB-5 investors most interested in today?
The panelists agree that investor preferences influence the timing of immigration and the strength of personal ties to the investment. The extent to which one interest affects the other ultimately shapes the decision.
“We’ve seen the majority of them going to rural deals. USCIS has been pretty proactive in adjudicating the petitions for the rural I-526s, and the priority line is averaging somewhere between six and 12 months,” Wall says.
However, the interest in Urban remains relevant.
“We have a lot looking at urban TEAs because they have some kind of association with that urban area,” Wall adds. “Whether they are living there or they have family or friends that are there, maybe they pass through for business or tourism. Maybe their companies are headquartered there, and they think there’s some kind of resilience within that city.”
Mostly, speed, economics, developers, and risk differentiate urban projects from Rural.
Wall notes that many urban projects involve institutional lenders and regionally focused banks that are comfortable with local laws and processes. He recognizes that in the face of Rural’s processing advantage, some urban offerings include “sweeteners”: shorter terms, higher returns, or flexibility around partial investments and timing. Urban projects can also present certain security benefits and stronger visibility from established regional centers.
EB-5 investors to factor several aspects when choosing between Rural vs. Urban
Anderson cautions that while rural incentives exist, market demand should not compromise deal integrity.
“We want to be careful. We don’t want to try to satisfy market demand at the cost of the integrity of the offering and the deal. And not to say Rural’s bad, that’s not what I’m saying at all. There’s a lot of great rural opportunities, but Rural comes with some additional risk,” he says.
Triantaphyllis layers family circumstances, country of origin, and timing as key decision factors:
- Investors outside the U.S. often prioritize speed of entry into the U.S., steering them toward Rural.
- Families with children who need a few more years before moving sometimes prefer Urban, using time to their advantage and investing in places they know well.
- Investors inside the U.S. can benefit from interim EAD and AP while waiting, which may make urban deals just as attractive as Rural, especially if urban economics (e.g., returns) are better. Some are less focused on speed if they have comfortable lives abroad and travel flexibility.
Also, retrogression could impact rural applications due to high demand, which would also influence decision-making between rural and urban areas, they said.
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